I spent the most interesting year of my life in Mozambique last month (no typo 🙂
From the food, to the suffocating humidity, to the lack of running water, to the constant spiritual battles with the witch doctors in the area around Iris Ministries, my first month on the Race tested me.
The grades have yet to be posted…
The country of Mozambique (from now on referred to as “the Bique”), known as “the beautiful land of beautiful people” has a host of challengers for us wayward westerners, but it also has the most interesting transit system I’ve ever experienced.
They call this beauty a Choppa.
A Choppa is a 15-passenger van (typically a Toyota) that is used to ferry people from one small town in the Bique to the next along its one main road. From where we were staying in the city of Dondo, we took one of these to our ministry site in Nangou every morning. (And yes, I did the Schwarzenegger “Get to da CHOPPA” EVERY single day 🙂
They operate under a two-man system: one to drive the vehicle up and down the road while the second man is well, the people person. The second guy basically sticks his head out of the Choppa and yells the names of different towns as he sees people waiting on the side of the road. If we are passing that town or are headed there for our final destination, they get on. I mean always. In fact it is so rare that we don’t take on another passenger that the term “personal space” has been forever obliterated in my mind.
Remember that 15-passenger capacity? IT turns out in the Bique they kind of count that as a suggestion. They never take it. The real maximum is “however many can fit without us dragging on the concrete”.
The Mozambicans piled into theses things without batting an eye. Men with 2x4s, women with groceries, mothers with infants (and yes, there was live breast feeding multiple times; knees have to be covered at all times but breasts are kosher to whip out around 20 strangers or while walking in the markets at any point) came one and came all to fill our little Choppa with their….intensity.
In fact, at its very height one of these brave little Choppas can hold 25 people, a baby (being breast fed), and yes, two full buckets of oh-so-fresh fish. For 45 minutes. In 100 degree weather. With 90% humidity. With no A/C. After 5 hours of ministering to the tallest grass I’ve ever seen in my life with a machete, rakes and hoes.
How I wish you could have shared my elation.
One night though, the Spirit led me to read the book of James where he lays it out pretty clearly:
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” James 1:2-5 NIV
Then it came to me… I actually asked for this. I asked God to build my faith. To show me how to love like Christ. He started me off in Mozambique because He wants a lot from me. But as much as He wants from me, it’s breathtaking to realize how much He wants for me.
He gives generously.
You see, the thing about the Bique is that you gave to get past all the lack of comfort to find what God sent me there to acquire: A heart for those unloved, a sense of a true blind-faith lifestyle, an insatiable desire to inhale God’s Holy Word like the breath of life it is, the ability to hear my Father’s voice so clearly that I can bless others with the words He gives me for them (that is INSANELY cool by the way), the humbling experience of having two sisters in Christ wash my feet and my entire squad gathering around me in prayer for healing, meeting a man of faith named Elias and being an answer to his prayer for help building a home for orphaned boys, bonding with team #Agapetos (love y’all!) and seeing the face of God like never before in the eyes of those He loves more desperately than our human hearts can fathom in 100 lifetimes.
…And that’s only Month 1. I can’t wait to see what He invites me into next. Stay tuned 🙂
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