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Nov 21

An Extraordinary Week! My heart is full!

Posted on Friday, November 21, 2008 in Uncategorized

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was full of the most amazing developments! My heart is full. Please read Nehemiah 1:11 (Chapters 1-6 really) and Ezekiel 22:30. God is always looking for people who will commit themselves to “build the wall” and “stand in the gap”. This means that He is looking for those who will commit themselves to serving Him by building His kingdom and interceeding for people through prayer and compassion. We are blessed to be a blessing! And here in Malawi we have had a week of blessings!

Here is what’s happening!

As a community we began 5 a.m.-6 a.m. prayers and devotions! Rock on! God honors those who honor Him and come to Him in prayer. With these pastors around teaching and preaching all the time, it’s like I am in seminary. I love all the learning!

We planted the garden! The pastors, Weta Weta (our guard and sooo much more) and I hoed, dug, weeded, raked, watered, and then planted. Weta Weta gave a lesson to the children on watering without stepping on the plants! It was one of the highlights of my week to see him teaching! We worked on the garden after prayers each morning. The children will take over next week with watering and weeding! Carrots, cabbage, lettuce, onions, and tomatoes. We will plant maize, peas, and beans in a week or so right before the rainy season. Working with these humble and wise men on this project was a complete blessing to me!

We began our Chifundo Orphan Day Center Outreach! This week Gladys served at Chifundo I, Tisu at Chifundo 2 and I served at Chifundo 3. Again, we are blessed to be a blessing and to be serving the orphans and their teachers in this way. All the teachers at the centers were in our Montessori Teaching Workshop in September and now we are going to them to support them right where they teach. We demonstrated more materials and teaching strategies, we donated books and chalk from our MMP school, we made materials for them and with them for the centers, and we encouraged them. The directors at Chifundo I and 2 wrote Tisu and Gladys (the MMP Malawi Staff) letters of acknowledgement. You should have seen Tisu and Glady’s face when they returned the next day after contributing. They know they are delivering on God’s amazing plan. And it is a big plan.

It was our second week of school for the new students and they love their new school! They are demonstrating great responsibility, focus, and concentration. Because of the number of students and levels we are beginning to use the two small front rooms for lessons. We are having extra shelves build so we can expand. Expand is part of God’s plan. Believe me it wasn’t my idea! The expansion of the school is really elevating all of our leadership, organization, and management skills. It also is drawing us together in unity, purpose, focus, and great love. I can’t believe God sent me these women. I am blessed!!!

We had nine parents show up this week to contribute as part of our parent participation program! Yes, we are a parent participation school! I am so pleased with their commitment. We had parents contribute in the following ways this week: working on the garden, assisting the teachers in instruction, bible lessons, organizing purchasing of snack, teaching P.E. lessons, and reading with the children in English.

I met with the Malawi Regional Department of Education to further our school application process. They will be coming in two weeks to observe our school and make recommendations. They were very encouraging of our project!

If you would like to bless the work we are doing here, please email me at maribeth@theocean.cc or you may donate to the Malawi Montessori Project through Lakeside Church. Just send a check to Attention Gina, Lakeside Church, 745 Oak Avenue, Folsom, California, 95630 and put Malawi Montessori Project- Maribeth Leineke in the memo line. The money will be used to meet the goals of the Malawi Montessori Project. The goals: We commit to: educating the future leaders of Malawi by providing this Montessori School for children in poverty and resourcing and training teachers working with the orphans in Ndirande and Blantrye.

Please consider helping us complete the construction of the Acts III Children’s Home. We are blessed to have a home for our school, but it is under construction and I believe God wants this beautiful place to be finished! Please visit www.acts3.org to see how you can help with the construction.

Enough talk! Here are the pics!
Love, Maribeth, Wavemaker, Malawi (That’s for Pastor Jeff Kreiser!)

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