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