About a week ago I went on my first outreach off base. About 25 of us climbed into the back of a truck and drove 3 hours South. On the road you could see many signs where churches had already been established. We arrived in a roadside village where we dropped our gear at a newish church and then continued farther on where we parked and set up the truck with a screen and sound system as a makeshift theater. There was music and dancing as a crowd of several hundred gathered. Outreach is typically done in Portuguese and Makua- we showed a film about the life of Jesus in Makua. At the end our pastors made an invitation and about 70 accepted God’s grace. We invited the people for prayer and one man was healed of severe nearsightedness. Men from his village came and testified that his vision had been bad his whole life. We had tuna spaghetti for dinner.

The next day groups went out to do kids ministry, church and door to door outreach. Some people brought things they had gotten from witch doctors to be burned. We prayed with many including one churched woman who had aching in her legs we washed her feet and prayed for a long time but her legs weren’t healed while we were there. His grace is enough. We killed a sheep for lunch and dinner. The village was excited!

The kids there were beautiful and playful. One girl fell asleep in my arms as I played guitar raucously with my mozambican friends and the villagers. On the third day, after a lump of bread with sugar, we made rounds through the bamboo & mud huts and prayed for more people before packing and heading back to base. Words can not adequately describe outreach.

This morning I woke up with a sore throat. I felt like I was going to vomit so I went over to my neighbors Dave & Amy et al’s gazebo and asked for prayer. They prayed and within minutes my stomach was right. Steve and Cassandra cooked french toast with frosting for me and I had a mango for nutrients. My sore throat persisted and I had a mild fever so I decided to rest for the day. The water has also been out all day! Haha! (we still have boxes of drinking water) It can be pretty hot and humid here Jesus blessed me with a cool breeze that lasted all day as I napped on the bench outside.

My friends have been taking care of me which is especially nice. My friend Nicole took the liberty of checking my symptoms with a doctor on base- it sounds like something that’s been going around. Right now my throat is on the mend for the evening. I believe I’ll be well by morning but I certainly appreciate your prayers!

I know how you love pictures so here’s the lunch line- that’s the kitchen on the left. If you look closely (click on the picture) you’ll see that there’s people all along the front of it and all the way out of the picture on the right. My house is up past the water tower in the middle and the beach is several hundred yards behind me.

Update: Jesus likes me, it was chicken soup with rice tonight, complete with carrots tonight (well we always have rice but chicken is extremely rare). Sipping once, sipping twice…

Update II: I’m completely well again! In other [important] news Nicole showed me where to find 10met (~50 cents) “Ice cream.” When it melts it turns to water instead of soup but it IS cold! Today is shopping day so I’m off to the market.

Two days ago I went on Outreach in a village about a half hour from here. On the way there we worked on translating songs from Makua, Swahili and Portuguese to English. The kids here are AMAZING- some of them know seven languages. Chantel and Helder stayed up with me until about 11pm translating songs but we got it done! During outreach Jesus healed a boy with a hurt knee and a woman with a bad leg. The Woman said she’d been prayed for many times but today God healed her. She jumped.

A sleeping baby during outreach

Yesterday I taught Portuguese. I had two classes of about 8 kids each…and my translator left. We learned the days of the week- and the kids were really good which isn’t always normal. Thank you for your prayers! After class I kicked down a door for my neighbor whose lock was busted. We had spaghetti and mango yogurt smoothies which were fantastic, especially as the power was out so the fans weren’t working.

Today we took some village kids from class to a local beach and treated them to chicken, rice, salad, chips (think french fries) and chocolate cake. They finished the whole bottle of ketchup.

Many who are last will be first

There are some beach activities that are universal for all peoples

But we put our own twist on it

Fishing off shore from the beach party

Just an hour ago I went to the Saturday night service here. About half way through the worship set the bassist walked off stage and over to me. He said “you’ll play the bass for me, ok?” I’ve met the drummer but I don’t know this guy. The whole worship team is Mozambican- they have a full band including a drum-kit, acoustic guitar, bass, keys and two vocals. The bassist seemed pretty convinced that I should play so I walked up on stage in the middle of worship, picked up his bass and tried to find my frets. It was great worship and I found a lot of freedom in playing for the Lord as they were singing a lot in Makua. What fun. Later the bassist took the mic and began to give his testimony- which he wanted to prey about, which is why he left the stage. After that the lead vocalist told both the “vanillas people and the chocolate people” to get up because we were going to learn to dance. We did.

I love you all and miss you- life here is fantastic but every now and again I find parts of my heart missing and I suspect they’re ten thousand miles away on the other side of the world. I AM getting used to standing upside-down though. It feels quite natural after the first week or two.

Todd Johnson is a pastor at Crossroads Church in Grass Valley who we’re touring with.  He’s done some writing about the various site’s were visiting, so I added a link to his blog under related sites- Enjoy!

I looked up Israel on google news this evening and there’s hardly a headline that doesn’t mention Mr. Obama.  I did find one and it reads like a ping-pong battle from a comic book;  Blowing up a tunnel turns into shooting at people which turns into mortar fire which escalated to an airstrike and finally long range rockets.  Neither side called off the truce from June.  Here’s the original AP Article if you care to read it.

Vibrio Cholerae, yucky!

In other news a cholera outbreak in Mozambique has killed 50.  Cholera is a toxin-mediated diarrheal disease caused by Vibrio Cholerae.  The treatment for Cholera is simple: rehydrate.  All you have to do is keep enough liquid and ions (think water+gatorade) in someone until they resolve.  It’s tricky though because in severe cases a person can lose up to 20 liters of liquid/day.  At that rate, in a population already water stressed,  hypovolemic shock (kinda like drying out) can set in quickly, resulting in mortality within hours of onset.  Still the last time Cholera made the news in the US was almost a hundred years ago.  (here’s the AFP news release)

Finally, in case you haven’t had enough election news…Mozambique’s President, Armando Guebuza, asked everyone to chill for elections.  Mozambique has a 15 day campaigning period which is followed by elections on November 19th.  15 days!  I could go for that. (more on bloomberg.com)

That is all- I’m gonna go run around before my flight boards- strangely enough I feel pretty at home at the international airport, at least I feel more out of place in a mall for sure.  I’m not used to the germanic languages at all so when Portuguese or Spanish come on the intercom they seem much more natural than they did at home

I’ve been keeping up on Mozambique’s international news for about a year.  Today I caught this piece in the New York Times:

FELICIANO DOS SANTOS is one of southern Africa’s leading musicians, and while he sings beautifully about the usual things — love and longing and sorrow – he is better known in the highland villages near here for catchy lyrics of a more peculiar sort, songs about going to the bathroom and washing your hands when you are done.

In one fetching tune, sung in the tribal language of Nyanja, he exhorts people to boil water “so we can prevent diarrheal diseases.” In another, this one a pulsating rumba, he declares that “sanitation can change your life.”  Read the rest on NYTimes.com