Originally written on December 4th
I’m approaching the half way mark on my long crazy journey with God around the nations. That entire concept blows my mind…. but! I will update about that entire saga in the coming weeks, this update I’d like to share with you the crazy week that has been my life!
As I sat over looking Mt. Kilimanjaro in Moshi, Tanzania, sipping my well deserved mocha latte (because I made it through 8 weeks of Africa) I was informed that it would take about 5 days to get to my next ministry location… Maputo, Mozambique. This didn’t sound fun, I may or may not have slightly shivered. Five days on a bus is never any fun.
We left Thursday… for 21 insane and crazy hours on a bus that kept getting more and more full. Our packs were on the bus and Africans were sitting and stepping on them the whole time, our poor stuff! We pulled up in the middle of the night to this random church that was letting us stay. Wow, looking back that seems like years ago, that’s how hectic it was. We set up our tents indoors because of the bugs and we couldn’t sleep outside in them because it was too dangers. 1 over priced taxi ride, 2 mangoes, a tuk tuk and a disgusting restaurant later…. I was out and about in the town for the day. Thankfully we were only there 1 night.
The next full travel day was Saturday when we got on the hottest and most sweaty bus ride of my life was around 21 hours again… it was only supposed to be 9. We saw baboons along the way. This time the bus only stopped ONCE. That became very interesting. However, when we arrived at around 4am we pulled up to a hostel. I set up my tent in the dark (I’m a pro now!) and realized at this hostel it had SHOWERS, real showers that were HOT! And it had internet, and nice restaurants in the city. At this point we had crossed the Malawi boarder. Malawi is gorgeous, the people are friendly and their food is great! I wish we were doing ministry there, 2 of our teams are there for the month, I’m quite jealous.
After a lovely day there and some people even went in the pool… the next morning we headed to Mozambique. At long last. This time we switched busses 3 times. 1 visa, 2 fantas, 2 cans of pringles, 2 jugs of water, 3 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, 2 bathroom breaks later…. we were at another bus stop. We had planned to board a 4am bus to take us the rest of the 48 hours south to Maputo, Mozambique where our ministry location is. Well, after laying around in the dirt waiting for a bus, it didn’t happen. We went to a place to sleep that looked like a scary abandon building. It had a shower and electricity, I was a happy camper! Although we didn’t sleep well because it was so hot. I have never felt heat like this in my entire life. It actually feels hotter at night!
So we spent an entire full day here in Tete, Mozambique. The city is hot and crowded. But we of course found wifi, a nice hotel, great food and places to hangout. We aren’t staying at the hotel of course but they let us in to use wifi and soak up the AC.
At 3am tonight I will get on another crazy hot bus to hopefully get to Maputo in 3 days time. No clue where we will sleep, what we will eat (though it may just be cereal and peanut butter), and who we will see and meet along this crazy journey!
My awesome squadmate Carmen Thomas is making a documentary on our journey so far. She has me on there in the middle of the night giving an update half asleep, something to look forward to watching once it’s posted!
Did I mention I hurt my ankle really bad? It’s swelled up pretty bad. But! Again, God is still great and awesome. We are blessed like crazy every time we hit another city.
Only 24 more days of Africa! Wow, where has the time gone?!?
That’s it for now, I just wanted to give a crazy update on where I am right now.
Prayer request…. it’s very spiritually dark here and there doesn’t seem to be as much joy going around in this country. And it’s the holiday season and it doesn’t feel at all like Christmas here…. it’s getting kind of hard. Please pray for our squad for joyful times as we crank out only 4 more weeks on this continent!
We are working with Africa on Fire this month doing construction on a new orphanage. Christmas will be on the beach. Living in bamboo huts without running water or electricity. It sure will be a Christmas to remember!
Wow, I feel out of breath just from typing all this out. Never a dull moment with 55 people doing the Lord’s work! Always an adventure… even if it’s just getting lost in the city or getting caught in the pouring rain (tonight!).
God Bless everyone! I will try so hard to update when I can but this month is going to be very hard to do that!!
