2005 Year in Review
Back to Homepage: People in the News Listing | Back to Year in Review Index
Area Students to Travel to Africa |
|
|
Fifteen students from Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Indiana will be heading to Malawi, Africa on June 22 as part of a mission trip through the Reformed Church in America, Mid-America Synod and will return on July 14. Included in the 15 are three Morrison students and four Fulton students. Brianna Tichler, and Heather Dykstra, from Ebenezer Reformed Church and Matt Hook, Emmanuel Reformed Church of Morrison, and Nicole Tomman, Dan Jasper, Amanda VanderVinne and Ali Cole, from First Reformed Church in Fulton will be a part of this mission trip. Clair and Marcia Lathrop, Fulton will be chaperoning the trip from this area. Clair is the Youth Pastor for First Reformed. Four other adults will also accompany the group. Participants must go through a series of shots and medication before leaving. A Hepatitis A & B shot, Typhoid, Tetanus shots must be up to date and an extra Polio shot is required. A malaria prevention is taken and a preventative antibiotic for diarrhea. The group heads first to Camp Manitoqua in Frankfort, IL where they will spend two days for orientation and training in team building. From Manitoqua they head to O’Hare airport where they will fly to London and then it is on to Nairobi, Africa. From there they travel to Lilongwe where they will spend a night purchasing supplies needed for this project. They arrive in Songa on June 28th. While they are there they will be assisting the Save Orphans Ministries, which is associated with the Reformed Church in America mission project in the Songa area. The Songa area is southwest of Lilonqwe in the Mongochi District near Balaka in south Malawi. They will work with children who have been orphaned by the AIDS epidemic in the area. They will also aid in building a dorm type housing facility for the teaching staff in Malawi. The area they will be in is very primitive and poverty stricken. It is ranked sixth worst in the world. They will also be helping in a Bible Camp through ministry, activities and feeding. The camp is three days and in those three days the group may be serving more than 6,000 meals. Some of the children attending the Bible Camp can walk up to six hours to attend. Each student is asked to raise $2,500 for this mission trip, which includes their airfare, housing, food and land travel and in addition to those costs they must raise $6,000 to cover the costs of projects they will be aiding in. The previous Winterfest team purchased mattresses and mosquito nets. Some of the village people made bunks for the mattresses to be placed. Rice is bought in 100-pound bags from a warehouse grocery store. Carry on bag and two suitcases are allowed for travel but make-up, curling irons and hair dryers must be left behind, as there is no electricity. Students obtain most of their clothes for the trip from second hand stores so they can be left behind for the village people. It is not uncommon to see children wearing Green Bay Packers wear or Veggie Tales. Girls must wear long skirts to mid calf and a modest blouse or shirt. The boys wear long pants and shirts. Malawi is known as the “warm heart of Africa.” The people are considered nonconfrontal and described as being kind, courteous and hospitable. Malawi has never had a war or violent uprising. Malawians make their own bricks and concrete. Rocks from a “quarry” are broken by hand to obtain gravel to use in the concrete. Gravel and sand are put in a mound and a bowl of water is set in the middle. The dry ingredients are shoveled into the water starting from the outside and shoveling it to the middle. A mote is built around the mound to catch excess water drain off. Bricks are laid out in what is called a brickyard to dry in the sun. They are then stacked in a beehive shape and in the middle a fire is burnt for 2-3 days until the bricks turn red and then they are cooled for 3-5 days. Broken bricks are crushed and used as substrate flooring before concrete is poured. Brick masons earn $1 per week. Which is considered good pay. The Baobob tree named after the birthplace of Dr. Livingston serves many purposes for the African people. The pod contains an edible white, sweet and sour substance and the bark is used in weaving baskets. The bark can be totally stripped from the tree and it won’t die. In order to attend school the children must wear a blue uniform. If they attend beyond the fifth to sixth grade they are required to pay for their room and board as some may have to travel away from home up to 50-60 miles away. There are only eight to ten wells in the Songa area to serve 8,000 to 10,000 people. Clothes are washed in the river. The group will be bringing their own water filtering system with them, which will also be left behind. Clair and Marcia Lathrop and Brianna Tichler were a part of this mission trip two years ago. On this trip they also aided with the Bible Camp and the projects they worked on included laying a new concrete floor for a building. A 15-foot pit was dug by hand for the placement of a new outhouse. They also helped in tearing down an old house and outhouse in order to salvage the bricks. Marcia stepped into an unused fire pit on this trip and fractured her ankle. She was taken to a local hospital where she was fitted with a cast. Modern American medical technology was appreciated, as the African hospital was very primitive. The area carpenters hand made her a set of crutches. For more photos taken by Dave DeKuiper from the 2003 trip please see Photo Album The kids held a potato bake at First Reformed Church in Fulton, which raised $954. They are also selling Mannie’s pizzas and pork chops. If you would like to order pizzas or pork chop from the group or make a donation please call: First Reformed Church at 815-589-2203. by Dawn Zuidema, theCity1.com |
Copyright © 2005 TheCity1.com.
All rights reserved