Greetings from Montepuez!
We're in the middle of the rainy season here and most days
we're enjoying thick cloud cover. It's a nice break from the intense tropical
sun, but unfortunately that doesn't mean a break from sunburns for Alan (insert
sad face). We had a VERY needed restful
holiday break - we intentionally didn't schedule anything between Christmas Day
and New Year's Day, and spent the time resting and playing together as a
family, which was very healing at the end of a pretty intense year for us.
I'm writing this to the hum of the generator as severe
flooding down in the middle of Mozambique has knocked out major power lines for
the northern half of the country. We've
been over three weeks without city electricity and we're so grateful to have a
generator to run our fridge and computer and lights - we're also running the
teachers' electricity as well as serving as a charging station for many of our
friends' phones and a few extra computers, too.
We haven't seen flooding rains in our region yet - the rainfall has been
even and steady - but an area south of us received strong winds that blew down
a number of houses and church buildings (the village of Milamba and surrounding
areas).
Since our last newsletter we continued with our regular
village visits, but every year when the rains begin mid-December, our ministry time
shifts a bit. Our Mozambican friends are
busy in their farms planting and hoeing, and sometimes we're limited in where
we can go - just a couple weeks ago, thick slippery mud on the road to Khambiri
forced Alan and Goncalvez to turn back and miss a meeting with a cluster of
churches. So we schedule fewer village
studies and spend time on curriculum development and long-term planning for the
year.
We're happy to report that the bridge construction finished
on Christmas day! Alan and the project
leader Will Zweig (a Peace Corps Worker in our area), were amazed to see the
work come together and we're so grateful that the actual construction only ended
up taking three months of intense building.
It was completed just as the Montepuez River began to rise and the work
during that last week or so had to be done while dodging men, women and
children who needed to already 
In December we finished up the three different women's
studies for 2014. On the last day of our
study in the Chipembe cluster, when we finished studying, we all piled together
into the truck and drove to Nakuka to join the women in that church cluster for
an Ikoma - a girl's initiation ceremony.
The Chipembe women and I enjoyed also having Amber, one of our teachers,
and Kara, one of the new Peace Corps Volunteers in Montepuez, join us for the
overnight trip. We stayed up into the
night singing, dancing, napping, singing again, and holding an advice-giving
session for the young girl whose parents are part of the church in that
village. The next morning she was bathed
by the older women, dressed in brand new clothes, presented to the community as
an adult, and after everyone gave her gifts, we prayed over her. When it was all done we began the four hours
of driving to drop off all the Chipembe women before driving back into
Montepuez. We were exhausted, but it was
so much fun!
Over the last few weeks Alan has been going with several
church leaders to the village of Nikokwe.
It is a place that the church has tried to reach out to before, but
there had been resistance for religious reasons in the past. This time, though, has been different. There is a man of peace there, and he and his
family have welcomed all of us with open arms.
They'll be discussing baptism next week and hopefully there will be a
new church plant there soon - please pray for this village.
One interesting dynamic of the rainy season this year is
that Cruz and Armindo, two young men that Alan has been discipling for the past
few years, have been back in Montepuez on break from school, and we've been
able to see a lot more of them than usual.
They've used some of their school holiday time to teach and do
evangelism on their own in a few different places, and it has been exciting to
see them grow in confidence and take more and more initiative.
When Monte and Beth Cox and Evertt and Ilene Huffard visited
our team in May, they counseled us and the Mozambican church leaders that it
was time to begin naming deacons to serve and lead the churches, and that one
of the biggest needs of these churches is in the area of communication and
collaboration between churches. There
are about 50 Churches of Christ in Cabo Delgado and the distances between the
members of this young movement continues to be a substantial barrier. Just as the early church selected deacons to
address a specific problem they were facing (Acts 6), we were all encouraged to
let that be the way to address our challenge as well. After presenting this plan to some key church
leaders, Jeremy, Chad, Alan, and two Mozambican missionaries (who've been living
and working with the Churches of Christ in Cabo Delgado) began the process of
teaching about deacons and facilitating the selection process in the 13 church
clusters. While this process hasn't been
without its hiccups, it has been a joy to see churches select their own leaders
and for us as American and Mozambican missionaries to get to lay hands on and pray
for these servants. Alan said that the
selection process in the Chipembe cluster was one of the highlights of his
life. It was a beautiful day, and he was
so encouraged to watch the young churches' maturity in choosing leaders while
still having such openness and honesty that members felt free to speak directly
to them and promise to hold them accountable.
Unfortunately, a third Mozambican missionary has been
hostile to these plans lately. After
initially agreeing to this process and promising to participate he has started putting
up roadblocks and has threatened to divide the church. It has been sad to watch him burn up his
influence with many people as lots of church members are saying his actions are
driven by greed and a desire to hold onto control and power over the
church. Please pray that God would
change his heart and that the church would find a peaceful solution to this.
Also, please pray for us as we renew our residency
documents. This year we are eligible (again) for permanent resident status
which means we would have to renew the documents every five years instead of
annually. Unfortunately, the process is
moving very slowly right now, for several reasons, one of which is that there is
no electricity in the whole northern half of the country. Thanks for joining with us in prayer about
this; these government documents are an important part of keeping us here, and
permanent approval would make our travel plans this year a lot smoother.
When we looked at the calendar today, we realized it is
about a hundred days until we leave for furlough (Yikes!). We've been talking about it more and more with
our Mozambican friends, sharing the vision for teaching at Harding University to
encourage/train more missionaries and disciple-makers on that side of the
world. Most of them are excited for us,
though we've had to make many reassurances that we'll be coming straight back home
to Montepuez as soon as the school year is over. At one of the deacon selection meetings,
someone made reference to our trip to the United States and asked how this
would impact that group of churches. A
number of members responded that since their leaders are now officially in
place, the work of the church will keep going forward. May it be so!
Please pray with us for:
- Peace and unity in the church, especially among leaders
- Success in receiving permanent residency documents
- Steady rain and a good harvest in people's farms
- Continued peace in Mozambique and thanksgiving for peaceful elections last year
Grace and Peace,
Rachel, Alan and the girls
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