Here are my teachers that are teaching me Chichewa. Mary is a student here that is training to work with Deaf children and train them in bible.
Here is Hennelise. She is the one who yells at me when I get it wrong. I love her yelling at me. It is cute. :)
Here we are on our way to ballet lessons at the school library. thanks mom for the ballet outfits. That is the school behind them. Also that is Emily that is our friend from San Diego.
Here is nya and analise practicing. There will be a christmas show in december. how cute will that be.
Analise pointing here toes. She is loving it. Just a couple pictures of daily life here. People and people. Lots of love - Amy louise

The journey....

We have been thinking about how much we love africa. We love the people, they are amazing and passionate people that are so fun to get to know deeper. In my bible study class I love learning about all the cultural differences and alot of our similarities. We are growing together. We love it. We the journey is that we are in this world together. And together we can make the difference in people's lives. We love the slow pace. It is very slow compared to america. What treat just not rush and worry about time. It is amazing here. I am ready for bed by 6pm every night. I am sure it is just living in another country thing. I get my second wind and keep going.



We love helping and making a difference through education. Whether it is me learning more or someone else. It is foundational. Right now I have 2 girls teaching me chichewa. Mary and Hennelise...One is a great teacher and the other yells at me as i misprounounce the words. It is is cute. I really want to learn and have conversations instead of me just say 2 words here and there. Bob picks it up fast for some reason but I just can't get it to stick. I am learning the days of the week right now. Lets see... la mulungu (sunday) Lolembe (monday), lachiwiri (tuesday) i think , Lachitatu (wednesday) la chi nigh (thursday) la chi sanu (friday) that is from memory. So when i say see you later on wednesday.... its ....tionana lachitatu.... have a good night is ussiku wa bwino . simple things like that... They speak chichenglish here also. Mixing chechewa and english together. Just like spanglish. Spanish and english. Sounds like this... adfhadgskjha the house is 5 mins from agdskkjhaladfskl and did you know that adfskjl grieuwqeriuo jdlafgiouy is far from gfjheowiu jrfgiui.... So that is when you think you know the words but it really is in english. anyways... We speak volumes when we learn and say our little chichewa. Sometimes. It back fires and people have full on conversations in chichewa with us and then we look dumb. Oh well lets look dumb and we all laugh about it.... I wanted to give you a couple of blogs of my friends here. They got fun pictures of life here too. Have fun.....



Josh and Emily Friends from San diego that are here now....He is maintaining the campus with 60 buildings and new things being built.... and sheis the 3rd grade teacher at the acedemy

http://www.joshandemilyketchum.blogspot.com/



Dan And bethany robbins... they are both teachers here at the academy http://robbinsabroad.blogspot.com/



Mcdonald's- http://5slams.blogspot.com/

Sam is a professor at the college and Leanne is the 5th grade teacher.



http://www.dehnertsinmalawi.com/

Both Kelley and Connie are professor here at the college



http://husbandsfamily.blogspot.com/

Tom and Ali work with local pastors and people in the villages helping with education in everything to tailoring, HIV/Aids mentorship, and having clean water....





Enjoy.... here just some. I will give you more... when you are done :)

Love you all- Amy louise

What are we up to...

Wow life is sure busy. We are in full swing of school. We are loving being back with all the students on campus. On top of Bob regular jobs (teaching, head of security and - he is now in charge along with Sam McDonald(another professor), the student outreaches. They have to schedule about 140 students to go out and serve in the community. They go every Thursday. They go to orphanages, prisons, villages, and schools to love on people. They do bible studies with all the people that they interact with and also discipleship. Bob will be taking about 7 students to the village that he created a relationship with over this last year called Mchoka. They will be doing bible studies and training the local pastors. This is definitely why we are here. To train and disciple! What a treat. So i will start taking more pictures all of that and also of my classes and Bob's! And Nya's and Analise's! Thank you for prayers and continual love and support of us! We couldn't be here with out you all behind us as our team!


Here are some pictures of the daily life! Grocery shopping. I went with Emily and she took the pictures. Every one is of the produce. But at least you can see some of it. I will get more of it for you. For me I can end up going to 4 or 5 different stores to get what I need. Sometimes I miss the all in one stores. But most of the time I enjoy getting around and taking what I can get here. It is amazing the fruit and vegetables. I so love them. I have been going to the local market to get even more amazing fruits and veggies. And they play fun music there and I love to dance and make the Malawians giggle as they watch this Mzugu (foreigner) dance. I like to break the mold.



Well- Connect with you again! Lots of love- Amy Louise

See even the bride and groom dance! How fun are they!

The dancing bridal party

Watch our dance moves from the wedding...

Hi....

So the fun part - is that we are full swing. Many of the students have returned from home to start a new semester, but many have not come back (about 30) for not being unable to pay all their fees. ABC charges them half the price due to incoming support from the states. So really it costs 3000 dollars to have them eat, sleep and study here for a year but they only have to pay 1500 dollars for that. But many have huge outstanding debts from the previous years that it hard for them to keep up. Anyways just pray that the students will be able to return by next week. I have 2 senior girls who are missing from my class. So it does make a difference when they are in their senior year.

We are chugging along. School great for Nya and she loves her teacher. Her name is Nuala Tricks. She is from England and has been teaching at ABC for the last 3 years or so. Wonderful lady. Nya comes home happy everyday. Amazing. She really has adapted well. In the school there are 310 students now and 30 different nationalities. Amazing experience for her. She has a different type of accents usually with different words. For example - She is calling a trash can a bin now. What next? - a bathroom is going to be the loo....

Well- be praying for us as we are here and missing home these days. Glad to be here but it seems like it has for ever since we have been home. Miss you all and thanks for love, emails, love packages, and support of us as we are here. Love all of us the stauffachers!

The way they share joy with the bride and groom is to celebrate by blessing them with money. The DJ says something to the effect of Celebrate that Ulemu is married to Ronald and people come up and dance and throw money. We should try it in America. Forget the registry.

The Wedding...

So we were apart of Ronald and Ulemu Wedding day. We were the Lead Couple. It is the couple they look up to and respect. WoW what a treat. It is seriously an all day event. It starts off with a wedding at 9am in the morning. Only reallllly close friends and family come. Sometimes not even the close friends attend it. It was all in Chichewa so it was hard to understand. We got interpertation here and there. We got the jest of it all.
Then at 1:30ish (African time) - it could start up to 2 hours later. There is a the reception that people come to give gifts and bless them with money. As the Lead Couple we had to dance our way in. I have video of it. I will put it on too. I just have to get it from my friend. Everyone dances in and out of the reception. Even the Bride and Groom. But we are soooo white. Bad dancers. :) We tried and everybody loved it. Oh well it was fun... Even the Bridemaids and Groomsmen dance their way to the platform.... Once on the platform we sit until 4:30ish... Watch the reception and dance too...

Here is Ronald and Ulemu on the Couch! They are so cute! They sit here while the reception is going on....

Here Bob and I are on the platform. Right before Bob was going to give them Kwacha! (Money)

Here is the cutting of the cake. It is actually a fake cake with real frosting. it is too expensive to have a cake for 300 people.

We have been so fortunate to have them as friends for the last year. And so neat to be apart of thier wedding. The Videos below show how dancing is done at the reception. The DJ plays music and people dance and give the bride and groom Money. Watch Bob as he does it. So fun!

Anyways that is a wedding in Malawi.... Thanks for enjoying it with us.

Bob is Celebrating the Wedding

Ok I know it has been way too long....

So sorry it has been officially weeks since I posted. We have been sooooo busy gearing up for all that will be happening in week. School starts and we are so exicited to have the students back on campus. We have been entertaining people since July 21st so that Includes Josh and Emily and also many of the new missionaries that have arrived over the last 3 weeks. It has been fun to get to know new people. There are about 12 new people on campus and so on. So we have been feeding them and students. Almost everynight is full of people. This week we have people over every night but friday. So we are busy. So sit and type about life here has been not as well as I want to. So wanted I to connect. I will be doing the blog of the fun wedding we were apart of this week for sure. I want to download videos so it will be fun for you to watch. Thank you all for your continue prayers and support of us while we are here. I will write more soon. Love amy louise

WoW We have lived here a year already....

So this is how it feels to be out of the our america for almost a year on Saturday. We really have seen this last year as amazing and we are no longer surviving but living well. We are so looking forward to school starting up in about 3 weeks. The students come back and we will be back in full swing. We have about 37 new students coming as freshmen. It will be amazing to get see our old friends (students and staff returning) and new friends (including the new staff and new students) It will be about getting to know more people! We like that. So for the last couple weeks we have been super busy and we also had no internet for the last week. We have been helping Josh and emily settle in. It has so fun to have them here. We have been also busy preparing for a wedding we were invovled in. Those will be the next post. Anyways here are some of the pictures for you...

So here is our deer that we found in December. She has grown alot. We are enjoying a exotic animal in our back yard and sometimes in our house.

here are some girls that are still living on campus over for dinner along with my friend Pam and that other white girl is Emily...
They are Rosemary, Kene, Umoodzi, Wanagua, Pam, Funa and Emily... We had tacos ( butt in chichewa) for dinner. For Some of them it was the first time to have Tacos. I love doing that.




Here is the boys... Bob, Blessings Joseph and Josh... And down below is Nya and Analise loving having and teasing Joseph.







Also-Just wanted to say thank you for all you emails and love and prayer over the last weeks. Not being able to be with my family as they gathered to bury my grandpa was hard. But through your prayers and love! I feel like it wasn't that hard. I will post the pictures up on soon of the wedding we were invovled with this last Saturday. Lots of love and thank you for you love, prayers, and support of us. Love- Amy Louise

Life...

So we are plugging away. Right now, we are getting ready for some friends to come and live here. They will be here for 2 years. Oh it is so exciting to have them come. She (Emily) will be a 3rd grade teacher at the academy and He (Josh) will be the on campus maintance man. They come this monday! Yippee. We are still busy with stuff. We got our car back! Yippee for us. We are thankful for that. We are having about 8 students over for dinner tonight just for a connect time. We are busy - but not as busy as the year starts. We can't believe in about a month we will be headed into a new school year. It will be nice not to be new this year. It will be nice already knowing people and connecting right away with the students. It is amazing to think that we have been a year here in August. I feel comfortable here finally. I feel fine driving on the other side of the road (along with the people, goats, bikes, and other crazy drivers). I feel fine going to 5 shops for grocery shopping. I don't get bothered by the flies that land on your face and won't stop landing on it when you shoo them off. I have accepted that there is nothing here to do but hang out with people. I am doing great with the weird different types of food. I have learned that life here is slow motion and that is great. I am still though struggling with the poverty and feeling helpless but recongizing that I personally can't change the world. I can only change myself and those that come in my sphere of life. I am loving my relationships that I have here with college students and other missionaries here. I really do still miss Target and A good burritto. Simply put - I have adjusted mostly- most days. Maybe not all days. I am fine today living in Africa.
I really have gone through a journey with my walk with the Lord these last few months. Very deep. I feel that He has stripped me Raw and all I have is Him to lean on. The greatest place to be even though it is hard to here at the same time. Both Bob and I have felt that we are at awesome place of nothing to offer Him but us. That He will use us for what we are needed to be used for , everyday that we give Him ourselves. We really have been amazed in all the deep life things we have learned. Ask us about one day when you see us in person. We would love to share the journey with you.
Just wanted to connect with you and let you know we are doing great! Somedays are better than others, but that is what life is about! Everyday is brand new day. And His mercies are new every morning. Thank God that we are not stuck in the yucky days.
Love you all and I will continue update you! Amy Louise

just life...

So we are just chugging along here. We had a fun weekend last weekend...
Analise has turned 3 years old. What fun she had and so did we...

Here she is with some of kids here...



Bob decorated the cake... It's Strawberry Shortcake of course! She so wanted a Strawberry Shortcake birthday cake.
Making her wish! She said that she wants to be married - To Bob! So sweet!


So Nya is showing off losing her 2 front teeth...


She loves to ham it up for the camera!

well- Our car situation is still going on. Not fun. We are able to borrow a friend's car, so that works good. We are not able to get good parts here. they are shady sometimes they are real parts and some times they are fakes. So it is trial and error. with 4 weeks now waiting! "They" say it should be all put together by "Tuesday". So we would appreciate any prayers! Along with not good parts, it is hard to find gas. I went to 9 gas stations last week (as I was borrowing my friends car) and there was only one place I could get it. Well-It was a 3 hour wait. So not fun. Oh joys of living in Malawi.


Well- we have been really excited to be apart of our local Church here. It started 6 months ago now. It is growing and passionately lead by an ABC graduate. It is so refreshing to be apart of the local Malawian church here. Bob and I are apart of the leadership team. You may be wondering what is our responsibility is ! It is "hospitality" ! We are responsible to build the sense of community and fellowship in our church. Right up our alley! We are so excited to do that. We love people!
Well- just a little update from us!
Love - Amy Louise

here is our update for the month of June...

Hello from African Bible College . We are on WINTER Break... So that is what they call it here. It is chilly kinda... But Winter? Winter is the word you use for Snow and below zero tempatures. Anyways Lets amuse them and call it "WINTER Break". We can do that. Most of the students have gone home for the break. There are about 25 students left on campus. Many of the young couples and single teachers have left too. So it is a really quiet campus. But we are enjoying investing in those that are here. We have short term mission teams we are working with daily here, so we are still busy. Just wanted to connect with you all and let you know that we are still serving here in Malawi .
We had an amazing trip to the village (7 hours north of here) and were able to share the gospel to over 500 people. Also, through that time we were able to disciple those that we shared the gospel to over the easter holiday, in deeper spiritual truths.

Also please pray as we:
-Are dealing with a clutch that has gone out in our car and it is right now a mystery how to fix it. (so the mechanic here says) It is kinda fixed for now. We still are having troubles...
- are having over students (daily), still shaping the africans here for Jesus.
- have a restful "winter break" together.


Thank you so much for sending us emails, cards, love, prayer, packages, and support! We couldn't be here doing what we are doing if it wasn't for each one of you!
Love- Amy Louise for all of us!

The beginning of the church service...

The Cute Mommas Singing

We are back from Khuyu Village...

Hello friends and family....We survived the trip... It was amazing to do something bigger than just ABC! We went to a students home where he has a heart to reach his village for Jesus. We were officially in the middle of nowhere Africa. We drove about 6 hours north with part of that 2 hours on a dirt road. I wondered how come there was even a road. A dirt road. That was amazing that was even a road. They say tobacco trucks use them as the tobacco farmers are up there. Ok... So we traveled to a village of Khuyu on the dirt road. We showed up at the primary school there. Just buildings with a chalk board. Exactly what you imagine, it is...

Do you see the kids on the side of the road... They love to wave... they have the most beautiful smiles!

Here is the primary school that we were mainly at...

Analise and Fanny talking to the children there. Analise was using her as a translator... Too cute...
Nya and Analise with our friends Fanny and Funa with the kids...
Teaching them how to play duck duck gooose...
We showed the Jesus film at the school that night, by the time the movie was going on there were about 300 hundred people... We sang and also shared the gospel...

The next morning we spoke at the primary school again. I shared how we have to be connected to Jesus as He challenges us to be the branches and He is the vine...

Nya and Bob talking to the kids...

That afternoon we went door to door to reach out to the village... As you can see Analise loves it and loves the dirt... Seriously she didn't stay clean unless she was sleeping... after her bath

The local villagers dancing for me...

Here is where we stayed at a local tobacco farmers house. It was not a mud house but there was no electricity and no running water... So we bathed by buckets and sat by candlelight.

Analise loving the bucket water baths... Do you see the water she was sooo dirty!

Here we are at the Sunday church service... On Friday and Saturday We shared the Jesus film to 2 more villages and also did door to door there. We then did discipleship training teaching Bible basics, how to have an active prayer life, evangelism, understanding the Gospel and who we are in Christ. About 50 people had that training. On Friday I taught a class how to be a woman of God. It went so good. They asked lots of questions and we got to answer them!

We taught the kids "this little light of Mine" Analise and Nya sang in the microphones....

Bob with the local Pastors of the churches in that village... that cute little boy wanted to sit with Bob the whole time.

Nya took this Picture can you find me!

The village at the church service... Mind you it was 4 hours long. WOW!

Here is Bob teaching the people that God gave a free gift when He gave Jesus to us. We have hope for the future because of that. We are not saved by what we do but what He has done for us...

Daddy loving on his girls...

Here is Bob giving the local pastors Bible in thier language. They don't even have a bible. How can a pastor do it without a bible. That was a treat see that. During the training we were able to give about 50 bibles away. Amazing. I have 5 in my house and somedon't have even a page.

Here is the team at the house... And the people that took care of us...

Of course we could do it without an african break down. Do you see that chain. Our friend Ronald towed us because our clutch went out in the middle of nowhere... We were towed about a 100 miles with that chain. It was a long ride home....

Of course you can't forget to hold the chickens while your broken down. Oh the adventure of it all....

So what an opportunity to give and serve. Of course in those moments of giving I didn't always see my best side and I didn't be the person I wanted to be. Stretching is an understatement. But when it is said and done. It was worth it. So our adventures will continue here. Thanks for being apart of our lives and reading my stories... Love - Amy Louise for the Stauffacher family