We have been in Mozambique now for a little over a week and it’s been an eventful, but good one.
We’ve been through a tropical storm: I’m from Indiana. We don’t get tropical storms, tornadoes yes, tropical storms no. All of Xia Xia and surrounding communities lost power, which means everyone lost water as well. So we experienced what it’s like to have to ration water, though we were so thankful for a great house to stay in and our contacts being generous to give us some of their precious water supply. Our water came back fairly quickly but for many of the communities around Xia, Xia it took a little longer. Water is definitely something I take for granted most of the time. The guard at our contact’s house sent his boys to get some water from them. Our contact Jason told us that many times when the water goes out, the missionary houses will have it more quickly because they have their own wells. So, sometimes the people of the community will come to those houses to get water. Rikki and I went with Jason to take the water back to his guard’s house and even their regular water supply is a decent walk from where they live. As we were heading back we saw women carrying 5 gallon jugs of water on their heads, bringing water to their families. It’s crazy how much we don’t think about water as being such a precious commodity. You can live without a lot of things, but you can’t live without water.
We’ve experienced two Mozambique church services: Talk about making a joyful noise, the people of Mozambique can sing. Their voices are beautiful. These services have been some of my favorites on the race. Something I love seeing tangibly on the race is that God is not contained in a culture or a language or a country. He is the same everywhere. We have so enjoyed worshipping with our brothers and sisters in Mozambique.
We’ve been scraping and painting a house: This first week and some of this next week we are scraping and painting the house that our contacts are living in. We were also able to help do some clean up from the storm. Something that I pray for in each country is that we will be a blessing and a help to our contacts. I hope that we will be able to do that here. It has been good working alongside our Jason and his wife Rachel, getting to know them and hearing about their experiences as missionaries living in Mozambique for over seven years. Jason and Rachel do many things in Xia, Xia but one of them is teach at a Bible college. School does not begin until February, but the students will be moving in the last week we are here so we will get to them and help with their children. Most of the students here have families, so the whole family comes to the Bible College.
This is bit of what we have been up to for the past week. We are excited to see what else God has in store for us in Mozambique!
