Malawi is even better in person!

The trip to to Malawi couldn't have gone more smoothly. We arrived safely at 1:00 P.M. local time today, Friday, July 1st (who knows what time that was in Los Angeles).

Thanks so much to all of you for your prayers! During the 13-hour flight from Washington D.C. to Ethiopia nobody got sick, no kids got yelled at by flight attendants, and at least 57 people asked us why we were all wearing green shirts. This gave us an opportunity to meet some interesting people, a lot of whom had heard of John MacArthur and Grace Community Church. We even ran into the sister of Andy Snyder (a professor at The Master's Seminary) as we headed to our gate in D.C. What are the odds!

Once we landed in Lilongwe, we were greeted by mid-70s temperatures and a cloudless sky. Since Malawi is south of the equator, it's winter here, which means perfect, almost Southern California-like temperatures.

Grace Church missionaries Brian Biedebach and Matt Floreen, along with a couple students from the African Bible College, picked us up and drove us to Matt and Rachel Floreen's house where we will be staying for the duration of our trip. During the 45-minute drive on the freeway, we passed an odd mix of people, including three selling mice on a stick (a fine dessert here in Malawi), and a man on a bicycle toting at least 25 chickens. Those of us from the San Fernando Valley felt right at home. :)

The Floreen's house is beautiful and large. Rachel had fruit and cinnamon muffins waiting for us. There's plenty of room for everyone to sleep, and, thankfully, we all have mosquito nets. Perhaps best of all, the Floreens have a Great Dane named Simba. I think it's the same Simba from the Disney movie back in the 90s.

Tomorrow we head off to the African Bible College and a local village to get our ministry going. We are eager to begin serving God in this great country. We will keep you updated as we can, but, as we expected, internet service is hard to come by here in Malawi.

So until next time -- please continue to pray for our team, and join us as we praise God for His kindness toward our team so far!

In Christ,

Corey