Saturday, January 22, 2011

The only way I can describe today is crazy; crazy weather, crazy missionaries, crazy market, crazy divine appointment and crazy loving God! It started out this morning, with crazy weather.  It was nice, hot and sunny when we woke up this morning.  However, by 11 o’clock there was a strong wind accompanied by thunder and lightning.  Fifteen minutes later, it was pouring.  It does not sprinkle here in Malawi, it pours! One minute you are dry and the next you are completely soaked!  Kelsey and I had to run through the house to close up all the windows!  It did not rain for long and then it cleared up and was sunny and hot again.  Maribeth told us later that God always provides thunder and lightning before a rain to warn His people.  I thought that was neat.  Later that morning we saw a cat in our backyard and Kelsey and I discussed that it would be cool to a get a cat and decided to talk to Maribeth about it. But I’ll get back to that story.

In the afternoon we went shopping at Game, which was like a Wal-Mart or Target, and Shoprite for groceries.  Kelsey and I felt like the stupidest missionaries.  We did not bring enough money to pay for our groceries and dinner.  The money here is very different than back home.  $1 equals 150 kwacha here, it is confusing.  We brought money, but we do not have a concept of how much things cost so neither of us had enough.  Thankfully, Maribeth is patient and understand and God provided her with enough to cover the costs.  However, we still felt stupid and wondered what God is doing with us two crazy missionaries!

Oh! And while we were at Shoprite we found Heinz ketchup! Yeah! We got some for when we make fried chips (Fench fries)! I am a happy girl!

After those two stores we decided to visit the market to buy some fresh fruit and vegetables.  The market was crazy; it is like a farmers market on steroids!  The people swarmed and yelled at us, trying to sell their items, it was quite overwhelming, but im sure I'll get used to it.

Once we were done at the market we went to a hotel to meet some friends of Maribeth’s for dinner.  It was a nice evening so we sat out back on the conde, soaking in the mountain view.  That is where we experienced our crazy divine appointment.  We met a man, a stranger and started talking to him.  Well, one topic led to another and before we knew it we were talking to him about God and the difference between being a Christian with head knowledge versus a truly reborn Christian.  We told him that God created him and everyone for His specific purpose and that is to glorify God by doing what we are passionate about.  We discussed what spiritual gifts he had and found that he had counseling Spirit about him and was a good relational leader.  He was surprised that we pinpointed his character so exactly.  The crazy thing was he walked out onto the patio with a book to sit quietly by himself because he was struggling with some things and could not feel God’s presence.  He said he had been praying all day that God would speak to him.  But wait, it gets crazier!  After we had been talking for a good while we got a call form our friend saying that we were supposed to meet at another hotel! We got the hotel wrong!  The encounter with this man was definitely a divine appointment set up by God specifically so that he would meet the “three American crazy Jesus girls”, as Maribeth puts it, and receive the spiritual encouragement he needed by talk to us tonight. 

The night did not end there!  Once we met up with Anansa and her two little cousins, at the right place, we had dinner.  Somewhere during the conversations the topic of a cat came up with Maribeth and Anansa.  Anansa knows someone who has to get rid of their cat because their dog keeps going after it.  Maribeth proceeds to tell us that earlier that day she saw a person trying to sell a cat along the side of the road (illegal) and that God really pressed on her heart to get a cat.  So, she asked God to show her how to go about getting one. And now here was Anansa talking about this cat!  We also told Maribeth that Kelsey and I had talked about getting a cat this morning.  She was beside herself with excitement, so she called the lady and it sounds like we will have a cat in a few days!  Isn’t it wonderful how God works?!