Arman Missions: The good, the bad and the beautiful mission field

December 28, 2021

The good, the bad and the beautiful mission field - a year’s recap

Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year 2022.

Well, it has been an interesting year and as you can see I haven't been updating the blog. So I thought I would pop in and give you a little recap of this past year. I can't even believe 2021 is almost coming to an end.
We started the new year not knowing at all what would happen. Not that it’s not what happens every year but after 2 years of not being able to travel anywhere we really didn't know what it would look like.

And even with all the restrictions, mandates and all the PCR tests, we got to visit 5 different countries this year. (France, Greece, the U.S of A., Namibia and South Africa.) Some of you might think it’s a privileged life, to be able to travel the world. I always say it’s a part of our lifestyle and if God wasn't behind it all we would probably not be doing it. We know a lot of people/families that could not handle what we are doing every year: the endless packing and unpacking, sleeping in strange beds, constantly meeting new people (lol), different kind of food, cultures and way of thinking, long lay-overs, so many flights,immigration (lol) and endless car rides… we are definitely not complaining but sometimes it gets old and a bit much.
So after 2 years of staying put in Africa it was a year full of unexpected things, more cancelled flights but many blessings and adventures.

As I'm writing this on Tuesday of the last week of the year. Its a hot sunny day. I’m half sitting half laying on my bed. I'm on day 2 of the flu its mild. No we haven't done any test yet. Callia is also down and now Chris is. It’s about 35 degrees C (95 F) in the house and today we don't have power because our neighbors backyard tree fell on our power line. We also just had a great long Christmas weekend so we are all pretty tired and I'm sure it didn't help our conditions now. It has been a weird year of malaria, drought (please pray for the rains to come) and more sickness… we cannot complain as we know it has been a weird few years for a lot of people.

And as I'm reminiscing on the past year, the highlight of our year was definitely our yearly conference in April and our long awaited trip to Namibia. A country we had heard about from Namibian friends here and a new vision from our home church. A place we definitely had wanted to visit sooner. But covid… and after a few weeks and negative PCR tests, we finally made it there. A country we could describe as huge and almost empty of people (less than 3 million) and vast deserts with the Atlantic ocean on the west coast, we met some of the nicest and open people. We will definitely go back. We made it to Cape Town South Africa for a short visit and visited our churches in Pretoria.

We had the privilege of having quite a few visitors during the year. Friends from South Africa and from the States for our annual conference and a short term Bible College Student from our home church in Baltimore, Alina who spent 3 months with us.

So there you have it; here are some pictures of this past year in Malawi and beyond.