Dear Friends,

Well, we are here in Mozambique. We are so glad to be here and settling into our new life. It took many hours of traveling but we finally arrived in Mozambique one week after leaving the USA. We had stayed in Malawi for a couple of days in order to get visas, some medicines and rest before trekking out by ourselves on the 12 hour truck ride.

We have been in Mozambique for just over a week now. We have been “thrown” in as they say and we are grateful that the Lord is with us each and every day. When we arrived this part of town had been without water for two days and that continued for our first four days here. On our third day here we decided to challenge the horrible dirt road to town.

We are only two miles from town but it takes us 20-30 minutes because of the huge potholes and rough terrain. We came across three people pushing a man to the hospital that they had tied to a bicycle because he was so ill he could not hold himself up or walk. We offered to take them to the hospital which they were grateful for since they had been walking for quite some time already.

They loaded his limp body in the back of the truck where Micah and one of the staff members were riding and two young men accompanied us to the hospital. Sadly, by the time we arrived he had such a weak pulse that they had us transfer him to the morgue part of the hospital where they placed him on a stretcher and covered him with a sheet waiting for him to die because they said they could not do anything to help him.

We are constantly reminded of the physical destitution and poverty here. Our prayer is that these things do not overwhelm us but that we remember people are spiritually desperate as well and that is the true reason we are here.

It is hot and we are not yet used to the 90 degree weather without the use of an air conditioner, fan, fridge or even some times water for a cool shower. But we will acclimatize in time. Currently, we have mattresses to sleep on and a one burner camp stove to cook on.

Andrea is being creative in cooking to make meals using food that does not need any refrigeration, or meals that do not need more than one burner or the use of an oven. In the next month or so we hope to be able to get some more furniture made and to purchase some appliances. Everything takes time in Africa so we are reminded to be patient every day.

We have met the staff and begun to establish relationships with them and talk about how things operate and what changes if any need to be made to make things run smoother. That will be a process and we are learning a lot from them. We are living at the mission base where we daily get to interact with the orphans.

The children here at the center are all different ages. They love sitting on our front porch and calling out for our boys to come and play. So far the boys have introduced them to Red Rover, “American” football and matchbox cars. There are always little eyes peering in a door or window looking around to see what we are doing.

When they are all chattering and chanting it can get noisy so getting the boys homeschooling done in the mornings is proving to be a challenge with the “distractions” of the children always wanting to play but we are managing and with time it will all become routine.

As the boys pointed out to us the other day it is humbling to see a five year old little girl shouldering the responsibility of carrying her baby sibling tied on her back all day. Our prayer is that the Lord shows us how to help these little ones and to best minister to them. Ideas are coming to us of how to be involved, now we must continue to pray about them and move forward as God shows us.

We would love to hear from you

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support that make it possible for us to be here. We are grateful!