Hello from Mozambique! Whoohoo! After a grueling 37-38 hour combined rides from South Africa we made it to the orphanage here in this beautiful country. We switched buses at about 9 in the evening in a place called Maputo, one of the craziest experiences and most dangerous on this trip thus far. We had hoardes of people crowding in on us as we tried to unload the bags, waiting to snatch one away if possible. In order to keep that from happening, we ended up taking the bags to a deserted island across the roadway to get away from everyone until we could arrange transportation to the next place- Dondo, Mozambique. But we made it alive and safe so praises to God Almighty- Lord of travel as well as everything else.
THus far, it has been great to interact with the kids here, although limited since the national language is Portugese and some local tribal languages. This is the first time that I have not been able to really interact with the people very well because of language differences and it is killing me. It is hard to have to rely on others or just smile and nod and love them with your eyes. Luckily, the game of soccer is universal and the kids are great. We wrangled up a team of us foreigners and played the kids and won! It was a major upset and so we ended up losing the next game with some of the older kids, but we also put up a good fight. There are about 33 boys at the orphanage and they are beautiful and amazing boys, full of wonder and their heavenly Fathers looks. I am going to be sory to leave them.
Tomorrow, we will be leaving to go deeper into Mozambique into the areas near the Zambezi River where the was much flooding and thousands of homes were destroyed and families displaced. We are loading up a 30 ton truck full of food and water and with a Brazilian missionary named Herbert, we will go into these desperate places to share hope. The food and water will quench their bodies, but we so desperately want their souls to be treated as well. Pray that GOd would open huge doors and touch many hearts these next few weeks.
Also, we have had the opportunity to go and pray for some of the local people that are sick. One man had been sick for four months and was deathly ill. His body was shriveled up and he was as frail as I have ever seen a man. His eyes were yellow and the hollowness from the sickness amazed me. Me and Chris Telfer came early with the pastor and some of the Bible school students and we prayed over the man and sang over him, giving praises to God for His great work. They asked us to say something and I panicked. I opened up the Word and GOd pointed me right at the story of Lazarus. AMazing. I read some about how God uses all for HIs glory and prayed over Him. More of our group arrived and we spoke words of life and truth over this man. He is a Christian, but even still his family had gone to the witch doctor who had given them some sort of cocktail to put inside their house. We threw it away and prayed over the entire household. After that we went several other places, praying each time and then singing beautiful songs in Portugese and Masena. It is amazing here. BUt it is not over yet, so please pray about Gods direction and providence in these next few weeks. Praise be to God the Father who has chosen us, praise be to the Son who has redeemed us and praise be to the Spirit that has sealed us.
