On the drive…
Our ministry here in Mozambique is super grassroots and very down to earth. And I mean that both metaphorically and literally. I have blisters on my hands from chopping down grass with a machete, and constantly have dirty feet. Im not complaining, thats just the Race 🙂
Elias
But for real, basically this guy Elias that used to be a translator for the World Race is now hosting teams at his house in Manga Village. We live in tents, and have a common room and his families rooms in a cinderblock house with a dirt floor and thatched roof. It’s exactly what we expected from the World Race, and by the amazing grace of God, sleeping on the ground is insanely comfortable. It is a million degrees here and we sweat constantly, but it is so worth it. (Side note, as I’m in my tent typing this, a tree just fell on one of our tents… Oh wait, actually just a giant palm leaf… Oh, the World Race…)
Our tents and the lovely bathroom. Mine is the orange one in the back.
Hanging out with some of the kids in our front yard.
Anyway, back to ministry. Elias has had a dream for some time now to care for the widows and orphans in the village. As of right now, he is able to do little things like teach the Bible to the local kids, feed a ton of people, and help some of the widows build houses. We just helped one woman, a widow with three kids at the age about about 26, build her house this week. But Elias’ big dream is to start an orphanage. He wants to find some of the widows and disciple them and make them house mothers for the orphans. (So cool!) So he prayed for land, and God provided the money! So every day, in the scorching heat, we walk a few miles to his plot of land, and we machete grass and even out dirt. Soon we will be starting to build. It is expected that six houses (three room, cinder block) will be built in two months. So I’m sure in our month here we’ll see significant progress! But again, this is Africa, and African time is… well, unique. But we’re SO excited to watch God work this month and see E’s dream start to come alive.
So we’re doing all we can for him – house visits so the neighbors know what’s going on, meeting potential house mothers, playing with the kids; whatever he needs. It’s so cool to come alongside someone else’s vision and make it happen.
Every day, the taxis fit up to 30 people in a 15 passenger van.
Another blessing: newlyweds and former world racers Will and Tara are here with us this month. Tara’s story is incredible. She and Will were on the same race, and she ended up falling off a three story building after her third month and was told she’d never walk again from a doctor in Romania. But God healed her, and not only did she walk again in one month, but a few months later she applied for the race again, and did her 11 months. She was able to go back to the hospital in Romania and show the doctors her progress. Now she’s dancing all around and serving around the world. She and Will obviously got married and are here serving with us. It’s such a blessing to have former racers to give us advice on life, God, the race, team issues, marriage, feedback, travel, etc. Another CRAZY thing… Tara (formerly Reed) worked at HARVEY CEDARS BIBLE CONFERENCE where I worked for five years. God is SO cool. Anyway, that’s kinda our month. On our off days we swim in the Indian Ocean. It’s pretty legit 🙂 Thanks so much for your prayers!!!
Sometimes, it gets really hot. So, I asked Sam to dump some water on me.
Bucket showers are no joke.
Walking through the village with some kids.
P.S. when it’s sunny, it is extremely hot here, but this week we’ve had torrential downpours almost constantly. because Mozambique is coming out of a drought, were having some flooding issues. nothing damaging, but we’re living in tents, so we’ve got a lot of wet clothes and muddy sleeping bags. but we’ve had the chance to play in puddles with kids for hours, hopefully a short video is coming soon 🙂 enjoy!
My happy teammates during the flooding 🙂
