There’s something comfortably familiar about opening up my laptop to this blog and banging out some words in the dark and quiet of the early morning. Except that, while it may still be dark as I begin this, it’s certainly far from quiet. Come to find out, it never really is here. I joked the other day that, with the number of dog fights I hear throughout the night, it’s a true wonder that any dogs are left in Malawi. And the birds (OHMYGOSH THE BIRDS). They arise entirely too cheery and chirpy at Way Too Early O’Clock in the morning, and with them, I wake as well.

In concert with the birds, we hear the sounds of Indian music from a yard on one side of us coupled with the upbeat rhythm of African gospel radio on the other, and if you close your eyes and listen even harder, you can pick up on some Ed Sheeran just yards down the street from us at a popular hangout spot. We live on a corner lot here, so there are always people passing by our gate, chatting about life. Or death. Or maybe they’re chatting about the new azungus in town but, hey, we wouldn’t even know because we’ve had a whole seven days of language class thus far.

It’s good finally being here in Malawi. Really good. And it’s been hard. Sometimes, really hard. It’s both/and, and sometimes we don’t even know how we’re feeling except just that. We’re good. And it’s hard.

Today marks three weeks since we left US soil, and it’s been a packed out three weeks of transition and settling. Travel here was remarkably smooth and, dare I say, easy. Landing in Lilongwe with my family and 650+ pounds of luggage was one of the more surreal moments of my life, and it was marked by a sweet welcoming by our team here in town. The days that followed were a blur of learning our city and learning how to grocery shop and learning how to work our house. No really. There’s more to learn that one might think.

For instance, if one happens to want to use a standard two-pronged electric mixer in the three-holed kitchen outlet, one must first gather a small stick from the yard to shove in the third hole while you insert the other two prongs of the mixer into holes #1-2 and JUST LIKE THAT voila. A functioning mixer and guilty conscience from breaking every rule my mother ever gave me about electricity. I DON’T EVEN KNOW YOU GUYS. I just do as I’m told.

Just as we begin to find our footing in one area of life here- for instance, aforementioned sticks-in-outlets- even more questions arise. Everything from, “Is it normal for our kitchen faucet to be producing brown, bubbly water?” (Yes.) to “How can I know that the chicken I’m buying in the grocery store is fresh-ish and safe to consume?” (Jury’s still out.) In short, we have a heckofalot to learn.

Like language. Holy moly. This year, Matt and I will be spending 30-40 hours a week learning Chichewa from a language “nurturer.” Together. We sit through lessons together in the morning and study together in the evening and it’s just all merriment and fun and joyous times together from dawn till dusk with our two very different personalities and two very different learning styles and two very competitive spirits. But it’s good and it’s hard and a mere seven days in, we can totally understand the instructions, “Touch the eyelid of the old man with the bald head who has a baby in a kettle behind the house.” Don’t even ask me how I know these things.

Finally, I know what the masses ACTUALLY care about is, “But how are the kids??” I’m guessing you can guess the answer. It’s been good. Really good. But it’s also been hard. To be perfectly honest, they’re thriving better than I had even expected they would at this point. While their first week of school last week wasn’t entirely drama-free (is life ever drama-free around these parts??), they’re all doing well, enjoying school, and making friends. All three kids are playing basketball this quarter, and Carson has joined chess club… which should surprise exactly no one. They’re well aware of what they’ve left behind, but they’re also readily embracing their new lives, new experiences, and God’s new gifts for them here in Malawi. In short, they’re doing really, really well.

The beauty of all of this is that, while our days are often unpredictable and our feelings can vacillate on a moment-by-moment basis, we’re here serving a God who is far less fickle than our feelings. A God with an affection for us that has never once wavered. And so we’ll live and work here in this new (but not-so-new after all) reality of really good + really hard, resting in the character of the One who has gone before us. Y’all, we relocated from America to the beautiful country of Malawi. Jesus came down from the glories of HEAVEN ABOVE to the brokenness of this jacked-up earth for us. Power outages and brown water may cramp our American style from time to time, but I’m not about to hold that up to the cross thankyouverymuch.

That said, we would love prayers. Specifically…

• Pray for relationships. It’s hard to be the new kid and to feel “unknown.” Pray for the kids to each make good friends at school and for me and Matt to build relationships quickly.
• Pray for language. Sweet goodness, there’s so much to learn. Matt and I are both achievers and put too much entirely too much pressure on ourselves, so pray that, YES, we would have the ability to focus and retain a million nouns, verbs, and prepositions a week, but that we would also give ourselves grace throughout the process.
• Pray for church. For at least the first year, we will be attending a Chichewa-speaking church which can be (and has been) hard for the kids. Pray that we would find the right church home for us for this season and that we would all not only persevere through services that can be long and hot and… not in English… but that God would grow us as well.

We love you guys. We miss you guys. And we cannot WAIT to show you guys our new home here in Malawi someday down the road.