Crisis Nursery

Michelle loves visiting the Crisis Nursery! She knows many of the children by name now, and has fallen in love with them all. There are 5 full time nannies and several other workers and volunteers to help care for the 27 children. Michelle took the photo above of the ones she was watching this morning, and she was holding an infant while taking the picture!

Babies are brought to the nursery for different reasons: the parents have died, parents or relatives unable to care for them, or they have been abandoned. Right now, the age range is from 2 weeks to 26 months. The children are separated by age into 4 different bedrooms. Each child has his own bed, except the set of twins share a crib. The twins shown here are named Moses and Miriam.

The nursery wants to keep Malawian tradition as much as possible; therefore after the children are ready for more than formula, they are fed porridge for breakfast and nsima for lunch and dinner. They are fed on the floor with volunteer hands (rather than utensils) until they learn to feed themselves. They are routinely fed, changed, played with and laid down for naps. In these photos, Mrs. Lucy feeds three of little ones nsima (boiled corn flour). You can see that Sharon, below, is enjoying it!


There is a nurse on staff that makes sure every child gets their vitamins, any medication needed, and their appropriate immunizations. On Michelle’s first visit, Nurse Alice and a few of the others took 12 of the infants by van to get their shots. Quite an undertaking!

In addition to loving on the little ones, it has been a blessing to be a part of the 8am worship and prayer time. It is a joy to start off the day praising the same God, even in a different language.

The remaining photos are Fiuni on the drum, Thereza with the block, and Bekaru on the pink pillow.

Dinner Guests

We have enjoyed staying in Lilongwe for a little while after traveling so much. It has been a blessing to have had a few guests over for dinner. The photo here is of the Dimba family. Oswald Dimba is the pastor of a new church planted a year ago in Gulliver. He and his wife work very hard leading the Chidyamaani village Orphan Care Program. His wife is Isnote, and their 6 children are: (from left to right) Isaiah, Jeremiah, Mordecai, Loveness, Esther, and Oswald’s niece, Alinafe. Here in Malawi it is common to fit a lot of people into vehicles for transportation. Mike and the whole family of 8 traveled in the Toyota Corolla! We had such a nice time with them. They have invited us to attend church on Sunday, January 20 and asked Mike to speak during the Sunday school hour. Please pray for Mike as he prepares and delivers a message of encouragement. We thank you so much for your continued prayers and emails.