We’ve spent the past month in Xai Xai, Mozambique. We were blessed with a beautiful house to stay in that is just off the beach. This is the first month that my team has been on our own for a month. We were paired with team Ratsah during month one in South Africa and we were with our whole squad during month two at El Shaddai in Swaziland. We are quickly learning that each month on the Race is so different from the last. We’re all grateful for the individual and team growth that we’ve seen this month.
Our contacts for the month are American missionaries from Indiana. My team was selfishly super excited when we first found this out because we had high hopes that we would get to celebrate Thanksgiving with them. Jason and Rachel Helm have three kids, Tristan (6), Josie (2), and Logan (2 months). They are professors at a Bible college; help manage a farm that provides food for the college, and run a program that educates youth about HIV/AIDS and provides them with a Bible.
Our team happened to catch them during a little slower season in their lives. School is out because it’s summer here, they just had a new baby, and Jason is fighting pancreatic cancer. We have able to serve them by helping out with several projects during the month. The list below highlights some things I’ve done this month…
- · Went to a baby dedication
- · Dug and moved sand in buckets
- · Ate an amazing seafood platter with prawns (what Xai Xai is well known for)
- · Scraped and painted buildings
- · Went on a reef walk in the ocean at night
- · Moved hundreds of blocks for a security wall that is being built
- · Played soccer on the beach with the locals
- · Cleaned the farm of fallen coconut tree branches and burnt them
- · Explored a huge abandoned hotel
- · Caught chickens at the farm so they could get cleaned and sold
- · Built benches for tables at a ministry that feeds kids
- · Played with kids anywhere we ran into kids
- · Built a retaining wall
- · Saw whales while hanging out at the beach
- · Spoke at a church
- · Learned how to weld (making a gate for a church)
- · Watched a well get drilled in a village
- · Tomorrow we will be eating an amazing Thanksgiving meal
Click here to see some pictures from the month.
