Photos from the Malawi Mission Trip are available at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/malawipictures

We have arrived safely in Chippewa Falls, Bloomer and Eau Claire from our flights... we will update everyone with pictures and blog entries, but for now our priorities are warm showers, some sleep and time with our families.

Thank you all for your support, your prayers and your kind words!

Your Malawi Missionaries

We have arrived at JFK in New York and have a couple of hours before our flight leaves for the Cities. Internet works here!

Here's a photo from our day at Mvua Camp at one of Malawi's National Parks. Our overnight there was much needed for rest and as you can see, the sights were incredible! The picture shows two elephants playing in the Shire River... at least, that is what our guide told us.

All of us slept some on our 18 1/2 hour flight from South Africa and as soon as we cleared customs there was a mad dash for cell phones, McDonald's and bathrooms with honest to goodness toilet seats! The comforts of home will not be taken for granted soon by our faithful crew.

Your Malawi Missionaries

We have had no internet access for several days, but we are all  well.  We are sitting in the Lilongwe airport awaiting our departure  for Johannesburg, where we will connect to our flight to New York and  then to Mpls, arriving at about 1:30 on Friday afternoon when our  drivers will meet us for the journey to C.F.

We served over 700 people yesterday at our last clinic and that was  only a 1/2 day clinic. We have learned so much!  We served over 2,000  people in our time in Malawi.  We will do more blogs when we return  to the States with more pictures but it doesn't work well here. Here  is a picture of people waiting to see the doctors at one of our  clinics located at Phalombe in south east Malawi.

We miss our families, but will miss Malawi more than we can put into words. It is the "Warm Heart of Africa" and we have been blessed by  God every moment of our journey.

Continue to bathe us in prayer as we begin the journey home to our families.

Entry by Diane Hoyme...

Today was a lucky day! I was able to talk to Rick this afternoon.

The group is unable to connect to the internet and it's possible there may not be any other opportunities to do so before they come home. Here's a brief summary of what I can recall from our phone conversation (except for the parts about "where did you put the key to the garage" and "are you remembering to give the dog her thyroid pill?").

Today they attended worship services at the Zomba Parish Center. He said the worship experience was incredibly moving. The music was awesome with beautiful harmonies. Afterwards they held what was supposed to be a "mini-clinic" and they served 200 people! It sounds like they are getting pretty good at their assigned tasks but they are all pretty exhausted at the end of the day.

They travel tomorrow to another clinic in Balaka, which is a township of about 14,000 people. (Zomba's population is about 100,000.) This will be their last clinic, as the Tuesday clinic at Lilongwe was cancelled. I think he said they decided to cancel because of the difficult travel conditions. Evidently the travel is nearly as exhausting as the clinics because of the road conditions and the number of people and animals walking along the highway, making for very slow travel. On Tuesday they will instead take a side trip to Lake Malawi. Wikipedia says it is 365 miles long and 52 miles wide, so it's just a bit bigger than Wissota!. On Wednesday they will begin the preparations to come home. Yeah!!

The group asks for your continued prayers for another safe week of clinics and travel.

Diane Hoyme