Remember how we had Christmas a week ago and then Christmas again the next day? Well we’re having Christmas again in two days! Never winter but always Christmas. Back on second Christmas night we had an outreach that I wrote about. I told you I’d put some pictures up eventually…well instead I managed to get a video for you. I filmed in 720P HD in at times in infrared (when it’s green). The video quality is degraded on here because I had to compress the willies out of it to send it from here. In total I have about 80 minutes of footage, this is just a quick 15 minute summary of night outreach including testimonies. This all happened just last week at a location where some people of a different religion began stoning the outreach team at the beginning of the year. Now there’s a church starting there! Praise God!

Matopi means “mud” or “clay.” This is my new cat Matopi, named for his color and his habit of sleeping in the pottery outside our kitchen. He bites people but not too hard. He eats cockroaches and beetles so he’s welcome here and as long as he has the sense to stay behind my gate he’ll probably keep all his whiskers.

Matopi Says Good Morning

Coincidentally I also started doing a pottery class today with a man named Asim who’s been in the business for 19 years. He built a pottery wheel that you turn by kicking a board. I’ve never touched a pottery wheel in my life but I managed to turn out a hollow shape that kind of resembled a cup. Asim can make anything. We have four kids from base in our little weekly class.

A Student Plays with Asim's Bowl

Today our little village school went through a bit of a transition. Andrea who has been doing the school went home to London and Jared the photographer went to South Africa. That leaves me and Nasimo, my 16 year old translator/teacher to take care of the school. Jun, a visitor from Korea is helping me out too. There’s lots of challenges, especially in lesson planning, language, teaching supplies and discipline. If anyone has tips on how to discipline wily villagers I’m all ears. I have to say that for it’s challenges there are certainly real blessings. There’s a boy named Jonny, 13, who used to be very difficult to have around much less to teach. He sat quietly and at the end of the day said “Edwardu, I like studying with you.” It’s amazing the range of student that come there’s about 9 that are consistent some of them can do multiplication while others haven’t quite figured out writing. Last week Nasimo asked what the first bible story I told was (from weeks ago) and they remembered. Sometime I wonder if they listen even when they’re being crazy, and apparently the answer is yes. One of the boys even put the biblical principle into action (this was after the fisticuffs).

I’ll run our unofficial little summer school until January when the official school goes into session then I’ll help the kids in our class get signed up there. We just found out yesterday that the school here on base is the top school in the whole province of Cabo Delgado. Please pray for me, Jun and Nasimo as well as our students.

Update: I don’t usually take a camera to school because it’s distracting but I caught a few moments on my iPhone so you can get an idea of what school looks like. Enjoy!

Update II: Friday the class peaked at 25 students which was a bit much. The upside is that about half of them understand the concepts and methods of subtraction well enough to subtract numbers in the millions although a riot almost broke out when I tried explain the concept of “borrowing.” They calmed down after I explained it. The downside (or the other upside, depending on your goals in life) of a class that size is that we had our first classroom fire.

My Village Class

New shirts would be good - Makes me realize how much our kids on base have

The sun had already been down for an hour or so when we left. We stopped at a gas station and picked up snacks. My neighbor-for-the-week Chad laid hands on me as I was standing in line and I got wrecked (”wrecked for Jesus” as they say) right there. We were headed to a place about 30 minutes away where the people had in years past began to stone some of our missionaries- in fact some of the same missionaries were going back today. The climate is a little different as they’ve done lots of outreach in the area. Everyone was praying and thanking God. We arrived and the sound system and praise videos were already running. Tonight we didn’t show the Jesus film. Instead we reenacted the story of the good Samaritan and then gave a salvation message. The truck was parked right next to a brand new church so we were blessed with the help of some fellow believers and the opportunity to tell people where they could learn more.

After the skit a team from the states invited the sick to come for prayer. Specifically they asked for people with eye problems first. We began praying and praying. Lots of people in the crowd laughed and it was hard to discern if it was out of mockery or amazement but we kept praying. The crowd would move to wherever we prayed. They would find someone with some ailment and bring them over to see what God would do. Pain in heads and stomachs was the first to go. Then pain in joints. We spent lots of time with one man who explained hadn’t really walked in 2 years. Before his pain left he accepted Jesus as his savior and then he walked with one of our team leading him, about 50 feet up to the stage to tell his story. Three blind women were healed- one of them was struck by blindness 3 months ago which was confirmed by two men from her village and she was able to see again. When we asked the second woman how long she had been blind for she paused, gave a chuckle and said “a very long time” (well she said it in Makua anyway). I had been out praying for the lame man when the other woman gave her testimony. All three of them were saved and all three of them came specifically for their eyes to be healed.

We got back very late and missed dinner entirely but it was a good trade. A really good trade.

God is good. He is faithful and His grace is always enough. To our knowledge everyone who was healed of a physical ailment that night (I haven’t written about them all) was either already saved or got saved before they were healed. Forgiveness of sin is the greater miracle.

I will update this post with picture as soon as I have time- I have to pull the frames from an HD cam

“Salama!” (That’s hello in Makua). Merry Christmas. The last two days have been Christmas here- first for the kids and then for the staff.

Kids Christmas was amazing. In the morning we played water games which quickly degraded into a massive water fight! That evening we went from room to room delivering presents to each child and teenager spending time with each of them individually. I recorded lots of the event on video while my friend Jared did Christmas portraits with his Nikon D300. We gave out presents continuously from 4 to 9:30pm skipping dinner along the way, but it was worth it!

Yesterday staff and pastors headed South along the coast to a bit of beach that looked more like the California coast. We had chicken with rice and cucumbers, onions and carrots. There was soccer on the beach as always. Tens of little crabs scurried up on shore with the waves and strafed along in rapid succession like tanks in a land-war.

After staff got their gifts, again, one by one with prayer, we loaded up for a late night Christmas outreach. I’ll write about the outreach in the coming days- for now I’m headed to graduation. Both the Mozambican pastors and missions school students graduate today!

Feliz Natal!

Christmas Day Water Games

Looking for Candy

Sack Races

Giving Out Presents

Thanks Mama Aida!

Merry Christmas

My kitchen back on base has been a mess lately, mostly because we don’t have many shelves. I went into town today and picked up a couple bundles of bamboo (a bundle is about 10 pieces 25 feet long) and some cord made out of old tires for 100 mets (about $4) and did my first bit of bamboo construction.

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.

I’ve been out of town for 3 days but before that we went out at night into the MIDDLE of nowhere and climbed on top of the land rover to catch the African night sky. The stars here are numerous and vivid. Here’s a few long exposures we took on our outing.

…well it started raining and the power is sketch at the moment so I’m not going to spend time to finish this proper like, just click on the picture to make it big and click “read the rest…” below for the other pictures! God bless, more later…
Read the rest of this entry »

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.