Hey everyone! I know that I haven’t wrote a blog in a while, and honestly with this one I don’t even fully know where to start with this.
So my team and I got to Mozambique a little over a week ago today, and have been staying with a host family with a lady named Sybil. She is a woman who works for a school in the town of Chokwe and helps with a youth group as well. Many of the children who go to that school are sponsored and or are orphans who Sybil has a heart for. She told us that she really wants to help youth and children who don’t have the opportunities that some people do here by giving them a program where they are able to be mentored and held accountable for. They have weekly get togethers for the youth who are in her program where they have a bible study and a time for all of them to just hang out together, build bonds, and unite as a body. We have gone for two weeks now, and truly enjoyed watching how much integrity they have, and even more so how much hunger for God that they have. Sybil is seriously the most kind, generous, and beautiful women I have ever had the privelage of knowing and being able to become a part of her family.
Our mission this month is to help her grow her dream of making a better, and more enriched life for the kids by painting the elementary school to bring it some life, as well as has been to make charts and different decorations for the classrooms. The first week that we were here we got caught in a huge storm of rain and it ended up completely flooding the entire school, so much so that it ended up turning the school yard into a lake! Haha seriously guys it in a matter of hours went from being solid ground, to an entire body of water, knee deep! No joke! Because of how big the school is, we then carried the preschoolers on our backs across the new lake over to the other side of the school yard to be taken home. Talk about starting the week off right! The kids here are so extremely sweet and just walk right up to us giving us high fives and huge grins, or sometimes just blank stares, probably wondering what planet we hail from! They are also so sweet and walk together holding each others backpacks to make sure none of them get lost or left behind. That’s honestly just the mentality here it seems. COMMUNITY, that’s the word that I can think of to describe the town of Chokwe as a whole.
The other night, we had what was called a “gala” for the youth who were graduating high school where we got to really cater to them and make them feel special. It was butterfly themed, where the message for them was that they were coming out of their caccoons and really stepping into their new lives to flourish and grow on their own. We were able to give them some of our own words of encouragement and even some advice about what not to do, and what to do when leaving home for the first time. They really intently listened to it too! It was so encouraging to me to see how much initiative and respect for their lives that these young people had. You could see it in their eyes how badly they want to succeed. I am so thankful I was able to be a witness to how serious they were about their lives. It was very important to them and they were really just drinking in all of the advice given by us, and by Sybil. She seriously has so much passion for those kids and for the youth. It is absolutely refreshing.
Being here, community is truly so important. That’s evident through the family that we live with and how they all treat each other. It’s seeing how many people Sybil knows and interacts with in the town. It’s in our prayer time, and bible studies that we have had with her, her family, and some of the youth. It’s washing underwear with our team mates in the same bucket at the same time to save soap and time, and it’s been sharing our testimonies with each other on our team through 3 separate two and a half hour sessions of tears, and far away looks remembering our lives before this and why we are all here in the first place.
We have only been here for about two weeks, and it has felt lonely at times believe it or not. Not because it is lonely here, I don’t get along with my team, or there aren’t plenty of people to talk to, but because it really has made me focus in on what my weak points are. There have been a couple of days where I have really struggled, because let me tell you..close community forces you to be in a condensed place of self awareness. I have had thoughts of “what did I just get myself into..” and thoughts of “wow, I literally can’t believe that I have the honor of being here”. But that’s life though right? Moments of ups and downs? This is just going to be a very compact yearlong roller coaster ride of emotions. This is just the beginning, but I am so so excited to be traveling with the team that I am on, learning more about who our creator is, and HOPEFULLY witnessing a miracle or two.
My goal for this next year truly is to grow in my faith, for God to literally just rock my world. I want to KNOW him like I never have, and to be able to share the tales of adventure, hardship, laughter, and insane unbelievable testimonies that these next month’s have in store. I have this hunger inside of me for Jesus that honestly I can’t tell you that I have ever had before. I just want to discover more of who he is, and to be able to see it with my own eyes! So please stay tuned, because I fully believe so much good is going to come out of this year!
Fun random facts about life so far….
*I have now officially eaten antelope and the head off a caterpillar (never again…)
*it is DEFINITELY possible to get a sunburn even if you are not in direct sunlight (the sun is POTENT here!)
*6 white girls running and exercising so we stay semi fit throughout the race look really similar to a parade running through the town of Chokwe (people stare lol)
*you never can have to many baguettes lol…. no seriously we eat them all day every day… (yay for carbs!)
*bugs can fly into your ears and get stuck, resulting in the hospital to remove it.. (sorry kirsty)
*it is possible to be so drenched in sweat that it doesn’t even phase you anymore
*Tyler Perry movies are still a thing even on the other side of the globe (YESSSS!!)
*Cockroaches exist, and they are huge!
*The joy that an ice cold soda brings is TO real!!
*you will be asked to sing on the spot in every church service that you go to, oh, and give surprise words on the spot.. lol no big deal..
Sooooooooo, there ya have it folks.. a brief synopsis of my life thus far.. two weeks into the race. I am loving life, and struggling through it all at the same time.. but God is so so good.. and this race is about to be REAL!!
More later guys. Love you all, and thank you so much for the support! I am still in need of about 3500 dollars to continue and stay here on the field, so please consider donating to my blog so that I am able to continue staying and being a part of this mission!
-Love Mariah
