Greetings from Montepuez!
The weather here is warming up and the green mangoes
dropping onto our tin roof from the tree in our backyard are getting larger and
larger - sure signs that a new season is upon us. We've started using fans at night to keep
cool under the mosquito nets and we know that it will only get warmer... If you need a break from the bitter cold in
the northern hemisphere this winter, please come sweat with us in Mozambique!
Life for our African friends has been "hotter" in
other ways as well recently. Just this
week, Mozambique held its presidential elections, and leading up to that
important event there has been a lot of activity and campaigning. We've been praying for peace and encouraging
our friends to pray for peace, and we have been thankful for relative calm so
far as the results have started coming in.
Over the past few months, Alan has continued to be involved
in his regular studies in village churches.
The churches in Chipembe, Nkunama, Omeringue,
Ncororo and Namuno clusters continue to study the series of lessons on
leadership, and Alan has enjoyed very positive feedback from the series on
poverty in Nakuka, Nekhwaya, Khambiri, and Balama clusters. He has also made a few overnight trips out -
he had a great visit to Cuamba to visit Armindo, a young man he has been
discipling who is in his first year in college (you can read more about that here), and Alan's visit with the church in Maxoka was positive as well. The classes he is coordinating with Jeremy for
leaders in the Chiure district are starting back up and we're excited about their
commitment to disciple and train emerging leaders in those congregations.
Another recent highlight has been Alan's experience of
memorizing a large section from the book of 2 Corinthians with Cruz. This young man is going to secondary school far
from his home and Alan has been discipling him for a number of years now. He has helped start a small church in the
village where he is living and it has been enjoyable to watch him grow in
maturity and commitment to Christ. He
has a talent for memorizing scripture and Alan does his best to keep up with
him! Memorizing and walking through that
text was a great way to help Cruz explore the Apostle Paul's heart for ministry
and apply it to his and our ministries as well.
We also have had some sad news lately. In the past few weeks two older men who had
become Christians in churches in Mirate passed away. Raimundo was one of the first members of the
church in Chipembe and that young body of believers met at his house in the
early years. A loud and colorful
character, we have clear memories of Raimundo insisting that he be
baptized. Though his story took a sad
turn in the last couple years as serious health problems and conflict with his
wife caused him a lot of pain, we were proud to see the church step up and
minister well at his funeral. We lost another
friend, Havara, just last week. His wife
had attended Rachel's study in Ncororo for over a year and they both were
baptized on the same day back in January.
Havara was a man who exuded calm
and was well respected in the community; he had served for years as a school
teacher in the village and a few months ago the church moved and began meeting
at his house. Havara was someone we had
grown to love and appreciate and it is hard to imagine the church in Ncororo
going forward without him. Since he
didn't have any blood relatives in that village, he was buried here in
Montepuez, and because funerals are so important in this context, we were
really grateful to see the church here in town help out and bless his family
even though most of them had never met him.
These events are a great opportunity to show the love of Christ and
often other plans have to be put on hold to respond appropriately. Alan and I figured out that in a span of
three days we spent about 15 hours at the funeral or helping out the
family. We are grateful for the way the
team and teachers helped out a lot so both of us could be there for Havara's
wife Susana; please pray for Havara and Raimundo's family.
A few other projects have been using more of Alan's time
lately. In coordination with the Leprosy
Mission, he helped design and develop a series of recorded conversations in
Makua-Metto sharing over 50 Bible stories in ways sensitive to a Muslim audience. Alan was only minimally involved in the
recording process, but now that most of them are done, he's been spending his
Fridays (while I'm out in a village) listening and marking places that need
correction. We know that the recordings
will serve the leprosy self-care groups as well as being a great resource for
the churches for many years to come.
The construction of the bridge near the village of Bandar is
under way and Alan has worked closely with Will Zweig, a Peace Corp Volunteer and
engineer who is heading up the project.
Thanks to generous donations we are fully funded and will hopefully
complete the bridge by the end of November (just in time for the rainy season!). Alan's role has focused on community
relations, organizing the labor and transportation of supplies. Chad and Jeremy have been a big help too, taking
cement to the site and lending their construction experience as well.
Not all of our projects to bless our Mozambican friends
involve so much of our time, but they can have a big impact. This year's round of sustainable agriculture seminars
is finishing up and participants are getting ready to plant once the rains
begin. The goals of the project are to
form 10 associations of farmers using these principals in their communal plots
with the end goal of seeing 100 Mozambican families implement them in their own
personal farms. We've heard a number of
good reports lately that indicate we are well on our way to meeting those
objectives. Praise God!
People from Alan's parents' church in Germantown, TN
collected reading glasses and sent them over with the interns back in May. For the last few years, donations of glasses
have been a big blessing to our Mozambican friends in the churches and the
community. It is a joy to be able to
give away glasses to people and help them be able to read and see well. We received about 50 pairs and they were
quickly given out to friends and neighbors.
About once a week we will have strangers come by the house or stop us on
the road and ask us if more glasses have come in. One of the church leaders commented on how
Jesus' power to give sight to the blind continues to be evident as his people
share what they have to help others see again.
Giving out glasses is a simple way to bless our friends and they very
much appreciate it. If you would like to
know more about helping out in this way, let us know.
At the end of August, we had a meeting of church leaders
from all over Cabo Delgado to share the suggestions from our consultant visit
by the Huffard and Cox families. That
meeting went well and it was agreed that all of us need to move forward with a
plan to recognize deacons in the churches all over the province. It was also decided that our team should meet
regularly with three Mozambican missionaries who serve in this area. These men and their families come from the "Bible
belt" of Mozambique and while we have worked well with them in some ways,
there has continued to be a lot of tension in our relationship, mostly
regarding one of the men and issues related to finances and support. We committed to address this issue with them
and lay out a process for naming deacons in the near future. Please pray for the churches in Cabo
Delgado. It seems that we are entering
into a new stage of development that is very exciting...albeit one that we want
to see bathed in wisdom and unity.
The three women's groups that I study with are going well;
the Chipembe cluster is studying through a booklet of Jesus' teachings and
parables, the Newara cluster is studying through a booklet on Jesus' healings
and miracles, and the Nekwaya cluster is studying through the Sermon on the
Mount. We've got about two months to go
before we pause our studies for the planting season in mid-December. I love these women and their children, and my
prayer is that their roots are growing down deep, like a tree planted near the
riverbank.
Abby, Ellie and Katie are doing well and we are all really enjoying
getting to know the new team teachers! Rosemary
Perry and Amber Roe have begun settling in to life in Montepuez and it has been
very fun to have them living next door. We've been talking more with the girls about
our extended furlough to the U.S. next year to live in Searcy, AR and serve as
the Visiting Professor of Missions at Harding University. While the three of them are excited about
seeing family and making new friends, they also have shared how they'll miss
their teachers here and the other team and neighborhood kids. While we've spent over a decade now (gulp!) dealing
with the reality of living far from family and friends in the States, it will
be a new experience to have a long stretch over there missing everyone over
here in Africa!
In other news, it looks like we will to take a quick trip to
South Africa next month. Abby and I were
already planning to go to continue her orthodontist treatment/dental work, but
just a few days ago Alan cracked a lost a big chunk of a tooth. Thankfully he is not experiencing any pain at
the moment, but we'll be glad to get that taken care of sooner rather than later.
Thanks so much for partnering with us in this ministry -
there is no way that we could do it without your encouragement and support!
Please pray with us for:
- God's Kingdom to keep coming here in this place
- team transitions an relationships
- Mozambican leadership to be service-oriented
- good, healthy rainy season starting in December
Grace and Peace,
Rachel, Alan and the girls
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