'The Story' and helping kids find their way through the trees

Our sponsoring congregation, the Donelson Church of Christ, is going through The Story (check it out at TheStory.com). The church as a whole is using this material to study through the main events of the Bible to better understand God's Story and what it means for our stories. Before we finished up our furlough and left Nashville to began our journey home to Mozambique, Brian Oliver handed me a copy of the The Story for Children by Lucado, Frazee and Hill.  It is has terrific artwork and well crafted chapters.  I was pumped because it was going to be my turn to teach the Bible class for the kids and now I knew what we could use with them every Tuesday night for the next few months.

The week before I started going through the Story with the kids, my teammate Jeremy Smith and I were presented with a challenge.  He had a group of church leaders who wanted to get a better understanding of what the Bible was all about. So, in just four sessions how could we teach through the main story of the Bible?

We settled on telling the story of the Bible as the story of four trees. It is the story of a God who created a people who then lost their way.  But, God rescued his people - making a way for them to come back to Him.  So, it is a story about being lost and finding the way again.

With the first tree - the tree of knowledge (Genesis 1-3) we see how God created the world and put his prized creations, Man and Woman in a beautiful garden.  He told them to rule over the garden and that everything in it was theirs to enjoy.  In the middle of the garden there was a tree of knowledge that God told Adam and Eve not to eat from.  Adam and Eve were deceived by a serpent and ate the fruit of that tree.  Because of their disobedience, they had to leave the garden, stop eating from the tree of life, and live in a world cursed because of their sin.

The second tree we come to is the burning bush (Exodus 3). Most of Adam and Eve's children followed in their sinning ways.  But, God made a promise to a good man named Abraham and led his children, the Israelites, down to Egypt.  There, they suffered as slaves. One day, God called to a man named Moses from a burning bush.  He told Moses to tell Egypt's king to let God's people go.  God did many miracles to get Israel out of Egypt and made a path through the sea to get them out and lead them eventually to a promised land.

The third tree we come to is the cross (Mark 15-16). God's people lived in a new land, but continued to disobey God.  God called after them, sending many messengers until he finally sent his son Jesus. Jesus came to show us how to live and died on a tree, the cross, where he defeated humanity's enemies - Sin, Death, and Satan.  God asks us to join him in loving and blessing the world until Jesus comes again.

Finally we come to the fourth tree, the tree of life (Revelation 22:1-5) One day, we believe that Jesus will return.  The dead will rise, Jesus will set things right and those who belong to him will inhabit a new world, renewed through God's power.  We will dwell with God in a beautiful city where there is no death, no darkness and no curse.  God will replant the tree of life in the middle of the city and its' fruit and leaves will heal us all.

God uses the story of four trees in the Bible to help mark our path.  We can remember where we have been, and see where we are going.  Where we live in Mozambique many people use trees to mark their path (most mud huts look the same - as you can imagine!).  They say, "turn at the coconut tree," and "when you get to the big mango tree you are almost there."  We use trees to help guide us. God uses the story of these four trees found in the Bible to help us find our way home - a home with Him.

In my first class going through The Story for Children with the kids on the team, I asked the older ones: "If someone asked you what the Bible was all about what would you say?"  Luke said, "Well I would say that we learn about God creating the world and keeping it running." Abby said, "I think I would talk about Jesus dying and rising again." Ellie said, "Yeah and we would need to talk about all the great things Jesus did and said."  Then Andrew thought for a while and said, "This is a really hard question."

I had them line up on the wall.  Each of them took on the role of one of the four trees or a major character in our "Four Tree Story" timeline (Abby really likes being the Burning Bush!). Over the following weeks we would line up and each of them would have a crack at telling the overarching story of the Bible using the four trees. 

After a few weeks, we decided to put the Four Trees story into a song to help us remember.  We picked a familiar tune and I think the kids have most of the song down by now (Katie needs help keeping the lines straight - though she is really cute singing what she remembers).  

I put a copy of the song below so you can check it out.  So, far the kids have really enjoyed going through The Story and it has been fun to have a hook like the "Four Trees Story" to help them remember how all the individual Bible stories fit into the overall narrative of what God's Story is really all about.

Grace and Peace,

Alan

Our Way through the Trees

(to the tune of "Down by the Bay")

by Abby, Ellie and Alan Howell

Long, long ago - there was a tree

Down in a garden - made for Adam and Eve

And God said "Don't - eat from that tree"

But, the sneaky snake

said God's rule was fake.

And they lost their way.

And then in Egypt - God's people were slaves

so he called Moses - from a bush on flames

he said, "Tell Pharaoh - 'Let my people free!'"

Moses led them to the sea

where it came to be

that God made a way.

Then God sent Jesus - made blind men see

taught us to live - set people free

gave up his life - died on a tree

He defeated death,

and he lives today.

He is the Way!

Jesus will return - he'll plant a tree

and it will grow - by the crystal stream

it's fruit and leaves - will heal us all

So, in the end,

our God will win.

Oh, what a day!

So, that is how - God leads us home

And in the darkness - no more to roam

He's made a way - through these four trees

And so now we know

how God's Story goes

He leads the way!

november news

Hello from northern Mozambique!

Greetings! And happy week-before-Thanksgiving! We love hearing about what God is doing in your neighborhood, and we enjoy sharing with you what He is doing in ours. As one of the writers in Proverbs put it, "like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land."

Not long after our last blog post, we were happy to receive our teammates the Westerholms back from their furlough. And on the same flight, our first grade teacher, Rebekah Keese, arrived as well! Our girls were delighted to reconnect with Maggie and Jane, and Ellie and Maggie love having "Miss Rebekah" for first grade.

The last weekend in October our team, together with the Napai church here in town, hosted the first-ever Youth Conference for Churches of Christ in Montepuez. It was exciting and refreshing to see so many young people (about 90, roughly 15-30 years old) worshiping and studying together. Churches here are still tiny compared to the surrounding population, which means that seminars and conferences are a huge encouragement to believers as they sing, learn, and pray together in such a big number. The theme of the conference was the book of James, divided into five different sessions and taught by both Mozambican leaders and some of our team. Alan co-taught one of the sessions with Cruz, a young man he has been discipling. Several of the churches that sent young people were also assigned certain sections of the book of James to put into song; several times throughout the conference they would share the new song and teach it to the whole assembly. The response has been good; in the area north of town we have noticed more confidence and enthusiasm in the young people who went to the conference.

I treasure my Fridays with women in villages north of town. The two different discipleship groups are each about halfway through the Sermon on the Mount, and it is sweet to see them growing in confidence. It is fun to watch their eyes pop open at some of the ways Jesus describes Kingdom life (turning the other cheek?!), and also fun to watch them passionately discuss what they've heard. And it is beautiful to see their children already living a different childhood than their parents.

Looking at the calendar, we should finish up this round of the Sermon on the Mount by mid-January, when we'll take a break during February and March. That time of year many people move out to their farms to cultivate and weed their growing crops and to chase the monkeys and rodents away, and it is harder for people to get together regularly. (Those are also the months that some roads become a nasty, muddy mess!) We're praying about what's next for these two groups; we may decrease the frequency that we meet so we can start visiting with women in Nkororo who've asked to study together in their village.

The church in Newara has had some struggles; the two men have left the church, leaving a church full of women and one very, very old man who can barely see and hear. They are still very new to following Jesus, but we have been encouraged by their perseverance in studying and worshiping together, which is significant in a culture that, while matrilineal, is still very patriarchal. Maria, a new believer in the church in Newara, has been a midwife and traditional healer in that village for years, and she had kept the spirit-house with its white flag. We've had some conversations recently about her work and the spirit-house and its meaning, but I'm not from here and didn't grow up in a culture of spirit-houses, and my ability to ask probing questions and give instruction in this area of culture is limited. One of the best parts of this stage in our work here is that there are maturing believers who can appropriately challenge these parts of the culture, so I asked my friend Delfina, a sweet godly woman from the Napai church, to come with us two Sundays ago to worship in Newara. The church was happy to have an extra visitor, and she asked challenging but respectful questions and gave good godly counsel to Maria and the rest of the women.

Twice recently I've spent the night out in villages with women; once for an initiation ceremony for a girl in the church, and once with one of the discipleship groups north of town. It is fun to have the extended fellowship and worship time with women I love, but it is also humbling to be reminded of how difficult daily life is for Mozambicans, and that I did not grow up that way. I have tried to learn several of their skills over the years, but I still have not had much practice at extended hours of hoeing, the daily sweating over the fire to cook the shima, mastering the wrist skill required to sift the grain by tossing it up in the air with the basket and then catching the grain again while the husk floats away. They are strong and hard-working, but physical suffering is a daily reality.

Alan continues studying on Tuesdays with groups in Nekwaya/Kambiri/Nakuka and Nkororo. He has also continued going to the Chiure district with Jeremy to study with leaders there. Alan and Jeremy developed a 4 week curriculum to teach the overarching story of the Bible. The study focuses on four trees from scripture: the tree in Garden of Eden, Moses and the burning bush, the Cross, and the tree of Life in the book of Revelation. These trees serve to frame the larger story of redemption in the Bible. And as people here often use trees to give directions "turn right at the Mango tree," and "turn left at the tall coconut tree," they encourage the participants to tell the story in a way that helps people find their way home.

In October, Alan co-taught a seminar in using storytelling and oral strategies to produce better Bible translations at SIL/Wycliffe in Nampula. Translation teams for seven different Mozambican language groups participated. It was a great and stretching experience for Alan to step out of his usual routine and use some of the tools he uses in ministry and apply them in a different way - to Bible translation. Overall the seminar went well and the teams produced some texts that were easier to read and captured more of the way those languages are spoken on the street.

On the family business front, we've had one trip to Immigration in Pemba for Alan and I to renew our annual residence documents, which is not so stressful as it used to be (though more expensive!), but alas we have only completed 19 of the 37 steps required for us to get Mozambican drivers' licenses. Ok, I am exaggerating... just a little bit. The girls are doing great, loving school and their lovely teachers. Ellie turns SEVEN this weekend and has four loose teeth, and she is so excited about all of that. Abby is still a voracious reader with a tender heart, and is WAY too tall if you ask my opinion. Katie is our clown who is trying to learn how to tell jokes; she loves preschool, and we are so thankful that she has been a LOT easier on us in the potty-training department than either of her sisters were!

We are looking forward to getting together with our team and a couple other American families next week to celebrate Thanksgiving from afar; our traditions have grown to include not only a fairly traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but also a piñata bash, a half marathon, and lots of time skyping with families in the US!

We are thankful to participate in God's work in this corner of his world.

We are thankful to be blessed with such a dedicated, loving, servant-hearted team.

We are thankful for health and healing.

We are thankful for God's loving Kingdom that is already inaugurated but still coming.

We are thankful for dear friends, in Mozambique and in the States.

As we wrap up, please pray for our Mozambican friends in the "time of hunger," the annual three to four months (November-February) before the harvest (March-April) when food supplies are diminishing. And pray for the rains (December-March) to be strong and steady but not flooding.

We love and miss you!
Love,
Rachel for all of us

welcome home

Hello from northern Mozambique!

We treasure the time we had to spend with so many of you on our furlough this summer! We spent most of our time in Texas and Tennessee, with a road trip through Indiana, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Florida, and Georgia. We tried to see as many loved ones as we could fit into the calendar - please forgive us if we didn't make it to you! Overall, furlough was very rich and full of the blessings of getting to be with dearly loved friends and family; we deeply appreciated all the conversations, meals, and coffee, and we really enjoyed seeing how God is moving and working in your lives and neighborhoods. Going back and forth between Mozambique and the US, we feel we are abundantly blessed with more than one lifetime's worth of friendships, and we have so many "homes" in which to lay our heads!

We have been back on the ground in Mozambique for four weeks now, and are back into most, though not all, of our regular routines; life and work move more slowly here. We are so thankful for the love and hospitality of our teammates the Smiths who provided us with over a week of meals while we unpacked and got organized and cleaned all the dust. Coming home after furlough also means coming home to a nearly empty pantry and freezer; in addition to a supply-shopping trip to Nampula, since we returned I have made yogurt, sourdough, granola, mayonnaise, and chicken broth, frozen cooked chicken and ground beef, roasted 40 pounds of peanuts, and canned 68 pounds of tomatoes into 14 jars of tomato sauce and 22 pounds of cucumbers into 14 jars of dill relish. Whew!

And now for the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT... Many of you will remember that due to severe water shortages over the past few years, in late November 2011 we paid a South African well-drilling company $10,000 to drill a deep bore well here on the land. They drilled down to 66 meters, hitting two significant water veins, cased and capped the well and left promising to return to install the pump (part of the deal) in a matter of weeks. The weeks turned into months, and by the time we left for furlough at the end of April, they still had not returned to put the pump on the well, despite all our emails and phone calls inquiring/asking when they would return to complete the job. Many of you asked us about this on furlough and have prayed about it; we had come to a point where we were assuming that the drilling company would not return and that when we returned to Montepuez we would need to buy a pump and pay someone else to install it.

WELL, (ha ha) we landed in Pemba August 25 in the afternoon and got to Montepuez after dark, and enjoyed supper with our teammates. We slept our first night back in our own beds, and, we woke up (still very groggy with jet lag) to a phone call saying the drilling company was back in town. Alan got the guy on the phone, and he said he had the pump and would be over to the land shortly to install it! So, ten months after the drilling, we now have a functioning bore hole on the land filling up our tanks an cisterns as needed - thank you (thank you! thank you!) for all your prayers. I'm reminded of Jesus' instruction in Matthew 6 not to worry "because your heavenly Father knows what you need."

Living and working as missionaries is unique in that many of the things we use/need are not actually ours - the land, the house, the car, the well drilled for water. We rely on God to provide these things, often through his people (You!), and we don't forget this. We see his love and your love daily as we wake up in this house, as our children play on the land with their friends and go to school in the school house, as we use water, and drive the truck to this or that village. Our thanks go to our great God, and we also thank you for letting his generosity flow through you! So we are feeling more and more settled and "at home." After unpacking and cleaning, we have even been able to get around to some tasks that we didn't have time for between moving in and leaving for furlough; despite a few setbacks and frustrations, Alan has been able to get running water inside the house now (hooray!), and we finally hung our wedding pictures on the wall. We're working on getting hot water in the showers, hopefully it won't be too much longer. Abby and Ellie have been really good sports about taking cold showers; Katie, though, screams as if she's been seriously injured, so we've been heating up a bucket for her bath...

We were sad to say good-bye to Robert, Allison, Miriam Berger before we left on furlough, but were so thankful that they gave a year of their lives to come and be the first teacher to join the team, and we will miss them! We also excited to announce that we have new teammates; Kara Tobey arrived just a few days before us, and after getting settled she is now in her third week of teaching the third/fourth grade class. Kara was one of our missions interns from Harding University in 2009, and we are very happy to have her back! Rebekah Keese will also be arriving in a couple weeks (on the plane with the Westerholms returning from furlough) to teach the first grade class, and we are excited to have her here as well! I'm not sure Kara or Rebekah (or Allison and Robert) can fully understand how much we appreciate their faith and commitment to come and teach the team kids; education of children can be one of the biggest challenges missionaries have to figure out, with some missionaries making major career or field changes due to lack of adequate educational options.

This week we resumed several regular activities from before furlough; I started going north Friday to pick up the weekly women's study in two different village churches, and Alan went down to Chiure with Jeremy today to begin again their mentoring visits with leaders there. We've worshipped with three different churches since we returned; we gave them your greetings, which they appreciated very much, and they've asked specifically about those of you that have come to visit here. Two Sundays ago we shared a meal with the Chipembe/Omeringue/Nkunama church cluster and were served monkey meat with our lunch, which was a first for us, even after all these years. It's funny to me to watch my two year-old slurp down monkey meat complete with skin like it's an everyday thing. The church members clarified that it wasn't baboon (akhole) but a smaller monkey (nsapwe) "about the size of a cat" that one of the men caught in a trap. Just a little different from the meals we shared with so many of you in the States!

Thank you again for all your love and support and prayers; we miss you when we are far away!

Please pray with us for:

• The first annual youth conference coming up at the end of October in Montepuez

• Wisdom as we mentor disciples

• For God's reign to take root in hearts and bear fruit

• The Westerholms and Rebekah Keese arriving the first week of October

Much peace to you,

Rachel and Alan Howell

heading over for furlough

Greetings again from northern Mozambique!

As I write we are two weeks away from departure for furlough in the States, which means we are trying to balance our regular responsibilities and commitments while also preparing to be gone for a few months! To complicate things a little bit we’ve also had a computer virus which has kept us offline for most of February and March, and we’ve been sick ourselves, too – lately it seems like we’ve caught every little bug that’s going around, and we’re a little weary of being sick. One nice change has been the weather – right about April 1^st the temperatures dropped from their heights and turned cooler, with cool breezes blowing almost all day. We’ve been wearing long sleeves and jackets several mornings, and I can’t ever remember wearing long sleeves in April in Montepuez before.

Before going further, you’ll remember Brian and Laura Beth Oliver and Roy Young from the Donelson church visited us here in Mozambique back in October. Brian’s skills as a videographer are stunning, and he has blessed us by making a video about the work here. Many of you may have already seen this, but in case you haven’t seen it yet, you’re in for a treat – just click on this link! http://vimeo.com/35650818

Alan and Jeremy are continuing their leadership training with a group of nine men in Chiure, studying through the book of 1 Peter as well as talking about intentionally making disciples and investing in new leaders. This group of men is already bearing fruit, and it is exciting to see God working in their lives. After the study a couple weeks ago, Alan spent the night in the village of Mahipa, where two of the students are from, to visit with them in their homes and continue the conversation about how to put what they have been studying into practice. Alan is also going through ministry training materials with leaders of four of the churches north of Montepuez (Nkororo, Nekwaya, Nakuka, Khambiri). This past Saturday Alan was with the group from the village of Nkororo as they studied through the story of Nehemiah and talked about what we can learn about leadership from his example.

Alan has a new ministry opportunity that we would appreciate prayers for. A missionary doctor-friend who works with the Leprosy Mission International is interested in making a series of recordings of biblical stories for the leprosy care groups to listen to, and he asked for our team’s input since we speak Makua-Metto. Alan agreed to write the dialogue for a couple of sample recordings which we will record on April 19^th. The recordings will consist of the text of the story from scripture and then three participants having a conversation about what they heard and how it applies to life today. Alan has really enjoyed working on these initial dialogues and recordings, and he sees the potential for these recordings to be useful for passing on the biblical stories to multiple audiences, especially in such an oral society. Please keep this project in your prayers.

On Fridays I have continued studying slowly through the Sermon on the Mount with women in Newara and in the Chipembe/Nkunama/Omeringue church cluster, and I love being with these women and their children! They are far from perfect (as am I!), and there are still a lot of scriptures they haven’t heard yet. But it is beautiful to see their lives and their children’s lives starting to look different as they answer Jesus’ invitation to walk in God’s Kingdom. Coming up on Easter weekend there were two people in Newara who were ready to be baptized, and two people in Chipembe as well, but Alan and I had already committed to worship in town that Sunday, so we couldn’t come join their worship and celebration. The Friday before Easter I listened as the women in the Chipembe cluster actively discussed whether or not they were going to walk the 7-8 miles (2-3 hours) down to Newara, and Alan and I prayed like crazy through the weekend that they follow through and go worship and do baptisms together. Yesterday I went up for our study in Newara and was thrilled to hear that the Chipembe/ Nkunama/ Omeringue believers had walked to Newara and that they had baptized four people together!

Seeing people catch glimpses of God’s Kingdom and realize that Jesus is inviting them to come walk with Him in it is thrilling; seeing the church BE the body of Christ to each other and their neighbors makes us want to jump up and down and shout! Small churches walking 8 miles to worship and baptize new believers together, without any involvement from us, is a sign of love and maturity here. Other exciting recent news was that over the past few months the larger church in town began organizing different days for members to go together to hoe the fields of the widows in their church, again, without any involvement from us. It’s enough to make us shout Hallelujah!

We are excited to share news of growing churches with you! To see the full picture, though, is to remember that these churches are tiny in relation to the surrounding population, and there are plenty of significant challenges and growing pains. Drunkenness is everywhere, most marriages are flimsy, and apathy is a big problem. We invite you to seriously pray with us over the darkness in this area, that more and more people will see the growing Light.

On the home front we continue to be daily reminded of the love God has shown us through the generosity of his children to build this house – thank you so much! On Saturday April 21^st at noon we’re having an open house party to celebrate God’s generosity in building the house, and you are all welcome to join us! We’ve finished a few other projects on the house; the closets have shelves now, and the carpenter should bring the closet doors soon. Alan went to Pemba this week to get the tank and pump for our cistern so we can pressurize and have running water in the house. Currently we’re still using rain water in the cistern, and yes, unfortunately we’re still waiting for the drilling company to return and install the pump on the well so the well can be usable (It’s been four months now that we’re waiting on the pump for the well; please pray for the drilling company to fulfill their contract with us.)

We have loved having Robert, Allison, and Miriam Berger as teammates this year, and it’s hard to believe that our girls are wrapping up their school year with “Miss Allison.” Allison teaching the two classes of team children has blessed us tremendously and kept us from extra stress and exhaustion in a year of high stress and multiple transitions for the whole team. Robert has also been helping our team configure maps of the churches in our area in addition to caring for their baby daughter Miriam while Allison is teaching. Since we moved to the land we’ve been next-door neighbors with the Bergers, and we will really miss having them here. Looking ahead, we’ve been praying for God to provide teachers for the coming year, and we received great news this week that Kara Tobey, one of our former interns, and Rebekah Keese will be joining our team this fall to teach our children for the coming school year!

We are thankful for the ways God provides; He is so faithful. Lately we’ve been asking Him to provide us with some rest and rejuvenation while on furlough, which is coming up soon. We are very much looking forward to treasuring our long-awaited time in the States with family and loved ones that we miss so much (and hot showers, broccoli, strawberries, Chili’s, and leaving the girls with grandparents are all bonus)!

Please pray with us:

· For believers to grow in Christ-likeness, teaching their children and neighbors to do the same

· For health for our family

· For the well-drilling company to return and finish putting a pump on the well

· For safety and rest in our furlough travels, no lost luggage, and that our children will sleep well on the planes April 28/29!

See you very soon!

Love,

Rachel and Alan Howell

a day in January

For this newsletter we wanted to share with you one example of a day can be like here in our corner of the world - enjoy!

On Fridays I go visit and study through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount with some women I love north of town, alternating Fridays between the village of Newara and the village cluster of Chipembe/Omeringue/Nkunama. Friday January 20^th I got up early because I was going to Omeringue. I had packed my backpack the night before to save time – I have the scriptures in Makua and in Portuguese, my own drinking water and toilet paper for the day, vitamins to share with my friends (a frequent request), a few pieces of candy for their kids, and a couple empty sacks, since they never fail to send me home with corn flour or mangos or cassava or beans.

One of my friends from Chipembe had gotten a ride with me back into town two weeks earlier (January 6^th); her name is Juliana and the church in Chipembe worships at her house. She has a lot of health problems, and was scheduled to get an injection at the hospital in Montepuez on January 17^th. Even though getting a ride on the 6^th was way earlier than she needed to come, it was a free ride and she knew I wouldn’t be back in Chipembe again until the 20^th, after her scheduled appointment at the hospital. When she is in town she stays with her mother Filomena, who has a house in one of the large neighborhoods in Montepuez (when I say neighborhood, you need to picture thousands of mud huts with grass roofs all close together, with narrow mud paths between, and limited mud paths wide enough for cars to pass). Juliana had polio as a teenager and can’t walk without a long walking stick, but even then her legs are so wasted and twisted that she really can’t go far, so we had agreed that I would go get her at her mother’s house early that morning, and then we’d leave for Omeringue together.

I had only been to her mother’s house in Montepuez once before; I was mostly confident (and only a tiny bit doubtful) I could find it again (many of the mud huts look exactly the same, and here in town they are often on a grid, which can make it tricky remembering whose house is whose.) Unfortunately, soon after entering the neighborhood I came upon a huge, old mango tree that had fallen across the path in the strong winds the night before. At this point it’s about 7:15 a.m., and I was still so far from Filomena’s house that I knew they probably didn’t know about the tree that was blocking my path to reach them. A crowd of people had gathered around the fallen tree all discussing what should be done about it and how it should be done, but I knew that the tree wouldn’t be moved in time for me to get through that morning.

So I was stuck there with the truck and a crowd of strangers staring at me while I tried to decide what to do. I told a few folks standing around that I was trying to go get my friend because she can’t walk and we were going somewhere together, and they tried to help me find an alternate path, but none were wide enough, and I wasn’t confident enough of my knowledge of the neighborhood to go blundering around with truck and get lost in the maze of mud huts (it is a big neighborhood) or get stuck in the mud somewhere. So I locked the car and started walking, following the path I knew to get to Filomena’s house, all the while hoping (and mostly sure) that I was on the right road. After about twenty minutes of walking, a lady that I had seen way back near the fallen tree calls out to me from about six houses away “Hey, you’re going the wrong way; I found your friend you’re looking for!” So because of that tiny seed of uncertainty in my knowledge of that neighborhood I turned off down a different path to follow her, and we walk together for about 15 more minutes. She took me to a house that I didn’t recognize, and said “here’s your friend that can’t walk!” And there was a lady in the yard who couldn’t walk well, using a walking stick, with legs wasted from polio, but it wasn’t my friend Juliana, and it wasn’t Filomena’s house…

So I left, slightly annoyed – not at the lady who had tried to help me but at myself that I hadn’t stuck with what I had been mostly sure was the right path. The helpful lady walked with me, which was kind, and we backtracked to the path I had been on, and, to keep me humble, we discovered I had only been about four houses away from Filomena’s house when I had been called away! Juliana was waiting, and her children ran up to hug me, and together with Filomena and some more of her children we all laughed about how late it was and about my adventures trying to get to them that morning.

As we began picking up small children and all Juliana’s things to walk back to the car, she mentioned that she actually hadn’t gotten her treatment at the hospital yet. She went on the 17^th, the scheduled day for the injection, and was told they were out of that medicine and to come back the next day because they were sure they’d have it then. She went back on the 18^th, and again on the 19^th too and was turned away each time, but the people at the hospital were of course very confident they’d have the right supplies the next day on the 20^th. Another thing to understand about life here is that there are always a couple hundred people at the hospital’s clinic every morning, often waiting hours to be seen, so at this point I’m shaking my head and wondering what else is going to happen that morning to keep us from getting on the road to Omeringue.

We loaded up Juliana and her children and her parcels of food and clothing into the truck and drove to the clinic, and I waited out front and called Alan to explain why it was 8:30 and I hadn’t even left town yet. I was expecting a long wait, but surprisingly (and thankfully!) Juliana had asked the people in line if she could slip in at the front of the line, and (also surprisingly) they let her, and she was back in the truck in less than ten minutes, and we got on the road to Omeringue.

The road north is the least-travelled road out of Montepuez, and the rains had beat down hard on it those past two months, leaving lots of mud, deep puddles up to the width of the road, and other places where fast-draining rainwater has washed away half the road, leaving a very small space to pass by the gaping holes. Driving to Chipembe usually takes about 45 minutes (about 16 miles), with another 5-10 minute drive to Omeringue. We pulled into Chipembe with lots of mud splashed up on the truck, and Juliana got out to put her things away, and I walked to the house of another friend Hajira, to tell her we’d arrived and were ready to go to Omeringue. I went to say hi to the wife of the chief of the Chipembe, and she asked if I had room for some passengers when I returned back to Montepuez that afternoon, so we agreed on a spot where I would pick them up later that day. Hajira and Juliana got in the car, and four of their children with them, and we drove a few more minutes to Omeringue.

There is a broken bridge just before Omeringue, but the part of the bridge that remains intact is just barely wide enough for the wheel base of our truck, so we can cross, but it still makes me a little nervous. Laurentina and her daughter Benedita were waiting for us, and we all greeted each other and chatted for awhile while a small crowd of children from Omeringue gathered to watch (a white woman speaking Makua is a strange sight); they especially enjoyed hearing the story of why we were so late leaving Montepuez that morning. There was a funeral going on for another family in Omeringue that morning; a young mother had gotten sick with a virus and severe diarrhea and had been taken to the hospital in Montepuez and died there. Laurentina pointed out a couple of the neighbor children who had gathered as the children of the woman who died, the youngest of which still didn’t believe that his mother had died and was still claiming that she was in Montepuez. Two of the six women from that church cluster who usually study with us did not come that day; Elisa and Elena from Nkunama were out working in their farm because they have a serious problem with baboons coming and stealing seed and crops.

After about an hour of fellowship and conversation, we sang a few songs and prayed together and opened up Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. That day we studied Matthew 4. 21-30, which includes the section where Jesus puts hate and contempt at the same level as murder, and lust at the same level as adultery, as well as the sections on prioritizing forgiveness over religious ritual and humbly resolving disputes with a neighbor before it gets out of hand. Of these six friends, only two can read, Juliana and Elena, and only Juliana was there that day. So we take a more oral approach when we study together; I read the passage aloud two or three times, and then I go back and read it phrase by phrase with them repeating each phrase, and we end up covering the same passage up to seven or eight times so it really sinks in.

Some of the content that day was pretty straightforward; when Jesus said anger, contempt, and insulting someone are the same as murder in the heart of the perpetrator, while provocative it’s not hard to understand what he’s getting at. Other sections, though, were trickier – Jesus didn’t really mean for his listeners to cut off their hand if it caused them to sin, but he was trying to show that you could cut off lots of body parts and still have evil in your heart, and that it is what is in our hearts is the true cause of sin and selfishness.

We talked for a long time about what we had heard; I mentioned that Jesus is calling us and teaching us to go beyond actions (not killing anyone) to having hearts that love (not insulting or having contempt), which of course takes care of the actions, too (without contempt there is no murder, without lust there is no adultery). The longest discussion that day was about adultery; three of the women shared how they used to sleep around, but that since beginning to follow Jesus they hadn’t done it since. The fourth woman (who has been a Christian the shortest amount of time) joined in the discussion pretty freely saying she had done that some but didn’t realize she wasn’t supposed to, and the other women encouraged her to stay faithful to her husband.

After we finished discussing what we’d heard, we prayed for each other and then Laurentina went and finished cooking lunch. We ate xima and matapa; xima is a stiff porridge made of corn flour, and matapa is whatever you eat with that, which that day was two different types of greens – leaves from the cassava plant and leaves from bean plants. We made plans for the Friday two weeks from then to come to Omeringue, leave the car, and walk to Nkunama since it is so difficult for Elisa and Elena to get away, and the road isn’t passable by car this time of year.

One of Laurentina’s grown sons wanted a ride into Montepuez that day, and when I asked if it was just him, he said he wanted to take two goats with him to sell. So he tied the legs of the goats and got them into the back of the truck with help from a friend. The road back to Montepuez, of course, didn’t get any smoother on our return trip, and the goats screamed at nearly every bump in the road. If you’ve ever heard goats bleating loudly in protest, you know that they can sound eerily like a person who is very incoherent but crying and wailing really, really loudly. One other older man from Omeringue asked for a ride into Montepuez, and in Chipembe we picked up the three passengers (school teachers) who needed a ride.

Returning on the muddy roads that afternoon with our screaming goats, we came upon a truck stuck in the mud. The truck belonged to the large cotton company in Montepuez, but the driver that day had decided to blaze a new trail through the soft mud on the edges instead of straight through the middle of the puddle, and he was really, really stuck. Up until that day I had always let Alan be the one to use four-wheel drive; I’ve had a weird phobia of getting the truck stuck in the mud and not being able to get out. So that day was my first time to go into four-wheel drive to try to pull the other vehicle out, but unfortunately we weren’t successful! I left our tow strap with him before I left, and thankfully about ten minutes down the road I saw a tractor on its way to pull him out. (With all the rain we’ve had since that day I’ve had a lot more practice using four-wheel drive!)

Back in town I dropped off the passengers (and the screaming goats!) at a few different places, and headed home; it wasn’t long before the guy from the cotton company came to return our tow strap as the tractor had successfully pulled him out of the mud. I always really miss my girls after being gone all day, and it’s fun to come home to them and be greeted by squeals and hugs!

Thanks for taking the time to hear about what a day here can be like! For those who’ve asked us, “What’s a normal day like for you guys?”, now you’ve got a glimpse!

We miss you when we are far away; and we are very much looking forward to furlough in a few months!

Much love and peace to you!

Rachel and Alan Howell

Happy New Year 2012! Whew!

Hello friends and family!

Greetings from the rainy season! The rains are in full swing here in northern Mozambique; which means that the corn and the rice and the beans are growing, the roads are a muddy mess, and many of our friends are spending a lot of their time out in their fields hoeing and weeding the grass and weeds from around their crops. It also means that the cloud cover is keeping out the bulk of the heat most days, which is a relief. Unfortunately at this point in the rainy season the mosquito and fly populations have exploded, bringing an increase in malaria and diarrhea with them, and a lot of people are sick. And of course while we are praying for sufficient rain for the crops, we also know that flooding is always a risk; recently a tropical storm in the Indian Ocean caused a lot of flooding in the south of Mozambique. Many people died, and roads, houses, and livestock were washed away in the floods; please pray for the families in the south who are trying to rebuild their lives right now. Still, we are praying for the rains to continue through February and March, just without flooding. We have been here long enough to have been through a year or two when the rains stopped in January, which is too early, causing many of the crops to die. So pray with us for the rain!

In November I started going north every other Friday to regularly visit with some women I love and study the scriptures together. Six women from the three small village churches of Chipembe, Omeringue, and Nkunama had been asking to study together, and we decided to go through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Those three villages are very close to each other; we meet in a different home each week, spend some time singing and praying together, and then read/listen to/discuss a passage. We also always share a lot of fellowship and conversation and a meal together of xima (stiff cornmeal porridge) and matapa (usually beans or greens). Only two of those women can read, so we do everything orally and with a lot of repetition and then discussion about what we’ve heard. Since we’ve started studying in Chipembe, the women from the church in Newara asked to study together as well, so since the New Year I’ve been going to visit and study with the five women there on the alternate Fridays.

Hearing Jesus’ teaching from the Sermon on the Mount is so rich and deep – I love watching people hear it who haven’t heard it before: hearing who is really blessed in God’s Kingdom is different than who the world thinks is blessed, hearing Jesus say that insulting or hating someone is the same as murder in his Kingdom, hearing Jesus say that they are the light of the world and the salt of the earth. My prayer is that what my friends learn from Jesus they will not keep to themselves but share with their families and neighbors.

We had a fun but busy holiday time. When we are in Mozambique, we celebrate some American holidays but not others; our team has been joined for Thanksgiving by a few other American families for several years now, and it has turned into quite a large event with its own traditions that we look forward to very much (this year included a small talent show and a piñata turkey!) For Christmas we chose to share several meals together and then have a Nativity drama together as a team, with all adults and children having parts, except for the napping babies, of course.

In late November God answered our prayer for drilling a well on our land. There were several weird delays and setbacks, but after a couple weeks of the crew sitting on the land, the well was finally drilled, cased, and capped. The drilling company has had some more delays in returning to install the pump, but that will hopefully be completed soon (in the mean time we’re catching rain water off our roof).

Despite the delightful holidays, overall November and December turned out to be exhausting for our family. We had a deadline of the end of the year to be out of our rental house, and our landlord already had a new tenant lined up and waiting to move in as soon as we left. We knew we would be moving into an unfinished house no matter how much we got done, so Alan worked long, hot days starting at 4 a.m. and hired extra crews to finish certain parts of the house so as much as possible could be completed before we started actually living there. We moved in during the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and we are relieved to have it over with. Our teammates were such a blessing to us, swooping in to help unpack, watch our children, move furniture, hang shelves and mosquito nets, and provide meals, and we are so thankful for all their help! A few things remain unfinished on the house (no running water yet!), but we’ve put those things on a list and we’ll get to them when their time comes.

We have felt so loved and supported finally living in this house that God and you built! We have been especially aware of God showing his love through his children, knowing how much generosity and sacrifice went into the giving to make this construction possible – we are overwhelmed with gratefulness even in ordinary tasks, because your love from God is written all over the walls. So thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Our teammates the Westerholms had to vacate their first rental house back in June (it was owned by the municipality, and there were new regulations regarding municipal properties), and just a few weeks ago the landlord of their second rental house asked them quite suddenly to vacate (to make room for high-paying clients). The availability of finished housing is very limited in Montepuez, and there are a couple big companies in town who can afford to pay high prices for housing for the employees that they bring in, which puts the rent far out of our range. This has been a confirmation to us and the Westerholms that building on the land was a wise decision.
Alan is thrilled to be coming to the end of this season of construction – his ministry activities were pared down to a few key ongoing activities for the past few months due to the building and the way life changes here around the rainy season. He has a few new Bible studies that will start this month; one of these studies will be with our guard Beto and his family. Beto is from a Muslim background and has been working for us for about five years now, only recently though has he become interested in studying the scriptures together. A couple of months ago he got sick and went to a magical healer here in town, and after going to this healer he showed up at our house covered in black sooty markings, feeling even worse than before. A couple days later he and Alan talked about how ineffective that trip to the magical healer was, Ellie and Alan prayed for God to heal him, Alan gave him some medicine, and he recovered quickly. Not long after that he expressed his desire to study the scriptures together, but asked to first go and talk to the leaders of his and his wife’s families. This morning Alan and Beto picked a day to start their study together, and Beto mentioned that a few of his neighbors are also interested and asked if it was okay for them to come too. Please pray for Beto and his family and the other groups we’ll be meeting with in and around Montepuez.

The school year has been going wonderfully, and we are daily thankful for Robert and Allison Berger coming this year for Allison to serve as our team teacher! Their beautiful baby girl Miriam is almost eight months old now, and we’ve really enjoyed having them as neighbors now that we’re living out on the land. The Bergers serving with our team has been a tremendous blessing in a year of high stress and multiple transitions; in addition to Allison teaching the team kids, Robert has been helping develop maps and other resources to help keep track of church growth. As we look ahead as a team we are already praying for God to continue to provide teachers for our children; please spread the word that we are recruiting!

This summer we are scheduled for a furlough in the States May through August to be with family, reconnect with friends, and share about the work God is doing in Mozambique. We are very much looking forward to enjoying the sweetness of being together in person with those we love from whom we are normally so far away. Our time will mostly be in Memphis, Dallas, and Nashville, with a couple of short trips to other locations; we would love to see as many of you as possible! We are also praying for God to provide a reliable minivan-type vehicle for the four months we are there; if you know of an available vehicle, please let us know!

Abby and Ellie are growing and loving school, and Katie Joy turned two a couple weeks ago. Katie is already quite passionate and outspoken about what she thinks and wants, which we think is wonderful, though of course it comes with its challenges. I am very thankful for how sweet and patient Abby and Ellie are with their little sister (though some days I wish they’d be more patient with each other!).

We are currently having technical difficulties with our computer whenever we are online, which we suspect may be due to a virus. We’ll be sending out this newsletter via email, and then attempting to post this same newsletter with pictures on the blog www.howellsinmoz.blogspot.com ; hopefully the pictures will post! We also will have another fun update coming to the blog in few days sharing an unusual day I had recently with a lot of Mozambican interruptions and adventures; look for it on the blog by the end of the week!

Please join with us as we pray for:
• Much praise and thanks for house construction winding down!
• Rains to continue steadily through February and March, but without severe flooding
• Healing for those with malaria and diarrhea right now
• For God’s Kingdom to come and take root in the hearts of our friends and neighbors here
• Peaceful transitions for the team and for our family with furlough this summer
• Teachers to come teach our children!

We love you and thank God for you!

Love,
Rachel and Alan and girls

November 2011 update

Dear family and friends,

We send you our hot, sweaty greetings from northern Mozambique! The temperatures have been rising steadily, and these days it isn’t unusual for the temperature in the kitchen to be over 90 degrees. Please join us in praying for RAIN as this season begins. With only one rainy season, the distribution and quantity of rainfall directly affects the amount of food our Mozambican friends have for the entire year. We’re praying for enough rain for all the crops, but not so much that flooding destroys crops.

 

In July we went to South Africa (a three and a half day drive) to have the truck worked on by a fully equipped mechanic, and also for Ellie to have surgery to close her umbilical hernia. We are grateful for all your love and prayers for Ellie; the surgery went well without any complications! My parents joined us in South Africa right after that, and we had some time of rest and play and seeing some of God’s amazing creation together while Ellie’s incision healed. Our time with them was a very precious gift.

Two days after we pulled into our driveway from the trip to South Africa, Alan’s youngest brother Aaron and his wife Erin arrived to visit, which was  so wonderful. We introduced them to as many of our Mozambican friends as we could, and though I’m sure the names of all the new people and places began to run together, they were good sports and Erin took a lot of pictures (some are pasted here in this post). Over a weekend we took them to a game reserve north of us that we’d never been to before; we saw multiple species of antelope and bird, and we even blundered right into three lions with a fresh kill (we stayed safely in the jeep, of course)!

Robert, Allison, and Miriam Berger arrived at the end of September; Allison is our team’s school teacher for the year, and we are so thankful to have her! The Bergers have been with us for a little over a month now and are getting settled into the teacher house that our teammate Jeremy Smith has been building. School has been going well; there are two classes: third and second grades together and then kindergarten, and the kids love having “Miss Allison” for a teacher. I have been teaching each class a Portuguese lesson three days a week, which has been a lot of fun.

One significant blessing from having a team teacher this year is that I’m a little freer for ministry time outside our home. This month we’ll begin switching one village day a week from Alan to me; the women (and the men) in Chipembe/Nkunama/Omeringue churches have been asking for more time for the women to study together. These are some of the women I have known the longest, and I am really looking forward to my Fridays with them.

We’re humbled and thankful to announce that the fundraising for the house is completed! Praise God; he is faithful and his children are so generous. Construction is going well, though definitely behind the schedule we’ve hoped for. Recently we had been anticipating moving before the end of November; but now we’re aiming for the end of the year. The roof is on (just in time for a good hard rain yesterday!), the plastering of the brick walls is partially done, and the wiring is installed. We have been told that the electric company will come to hook up our house this week – but we are only cautiously optimistic because that is the same thing we were told last week, the week before that… and the week before that.

While the house is nearing completion, we are still waiting on a solution for water or a well on the land. We’ve had a quote from one company of around $17,000, which was higher than we had hoped, but we’re still waiting on a quote from another company. $5,500 has already been given; please join us in praying for a reliable water source on the land. If you feel led to contribute financially to this need, you can send a check made out to Donelson Church of Christ to the following address: 2706 Old Lebanon Road, Nashville, TN 37214. A note should be included to specify that the funds are for well drilling.

Our work with and in the churches this year has taken on a different shape. Certain villages have had fewer visits than before we started on the house. While some of them are hanging in there (we’re celebrating baptisms in Nkororo and Newara next week), others are barely hanging on (Namwaciko is really struggling due to a leader’s drunkenness). It’s hard to see people we’ve invested in choose to please themselves instead of seeking to follow the will of Jesus; just this past week we participated in an impromptu intervention with a couple where the husband has taken a second wife.

Others, though, are enjoying a season of growth. In October we participated in the provincial conference where around 140 people from villages and towns all over Cabo Delgado came together to enjoy fellowship and Bible study together. It was really fun to see church members from rural and urban areas connect with each other and worship together. It was a full weekend for Jeremy, Chad and Alan as they taught, shared in many conversations, and provided a lot of the transportation with our trucks. Early Friday morning Alan drove 45km south of the conference location to the area of Macoka; he picked up over twenty people to bring them to the conference, but unfortunately had to turn others away because the car was way over capacity. He was humbled and amazed late that afternoon to see thirteen more people who walked that distance all day to come join in the fellowship, some of them carrying very small children. One of Alan’s young friends from the village of Siwewe pulled him aside and introduced his Mom, telling Alan that he had baptized her just a few weeks before. Those moments are such an encouragement and keep us going.

This week we are actually still basking in the warmth of a very loving visit from three sweet people from the Donelson church, our sponsoring church in Nashville. Roy Young and Brian and Laura Beth Oliver took the plunge and came over to visit and encourage us, our team, and the churches that we work with. We took them around to as many villages and churches that we could fit into ten days, trying to give them an overview of our life and work here, how God is moving, and how the churches are doing. We are so thankful to the Donelson church for their continued love, encouragement, and broad support, including sending Roy, Brian, and Laura Beth to come visit!

Overall 2011 has been a weird year for us, and in some ways we are feeling weary. A few times throughout the year when considering how full the calendar had been, Alan and I have thought this might be the busiest year we’ve had or will have (with house construction as the main culprit) in Mozambique. The busy-ness has led to stress, for our family and within the team as well, and we are ready for this season to be over. We’re extra thankful for the abundance of visitors this year, who have reminded us not only of how much they love us, but of the wideness of God’s love and mercy, too. Please pray for wisdom as we make choices of rest and work for our family as we finish out construction, and we’d like prayers for our health as well. Just within the past couple months, Alan has suffered from both malaria and amoebic dysentery, and I had a bad case of adult strep throat. Thankfully our children have stayed pretty healthy and are as full of life as always. Abby continues to love reading and school with her friends; Ellie is delighted to finally be in school like Abby. Katie Joy seems to think at times that she is just as big as her sisters, which of course means she can (at least try to) tell them what to do.

Please join us in praying:

· For God’s kingdom to come among the Makua-Metto, not just among men, but also women and children

· For leaders to grow into maturity as they seek to follow the way of Jesus

· For enough steady rain to supply food for the coming year

· For our health and balance of work and rest

· For construction to finish well and soon, and for a well to be dug on our land for water

With much love and peace,

Rachel and Alan Howell