Welcome to Africa! You are going to live in Chibuto, Mozambique for your first few weeks. This will be your home, so please enjoy it! Listen to God in quiet moments (there will be lots of those), spend time with your WR family, and don’t try to take the adorable children home that you meet.
“Everything is good in Chibuto!” This is what we heard before leaving Maputo. And they were right, everything is good in Chibuto (pronounced Shi-bu-toe). Here we were, welcomed by RAIN. It rained and poured for about 3 days. On 3rd day, the sun came out mid-day and we got a few visitors- children. We came to love these boys.
This is the beginning of Children’s ministry. Our first day of actual ministry with the kids, we had about 170 kids we played with, which was fun. I learned how awkward I am which children- older children and the language barrier didn’t help. “Just play a game you’re good at. The kids will appreciate the time spent anyway,” Kevin, one of my squad leaders, told me. So I played frisbee. I played it for hours and it was fun!
Village ministry was also on our agenda for Chibuto. We went to the villages 3 different times to pray for people. We went from hut to hut and prayed for whatever people needed prayer for. This took all three times for me to understand how to pray for people. After discussion with my team and telling them how it was difficult for me to just pray for people not knowing anything else about them, they encouraged me to pray and ask God what I should be praying for.
On our last day going out into the village, we met a woman. She was explaining to our translators how her legs hurt and she couldn’t walk, and when she felt up to it she would crawl to the garden to eat. Other times she would just go hungry. She also explained to us about a disease she had that made her hands web-like. On her left hand she had no fingers and her right hand only had 3 fingers left. She asked for us to pray for healing. But with doubt, I knew we weren’t about to walk away and she would suddenly have fingers. So I asked God what to pray for, and I still didn’t get an immediate response. But I did not pray for healing. I prayed for her to feel the love of Christ. And right after the prayer Emidio, one of our friends from the compound, kneeled in front of her and told her he would come daily to ensure she had food and sit with her. If that does not show her the love of Jesus I don’t know what does.
The last ministry we served this month was with each other and our host family. There were two teams in ministry together this month, so there were a lot of us. We got the chance to get to know each other while getting used to what ministry looked like on the field. We laughed, talked, prayed, and worshipped together.
This is also when I learned I may not be an ENFJ on the Myers-Briggs personality test. Or my extrovert personality decided to become introverted. Who knows. But I found myself being more quiet than usual. It could be that I’m a bit homesick, especially being without wifi and not being able to just check in with my people. I had to lean on people I didn’t know my entire life. I thought it would have been easier, but it wasn’t. Don’t think I’m just in a corner crying, but I do think about my family and friends all the time. That’s healthy.
So I want you to know I miss you all, but I’m having the time of my life out here!
