Today is the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles. The weather, scenery and atmosphere out at Lake Malawi are idyllic. The morning is free and there is no service until 2:30 pm so we have time to relax and enjoy the resort. In the morning Bev and I walked along the beach and sat in the beach chairs and watched the birds diving into the water for food. The air is filled with sounds of various kinds of birds. Monkeys abound. The ones with little babies are particularly interesting.
 
At 8:00 we have breakfast with the Lockwood's and one of the members, Austin, the lawyer.
 
In the morning I worked on finishing my sermon for 2:30 pm. I have five sermons here and almost had six. There has no year where I seemed to be busier before the Feast than this year's. All in all I'll be speaking 12 times on this trip month-long trip. All English messages are being translated into Chewa consecutively....meaning that I say a phrase, the translator translates it. Back and forth. It takes some getting used to and sometimes I feel it's hard to drive a point home.  
I line up the words for the five songs on PowerPoint to be projected on the wall We come to services half an hour early and find most everyone seated and ready. There is an excitement and anticipation. The attendance this morning is about 130 and the meeting hall is full. I am told that there are more coming. It will be crowded when we reach full capacity.
 
After services we mosey on back to our round room close to the lake. At 5:30 promptly it gets dark. The equatorial light is strange to us. At noon the sun is directly overhead. There is little dawn and twilight and the sun leaps out of the horizon into and out of the sky.  
We invited the Salawila families for dinner with us. The Lockwood's invited a group, too.  

We were the ONLY ones in the restaurant. Still the service was very slow, but that was OK. We enjoyed the conversation as we have lots to talk about. We have gotten very well acquainted with the Salawila's since meeting them in 2001.  
 
Afterwards Scott Lockwood came over and we talked some more about Malawi things.