Our First Year

After spending our first year here in Malawi, we have asked ourselves what have we done? On the surface, no we haven’t built any schools, dug any wells, started huge projects or any of the like. What we have done this past year is demonstrated the life of a loving Christian family that is willing to put all trust in Him and spread His love in a land that very much needs it.

Our neighborhood crew

We have developed many strong relationships with our neighbors, teachers that we work with and the parish family in which we now pray with.  This has been the main part of our work and we are grateful to God for the success in which we have achieved in these newfound friendships.

Over the past months our family (mainly Tonya) 

has become the neighborhood doctor. We have treated massive infected burns, transported children and adults to the hospital, sometimes in the middle of the night, mended cuts, scrapes, and even some pretty awesome foot fungus. The reason this all started is not because we have more medicine, money or resources than the people around us. Although all of that is true, it started because we showed compassion and concern when we saw that our friends were suffering.

Suffering to many around us is not something new. Many suffer from malaria multiple times a year. Also many suffer from hunger when their pay runs out and they can’t afford to bath or feed their family after working 6 days a week. Although we can’t fully support all the needs of the people around us, we do what we can do. We give a little work to the neighbors that need a little cash to scrape by. We give a few eggs to the family has nothing but nsima for dinner. However little it may be, we show those around us the love that Christ has put in our hearts.

Jacob, Andrew and Charles, the first
No Regrets mens  group in Malawi

Jacob just finished his first bible study with a couple of great guys. Starting the study seemed to be great idea with some of the young men here from St. Johns. After a few weeks of some of the guys showing up and some not, it ended up being a group of only three including Jacob. At first this was a bit discouraging, but in Proverbs we read: "He that winneth souls is wise." If any man, women, or child by a godly life and example can win one soul to God, his life will not have been a failure. He will have outshone all the mighty men of his day, because he will have set a stream in motion that will flow on and on forever and ever.
-Dwight L. Moody. The whole experience has been very fuitful and he looks forward to the next opportunity to start a new group. 

We continue to assist the nursery schools, mostly on an administrative level. We plan to take a trip soon to the CTC to purchase wooden chairs and table to replace the plastic chairs that keep breaking and introduce new styles of learning to the existing program. Which right now mostly consists of “parrot” learning, where the student memorizes the words or statements without really knowing what they mean or understanding the context of the information. The tables and chairs will provide a space where the students can learn more with manipulative action and artistic practice.  The funding for these tables and chairs is coming from St. Ann school in Stoughton. We cannot thank you enough for this wonderful gift.

Farewell party for Fr. Dario.
Malungu akudalitseni abambo Dario

A couple weeks ago we said goodbye to our friend and previous Provincial Superior Fr. Dario. He will be on holiday for the next couple months back in his home province, Portugal. His next assignment after that is not yet known. We wish him all the best during his holiday and pray that we will again meet soon.

Jacob also made a little video of shots from our first year here. Although we have many other pics and God has shown His face in many other ways, it is a good snap shot of the past year. Click here to see the video. 

Lily playing hard in her basketball program

We thank all of you for your continued support through prayer, emails, Skype, and all the other ways we feel your love and presence in our lives.  We ask that you please consider supporting the Comboni Lay Missionary Program directly here. God Bless each and everyone of you.  Jacob, Tonya, Lily and Josie 

One of the tili tonse  groups Jacob
 has been participating in on Saturdays

Josie and her babies

Ministry of Presence

Christmas Mass at St. John the Baptist

I’d like to begin with thanking you for your continued prayers and support! And for being patient as it’s been several months since we’ve last written in our blog. Quite honestly, it has felt like we haven’t “accomplished” much or had anything fun to share. That’s what it felt like anyway but thinking back, we have so much to share it’ll take more than one entry to get you updated!

Ministry of Presence – we learned about presence being a ministry in our formation training. I remember Paul, our Program Director, saying more than once that we’d need to learn to be okay with just being and not always doing. For most American’s this is not an easy task. We focus on productivity, accomplishments or to simply put it – getting things done. 

Typical kitchen scene, Ruthie 10yrs old

Looking back to mid-November it started getting difficult for us to be content “just being present.” Our daily life was becoming a bit more routine; we spend quite a bit of time at the 2 preschools we work with and attended various meetings at church.  In our spare time, we typically play with the neighborhood children or the children who come to the church property on the weekends for tilitonse (Sunday School, but on Saturday’s—all morning!). Life was beginning to feel “smooth”. But it also felt like we weren’t doing anything different and didn’t have anything to share in our blog. And quite honestly, homesickness hit me pretty hard around the holidays. Writing a blog update forces me to think of my family and friends, so not writing was just easier than getting sad. (I’ll return to homesickness in a bit)

Laundry time

Many of the Comboni Fathers we work with in the Malawi/Zambia Province have told us the importance and huge impact the ministry of presence is especially with us being a family with two small children. We are still struggling with the language. Unfortunately the 50 or so hours of language training we received early on was only enough for greetings and very basic communication. Because we are not even close to fluent in Chichewa, we get discouraged and feel we’re not able to be as involved as we’d like to be.

Lily, Josie and their friend Febe

To impact the feeling of being discouraged and not comfortable with the ministry of presence, after Mass on Sunday I had a woman tell me I should know the language by now and she was disappointed in me. This comment made me feel bad for about five minutes. It only took about five minutes for me to receive 4 comments regarding our presence being so impacting and beautiful to our church community. The Treasurer of the church told me with a huge smile, “you do good work, we are so blessed to have you and your family here.” Then a preschool teacher we work with came up and introduced me to his friend. He told the friend how wonderful it has been having us at the preschools and he spoke of all the “great changes and contributions” we’ve made. One woman stopped me as I was leaving to ask if we were leaving for America soon (in Chichewa and I understood her!). I told her no, we’d be here for at least two more years. You should have seen her smile; she shook my hand and thanked me many times for not leaving! 

Tonya & Febe

My point isn’t to tell you all the great compliments I received in this 10 minute timespan one Sunday after Mass. Rather its to demonstrate how in only 11 short months, with only knowing a little of the local language our family was able to make connections, to build relationships, to show others we care and we love them. Yes, I’m confident there is more than one person here who is disappointed or frustrated that we still struggle with Chichewa. But, clearly for each person who is disappointed in our lack of language skills there are 4 more who are touched at our mere presence among this community.

God sure knew what I needed on this particular Sunday. I was feeling stale and after the first woman’s comment about her disappointment I was feeling downright bad. Then, these people just started saying things to me about our ministry and most were referring to our ministry of presence. I will continue to pray for peace and acceptance that I am right where God wants me to be. I pray for an open heart, calmness, and patience everyday. I am humbled to be reminded of our training session as well as what the Comboni Fathers have told us – Ministry of Presence is important, we need to embrace and accept it.

Lilyanna & her wonderful personality

Don’t let me mislead you; we have plenty going on though it’s the things we’ve basically already told you about. We’re still overseeing the two Comboni Preschools, I’m helping in the Comboni Provincial Finance Office and Jacob has been extremely busy launching a new café at Lilyanna’s school. Plus we attend various church meetings, assist Fr Somanje, our Comboni Parish Priest, in grant writing requests and have most recently become the neighborhood First Aid Nurse, ambulance driver and human jungle gym. (next blog update we’ll elaborate!)

Josephine learning to balance

I mentioned being homesick around the holidays, I’d like to return to this thought. I’ve never lived more than 45 miles from my parents, until moving to Malawi at 35 years old. The holidays were a bit tough though we made it through and our family enjoyed them. Right around Christmas, we began receiving emails, MANY OF THEM, from our St. Ann’s and HMC Church Community. Every time I’d open my email, there would be 5 or 10 more messages. These messages continued to come for a few weeks after Christmas. 

Jacob after a morning run

I can’t even express how beautiful it was for our family to hear from so many of you! The messages were touching, we didn’t feel forgotten, and instead we felt love and support! And most of all, it helped cure the homesickness! Technology sure has made being a missionary much easier than it must have been before the internet was widely available! Thank you so much for your Christmas wishes, each and every one of them means so much to us! We didn’t delete a single one, they have their own email folder. When one of us is feeling a bit homesick or lonely, we simply open up the emails and begin reading.Thank you so much for the beautiful blessings so many of you gave us this holiday season! 

Please know you are always in our prayers, multiple times each day! We love praying on specific prayer requests so please include us when you have something specific you’d like us to be praying for. Why not have prayers being said from literally all over the worldJ Thanks again for being patient as this blog update is long overdue! We’ll write again shortly with some specifics of our encounters over the past few months.

In Christ’s Peace,

Tonya, Jacob, Lilyanna and Josephine

Kleven Family, Christmas morning

Little Blessings

Josie received her first haircut! She still has some curl left!

Our daily life is becoming more of a routine. We are adjusting to regular power outages ranging from 2 – 8 hours every few days. About two weeks ago the pump for the bore hole, where we get all of the water for our house, broke. It took just over a week to repair. Conveniences make life easier but they aren’t always necessary or available here in Malawi. For a short period of time we drew water from the neighbors outdoor spicket for essential water needs until the pump was fixed. Everything will be okay, DON’T WORRY! (common phrase we hear and use daily!)

Jacob initiated dance party Friday at the preschool!

The preschools have kept us busy. Its difficult but each month we have to send children home who have not paid their monthly school fees. Fees are minimal but necessary to operate. To try to avoid having to send kids home, we send a handwritten note that reminds the parents the fees are overdue. The note includes the amount due and a deadline. Being the 2^nd month we’ve done this, a handful of children who haven’t paid fees didn’t show up to school after the deadline on the notice. We know they’ll be back, and honestly its more comfortable not having to send the child home.

From June to August, our family worked to create the alphabet to be hung on the walls of each of the classrooms. We began hanging these hand-made visuals in the classrooms and are happy to see the results. They liven up the classrooms and provide the teachers with visual aids to refer to. We’d like to add more in the coming months. A donation was made so we could purchase the paper and marker we used to create the alphabets, another donation made it possible for us to laminate our hard work! We are very excited about this as initially we planned to replace the sheets of paper as they became worn, which in an open air classroom would have been quite frequently. We are thankful we were able to laminate as now we can spend our time creating curriculum for our classrooms.

Lily's friend Tabby blowing bubbles for the kids to enjoy!

About a month ago we purchased a bicycle. It’s a good thing Jacob knows a lot about bikes because he’s had to make many adjustments and repairs! Initially the repairs were happening on a daily basis but we got a good price on a decent bike and are hopeful it will last us quite some time. Jacob has been riding the bicycle to the preschool almost daily as Tonya takes Lilyanna to school using the car. On his ride he gets many “second takes” as he’s singing and hitting jumps whenever he can. I think some Malawian’s think he’s crazy but I’ve also notice the neighborhood around the preschool has welcomed our presence and either greets us or waves at us when they see us. I too have been brave enough to bike out to the preschools. My first ride, I was a bit nervous and prayed the entire way there and home! Riding on a dirt/sand path is not easy but its doable. We’ll see if we’re able to ride once the rainy season hits us, I anticipate it won’t be possible but we’ll figure that out when the time comes. It’s about a 40 minute walk so we always have that option!

Lily enjoying class time in the preschool village!

We have a lot of work to do with the preschools, however we know we need to proceed with a humble heart and open mind. At this point we’ve focused on the administrative part of the preschool and supporting the teachers where we can. Some days this means drawing pails of water from the well, mopping outdoor toilets or playing with the children during their break. I did take over the 3yr old class one morning and wow, that was a mission experience! Patience, patience, patience! With 37 kids sitting in front of me, some with no chairs to help them sit still, it was a challenging but wonderful experience. Eventually we hope to evolve (create) a curriculum for the teachers to use. For now, we are trying to empower the teachers and let them know we are happy with what they offer.

Two weeks ago, Lilyanna’s school was on holiday. Our entire family and Esther, our nanny, went to both of the preschools. Lilyanna, Josephine and their friend Tabby sang and played with the children. They brought bubbles which Lily’s schoolmates back in IL at St. Louise de Merriliac mailed us, the children loved this! The girls also played ball and sang songs with the kids. It was a wonderful day! To end the Friday (only half day of preschool on Friday’s) we all enjoyed a dance party which Jacob initiated several weeks back. The children love to dance with us and be goofy!

Josie & her friends playing at recess! (larger preschool)

Though the preschools take up quite a bit of our time, we’ve also stayed busy helping out at Lily’s school and in the finance office of our Provincial House. The kitchen equipment has arrived from South Africa (Jacob ordered on behalf of Lily’s school) and he has been busy implementing a new food service opportunity for the campus. I’ve been working on creating a resources room using the extra materials ABC Christian Academy has that hopefully all of the teachers will utilize. Not being a teacher myself, this has created a great opportunity for me to see all the different math manipulative, and other classroom enhancements a teacher can use. It’s given me several ideas which can be used in the Comboni preschools we are overseeing.

God protected us, we were only hit in the back! 

Almost five weeks ago, Lilyanna and I were involved in a rear-end collision. As we were driving to Lily’s school and were stopped at a red robot (traffic light), a minibus smacked into the back of us. We are so thankful he hit us from behind and not the side or the front or the accident would have been much worse. Lily and I both had sore muscles but recovered quickly. The car is squished in the back. It took just short of 5 weeks and 8 trips to the police station to get a copy of the accident report. Upon picking up the report, I was disappointed to realize they did not create the formal report off the statement made the day of the accident which myself, the other driver and responding officer signed. Oh well, I guess things are done differently in Malawi. The minibus driver was at fault and thankfully there were three police officers at that intersection who witnessed the collision. It’ll be interesting to see how the insurance and repairs work here in Malawi! We are grateful God protected us that day from what could have been a terrible accident.

Reading Day at ABC, homemade fairy!

Josephine is doing wonderful! She’s a handful and full of life. She enjoys going to the market, singing, dancing and playing with the neighbor kids. Lilyanna has continued to excel in school! She’s received several rewards for her progress in the schools AR Program (accelerated reading). She is also tied with one other student for the most 100% scores on their weekly spelling tests. The school celebrates "Reading Day" where each student dresses up as a character from a book they read or like. With limited materials, Lily created fairy wings using the glitter recently sent by Bob & Ginny J! Perfect timing for their wonderful care-package! She continues to amaze us with how quickly she learns and retains information.

This past weekend we were able to spend some time with two Comboni Priests who serve in our Province but located in a seminary school about 4 hours south of us. Fr. Kyanike recently visited the United States, and met our dear friend Shaun K and her husband after a mission appeal in Iowa! Comboni’s are world-wide, what are the chances one from our community in Malawi would meet a dear friend in America! We didn’t know before he left that he’d also visit WI or we would have asked him to stop at our home parish, St. Ann. We giggled when Fr. Kyanike told us all about this town that was created in Wisconsin, “all for fun”! He was talking about WI Dells! He also showed us a picture of a lake he visited, we were so excited to realize it was Devils Lake, one of our families favorite places to hike, camp, swim and relax!

Lilyanna teaching the kids how to do a "throw-in".

God has continued to bless us with good health! We encounter such extreme poverty on a daily basis, it is humbling to witness the love and happiness so many Malawian’s have to offer, despite their daily fight to find food each day to feed their family. Our lives have changed. We talk a little about life back in the states and wonder if we’ll ever fit in again. We see God in so many people that we meet on a daily basis. We also get frustrated at times as we are still getting used to the culture and language. Though, with beginning our day with prayer and praying throughout the day for patience, understanding and an open heart, we can squash those frustrations pretty quickly!

We ask you to please keep our family in your prayers. Specifically we ask for prayers for health, patience, openness and the ability to share the love of our Lord and Savior. Also, please pray for the government of Malawi, that the recently exposed corruption will be put to an end and the leaders will serve the people with the dignity and respect they deserve.

May God continue to bless you and comfort you! Tsiku labwino! (have a nice day)

Peace and love,

Tonya, Jacob, Lilyanna & Josephine (Lillian & Josephina)

Picking Up The Pace

It has been just a month since our last update and the pace has certainly picked up. We have continued to be blessed with good health for the most part (Josie spiked a fever for a few days but recovered quickly) and are now getting used to the African heat.

Josie in her new birthday dress

Josie celebrated her 3^rd birthday on August 27^th and we celebrated it in our usual way with cake, dancing and a whole lot of neighbor children. Thank you to all who sent gifts for the girls. All of them meant the world to the girls and we all appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts. Josie now spends most mornings with Esther and has really developed a bond with her. Her speech has struggled a bit agin with the changes in our routine. Please pray that Jesus will help her to find her words easily and continue to grow into the beautiful little lady she is.

Lily performing at Friday Chapel

Lily is doing VERY well in her new school. She has made many new friends and has really excelled in her reading skills. Her teacher is a very sweet woman originally from South Africa and I believe she adores Lily as much as Lily does her.  The school itself has great staff overall, with a strong curriculum and beautiful faith woven into it all. We have been fortunate to be able to attend most her Friday chapels.  Witnessing and experiencing those have definitely assured us that the Holy Spirit has led us to this place and Almighty God has shown his mercy onto us with many blessings.

Pretty in pink

 Tonya has been busy helping at Lily’s school in a number of ways including organizing the school’s uniform closet, helping Lil’s teacher, and creating a resource room for the teachers. On days that she is not helping at the school, she has also been working with Fr. Dario at the provincial house. We have ben asked to assist the province in some administrative duties in the finance/accounting office and we are happy to help. This has been a great way to learn more about the Comboni province of Malawi and Zambia, the different Comboni communities in these two countries and the great work they are all doing for the glory of God. If that wasn’t enough, we both helped to open the two-pre schools that are run by the parish. They opened two weeks ago and have been a great learning experience of the culture in many ways.

Part of the road to the pre-school

Over the past months I have been working with Lily’s school in building and creating their new food service program. I researched and sourced the equipment out of South Africa and have been developing the menu, pricing and procedures. The equipment should arrive soon and then I will get the program up and running. Again, another gift from God that I can utilize my knowledge in food service here in Malawi! Since the opening of the pre-schools, on the days Tonya is at Lily's school or the Provincial House, I have been walking to the bigger of the two to help with enrolling the students collecting fees and making sure the teachers have some basic needs to operate the school. The walk is about 2 miles from the house through a very poor area of Lilongwe on a dirt road. It takes about 40 min. each way and has been fun except for the plooms of dust that come rolling when a car passes. It gives me time to listen to music and speak more Chichewa to people I meet along the way. I have had some pretty funny looks when the people see and hear the white guy strolling and singing down the road, something not many had seen there before.

Some of our learners at St. Agness pre-school

 We appreciate the work we have been given so far and thank God for the opportunity to share His love in all that we do. Please pray for our health, safety and patience as we continue on this wonderful journey. 

Please mail your gift to Comboni Lay Missionaries 1615 E 31st Street
 La Grange Park, IL 60526 or donate online at www.laymission-comboni.org

Denote “Kleven family – General Support” in the memo line or intention box on the website to support keeping us in mission or “Kleven family – Ministry Account” to support our ministry projects in Malawi. Gifts are deductible to the full extent allowable under IRS regulations.

Sending our love and blessing to you all! Jacob