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