Africa Post 1

Wawa (Chichewa for Hi).  When I got on the airplane I was pretty much having a mental breakdown.  A lot of my friends showed up so it was that much harder saying goodbye; plus all of my family.  They apparently gave us the wrong times for departure so we thought we were leaving at 3:30 but instead left at 2:15 and lost an hour of time with everyone.  My dad gave the worst command ever after we all got done praying... Let's go we are leaving.  I was still getting all my suitcases and backpack when my family was already up the escalator.  I had to get on the elevator alone.  My Grandma sent me up the elevator and let me tell you, that moment the devil was at his strongest, tempting me to just turn around and run back to my grandma, and stay with my friends and family.  I now can say that that was the worst day of my entire life.  The flight to Chicago was, well, depressing.  I was bawling the whole way there.  When we landed everyone was hungry and super stressed trying to get all the luggage and kids to stay together and to get to the next gate.  After we ate dinner we got on the next flight to London.  Thankfully it was an overnight flight so I didn't have to deal with my brothers being "bored" for eight hours.  When we landed we checked in our bags at the storage place and headed for the Tube/Subway.  We got into the heart of London after about 30 min and bought bus tickets to go sightseeing.  I had a blast and it was nice to get my mind of something other than being ripped from my friends and family.  We went back to the airport after a couple hours and got on our next flight to Johannesburg, South Africa.  After an agonizing 11 hours we finally landed.  The airport took forever especially with our huge family and tons of luggage.  After going through customs we went into a sort of mall type place.  They had an African souvenir shop that was amazing.  We didn't buy anything because it was crazy expensive, and we didn't have room.  Once we ate breakfast we went to our next and final gate.  Thank the lord it was only a two our flight.  We arrived in Lilongwe, Malawi Sunday afternoon. It took forever just to get through customs and get all of our luggage.  AJ and CM met us at the airport along with KC and JC.  We went to the Africa Bible College to spend the night since it takes 2 and 1/2 to 3 hours just to get to Ntcheu. That night we ate at Pizza Inn which doesn't have the best food ever, but hey its food and you never know where your next meal will come from.  We spent the night in a Bungalow with several bunk beds, with mosquito nets of course, and two bathrooms.  The next morning we got to sleep in, which was amazing since my sleep was all jacked up, and had a nice bowl of cereal for breakfast.  The milk here is a little bit different and is kept in a bag, but will do just fine for a bowl of cereal.  After lunch we all loaded up in the cars and headed for Ntcheu.  The car ride was OK I guess.  I was kind of in my own world looking at everything, so I couldn't really hear the boys fighting and arguing.  It started to get dark around 5 o'clock and was pitch black at 6.  You probably wont believe me but it was about 6:30 pm and everyone was quite, surprisingly, we were all looking out the front window and all of a sudden out of no where a meteorite was going through the ozone and looked flippin amazing.  It had like the actual meteorite in the middle then it had a light green arch in front and green behind it.  Talk about being at the right place at the right time.  How about a sign from God saying your where you need to be haha.  Once we got to the house we started to unpack all of the totes and then went to sleep in our bunk beds.  At first I didn't like it here.  The food wasn't all that great, I couldn't understand what people were saying, and I was about to kill my siblings haha.  I also couldn't see what God had in store for me or what he was planning on me doing here or even why he had brought me here.  The first few days were just spent unpacking and getting settled.  We also went to Blantyre, the other big modern city, to just figure out how to get around.  Saturday we went to Esthers House for the widow service that they have once a week.  By the time we got there the widows and community orphans had already arrived.  It hit me right then as I got out of the car, that this wont be so bad. With all the kids running around, laughing, the widows singing and dancing, I just got this overwhelming feeling that its going to be OK, and that God has all of this under control; that he has a this big master plan and i'm included with precise detail.  I see now that all I had to do was wait until we got somewhat settled and everyone calmed down a little to see the how the Holy Spirit will use us.  My parents have a super nice Nikon camera that is pretty much mine, well I use it 99.9% of the time.  I love photography and there are so many good pictures I can take here.  I got some really good photos of all the kids playing soccer, some amazing videos of the widows dancing and singing, and then everyone dancing and singing at the big welcoming for all the missionaries.  Yesterday one of the widows in our widow program died so they had the big funeral today.  I didn't have to go, but my dad and the Jackson's and Copher's.  The sad thing is that there is a funeral 3-4 times a week in Madzanji village alone.  The people don't have access to vaccines or medicine that could help save their lives and is considered nothing in the states because of how easy it is to prevent and cure.  One of the things we will try to do now that we are here is help the sick and orphaned and widowed and provide for all of their spiritual and physical needs.  Without God I would not have made it past the airport and I thank him every day for helping me stay strong.  If you would like to see pictures of our life you can follow my Instagram account @carney_malawi.  You can also see my parents blog or donate at www.purecharity.com/carney  sorry for it being so long trying to play ketch up haha thanks for reading would love to hear feedback :)