Jesu Ndikukulupirirani

Yes, that is a single word.  It's actually missing an h that should go after one of the k's, and I believe the r's are replaceable with l's.  I spelled it incorrectly because that is the way it is spelled on the huge painting of The Divine Mercy at The Divine Mercy church that just opened in Dwangwa.  Those familiar with The Divine Mercy should know how it translates and those who don't can ask those who do.  Ha HA! What a jerk I am. 

 

Anyways, Fr. Paul from Nkhota Kota invited us to the ceremony and it happened to fall during break so we were able to make it.  It was a small outstation church in the parish and the event was attended not only by the Bishop of Lilongwe, but also the Archbishop of Blantyre which leads me to believe that Fr. Paul is extremely well connected or more persistant than I ever imagined.  They even imported an extra choir from a different town with another Polish guy involved in exporting mushrooms and dried mangoes to Europe...really.  The crowd was big enough that a large portion of people didn't fit inside the church and watched from outside.  I was "lucky" enough to get a seat on the floor in the center aisle.  After the mass we went for lunch with the Bishops, Priests, Council members, donors, and lowly volunteers.  The church is in the same town as the sugar company and a few of the parishoners are managers so the lunch was at the company's country club.  Very nice. 

 

Fr. Paul's connections (or persistance) also meant we were able stay in town for a couple days at the guest house in the sugar company's management community and hang out on the beach down the road.  All the visiting priests were in the house on the first night so we raided the manager's house for mattresses and stayed a while to watch his satellite television.  The guest house was not sattelite equipped, but the Mushroom Guy, John, had his laptop and a few DVDs.  Sometimes this volunteer business can be pretty rough.  Mushroom John needed a few days rest as well so the choir he brought with him hung out on the beach with us.  We would swim for a while and then go over to the fishermen nearby as they pulled in their nets and buy some for lunch.  Once we helped them pull it in, but I don't think we even received a discount.