13-hour wait at the Atlanta Airport
10-hour flight to Istanbul, Turkey
10-hour layover in Istanbul
10-hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa
13-hour bus ride to Maputo, Mozambique
4 hours of sleep in Maputo
5-hour bus ride to Chokwé, Mozambique
…and we finally made it! To say the least, it was quite the trek to get here, but the past month has been well worth the journey halfway across the world.
My whole squad and I arrived in Maputo, Mozambique around 2 AM after nearly 60 hours of travel for our first night in Mozambique. We planned on staying the night at a local ministry site before dispersing the following day to our assigned hosts for the month. As we drove down the bumpy dirt roads nearing the compound, our van screeched to a halt. Our driver jumped out of the van, sprinted down the road, tackled a young man to the ground, threw a few punches, grabbed something from his hand, and casually walked back to our car to resume driving. Ummm what on earth?! Am I hallucinating? Did that really just happen? Why yes, it really did. Apparently, the young man had stolen something off of the caravan in front of us that was towing all of our bags so our driver had to get it back. And doing that required a side-tackle in the middle of the road at 2 in the morning. Welcome to Maputo? We continued driving down the road and stopped at a 7-foot concrete wall adorned in barbed wire and broken glass. Totally normal. We unloaded at our ministry site for the night and the host told us that we needed to set up our tents inside her home because a year ago someone broke into her house in the middle of the night, stole her belongings and badly beat her. So, after getting past the terror from her story, all 50 of us all piled into her 3-bedroom house. Even though her home was extremely hot and cramped, I was beyond ready to sleep and forget about everything that just happened. I laid down on my sleeping pad profusely sweating, stressed, and extremely overwhelmed. I asked myself what the heck did I sign up for? As I rustled on my air pad trying to cool down and fall asleep, I felt God tell me that I am going to be okay and that I just need to be still and trust in Him.
The next day, my team (DIAMONDS) and I were sent to our ministry for the month, and man was I ready to get out of that terrifying town. We drove to Chokwé, a beautiful inland Mozambiquan town full of life a few hours from Maputo. Over 60,000 Africans live there and fill the streets with abundant culture, joy, and community. Not surprisingly, most people living here are native Mozambiquans, meaning the sight of white people is a rare occurrence. There were lots of stares, shouts, and whistles, which in turn brought us lots of laughs and fast-paced walks.
Some random notes about Chokwé:
- Being in the Southern Hemisphere in January means that it is summer, so to say that it has been extremely hot and humid would be an understatement. This cold-weather baby sweats profusely day and night.
- The official language of Mozambique is Portuguese but the locals speak Shangaan
- Women always wear skirts past the knee called capalanas because the outline of the thigh is extremely taboo
- White baguettes and white rice are diet staples
- People carry everything on their heads—baskets of fruit, coolers, large bundles of wood, watermelons, etc.
- The local currency is the Mozambiquan Metical and $1 USD = 70 MZN
- A “fancy” meal here is grilled whole chicken, french fries (“chips”), white rice, a cucumber, tomato, and white onion salad, and coke
- Sitting with your legs crossed means “I’m the boss!” so don’t do this while sitting on the stage at church your first day here (may or may not be advice from personal experience)
In Chokwé, we stayed with our mission host, Sybil, in her home. Sybil is a native South African who moved to Mozambique over 20 years ago with a dream to start a school for orphans. She did just that ten years ago when she began the private primary school Escola Hlauleka, meaning “be different young person” in the local language. Sybil wanted to create a school where all children, wealthy and orphan, could get a good education while not having the negative stigma of being an “orphan school.” All of the children are full of joy and love having their photo taken.
Sybil lives in a quaint pink house under a gorgeous native tree. Her son Tom, his friend Jerry (the cutest best friends ever) and five other women, Martina, Vivecka, Zephyr, Abagail, and Anneke also live with her. “Mama Sybil” is a true pillar in the community and always has an open home to anyone who wants to come by to chat. We were extremely blessed with the best hospitality we ever could’ve imagined making life away from home not as hard.
Throughout the month, Sybil primarily needed us to paint four new classrooms at the school inside and out. Unfortunately, the whole town experienced heavy rain and flooding our first day on the job which cancelled school for the remainder of the week and deterred our painting plans. Instead, we created decorations for the classrooms—birthday calendars, weather charts, and alphabet lists. While it wasn’t the ministry we had expected, it was a great way to tangibly provide something else the school needed. We were also able to bond as a team sitting around the table drawing and chatting about life. While the rain preventing us from doing exactly what we were brought to Sybil’s ministry to do discouraged us at times, we found joy in making connections with the kiddos. While a language barrier might be difficult for adult conversation, children simply speak through giggles, high fives, and hugs, so the love and conversations were overflowing.
After painting on and off for two weeks, we weren’t able to fully complete the school, but we came very close. On our last day, I was tasked with creating fun murals on some of the posts on the front of the school. It was very rewarding to use my limited artistic abilities to leave my personal stamp on the school and create something that preschoolers will hopefully smile at for years to come.
Something I learned this month is that you cannot place ministry in a box. My team and I thought that our ministry was to serve Sybil by painting her school and that if we didn’t finish painting, our ministry would be incomplete, but that is not the case. You see, during the times we couldn’t paint, we were able to engage with the children and share the love of Jesus with them. We were able to have conversations with some local students that helped us paint and show them that we cared about their lives. We were able to pour into each other as a team and build one another up. You see, ministry isn’t a box to check for the day or a scheduled thing to do, but a way to live your life. Ministry is what God does through you when you’re surrendered to Him. By continually giving yourself to God, your life will become a ministry. It isn’t about how many people are saved, or how many miracles are performed, or the completeness of a painted school, but the way God moves in and through his people. And that’s amazing news.
One of my favorite memories this month was when Sybil put on an event for recent high school graduates, celebrating their accomplishments and setting them up for success in college. She wanted the event to make the students feel encouraged and get a taste of Heaven. Sybil tasked my team with deciding the theme, decorations, and snacks and we decided to theme the party around a butterfly which symbolized their newfound stage of life and freedom. We gathered fresh flowers from the neighborhood and arranged them in vases, got out table linens and seat covers, drew butterflies for them to take home, created a butterfly poem, and baked biscuits (cookies) and cinnamon rolls.
At the event, we told the students that their whole lives have led them to this point—they were once caterpillars that were nurtured and fed into spiritually by their family and church, in their cocoon they were able to rest in their faith in the Lord and be transformed, and now they have hatched into beautiful butterflies. With the newfound freedom comes both excitement and fear. At times they may want to retreat to their cocoon or wind gusts may deter them from the direction they’re trying to go, but allowing the breath of God beneath their wings to keep them on track will make sure they soar. There is a lot of freedom ahead but that requires a lot of discipline. We encouraged them to never forget where they came from, to keep on flying in the right direction, and to know that they’re strong and capable.
Sybil asked a few of us girls to share our testimonies of leaving the house and going to college. The Holy Spirit led me to share my story and to not have fear, even though public speaking is NOT my thing. I shared with the students that throughout college they will gain a surplus of knowledge that will help further their lives on this earth but they must remember that we are not living for this life, but for an eternal life with God. So while God blesses us with education to do great things with our lives on earth, we must never forget that it is God who got them where they are and He is the one who can carry them through the rest of their lives. There are many distractions in college and it is important to make the time to seek out a personal relationship with God above all else. It was neat sharing with the students, because even despite a language barrier, they were very receptive to what I had to share. I’ve always questioned why I struggled so much throughout college with my circumstances and my faith. When I’ve asked God about it previously, I felt Him tell me that He would reveal a purpose behind it someday. This event gave me the opportunity to make light from my previous darkness and I feel God gave me a glimpse of His purpose through it.
I am so sad that my first month on the race is already over! It truly flew by. Mozambique will always hold a sweet place in my heart. I am beyond excited for the next two months in Swaziland and Madagascar to continue shining God’s light here in Africa. I want to thank my financial donors so, so much for bringing me here. I honestly couldn’t be here without your support! I am so thankful to only have $592 left to raise to be fully funded!! I also want to thank you for your prayers for my heart, my team, and my entire squad. God is doing amazing things in and through us already, and I cannot wait to see what else He has in store. I truly feel blessed and at peace in my work here and I’m excited to share more with you all in the coming months!
Prayer Requests: Despite wearing copious amounts of bug repellent, I’ve gotten 38 mosquito bites this month (and counting). Curse my sugar blood. Please pray that my malaria medication works! Also, even though I’ve worn sunscreen religiously, the African sun has never seen a skin color quite as white as mine so pray for no more sunburns (preferably ever)! Contrary to popular belief, the African diet does not consist of stew, porridge, and fresh tropical fruit, but of white baguettes, white rice, white baguettes, and more white rice so please pray that I don’t blow up like a white balloon over the next two months.
Peace and Blessings,
Britt
