This month was interesting! We had more down time than we have had before on the Race. Many of us filled this time with reading, seeking God, and challenging one another theologically. Our ministry this month was with an organization called Africa on Fire, which was built upon the vision of our contact, Felito. He and his wife, Anna (who was born and raised in New Zealand), are building a ministry which stemmed from both of them beginning their mission work with Iris Ministries in Mozambique. Iris is the well-known organization begun by the amazing Mrs. Heidi Baker. Felito and Anna both have close relationships with Heidi and her husband, Roland. Heidi even officiated their marriage ceremony 6 years ago. Felito had a vision a few years ago in which he saw the fire of God spreading throughout Africa. That is what he hopes to help to achieve. They are building an orphanage and a school, planting churches across the country, and doing “outreaches” in local villages to tell people about the love of Jesus Christ. Our main job was to assist Felito as he did outreaches in the villages of Mozambique. We would set up a stage and a sound system outside and sing, dance, and praise Jesus until the people came. There would be a message given, and then we would lay hands on people and pray for them. This is a large part of Heidi’s ministry, as well. It was a really cool ministry experience.
Unfortunately, illness seemed to follow us this month. Within our 2 teams, 3 people got malaria this month and the entire family of 4 that we were living with got malaria, as well. It was mostly because of this that our ministry opportunities were few and far between. Nonetheless, it was December! And that meant we needed to do our best to get into the Christmas spirit! My former team leader, Lindsay, helped us out by sending us a list of 25 Christmas activities to do to welcome Christmas cheer. We decided to take things a step further and record all of these activities and make them into a Christmas video. So, instead of posting pictures as I normally do in the monthly recap blogs, I’m posting our video. All 18 minutes of it. But before I do… Here are the tallies for the month!
Meals that included rice: 23
Meals that included pasta: 10
Meals that included ugali: 0 (PRAISE THE LORD!)
Meals that included cassava: 3
Meals that included potatoes: 8
Fried bean patties eaten: 14
Cups of (mostly instant) coffee: 26
Cups of tea: 6
Bus/matatu/shoppa rides: 7
Hours spent riding in a truck bed: 24
Times I ate meat (including debrief in South Africa): 11
KFC’s spotted (including debrief): 7
Times eating KFC: 5
Bucket showers: 10
Times that we unpacked and set up and then re-packed our tents and sleeping pads: 9
Ok, here it is. It may not be the best quality film, but it was fun to make. We hope you enjoy our Christmas cheer from Mozambique!
