After 111 hours of travel from Malawi to Mozambique, my team finally made it to Maputo on January 8th. Coming into Angie’s home at Beacon of Hope we instantly felt Angie’s Texan hospitality as we were welcomed and briefed about the ministry and how the month would look. Angie came to Mozambique in 2000 and started working as a nurse with Heidi Baker’s IRIS ministries at a children’s home. During her time there Angie would occasionally interact with the older children when they were sick. She would ask the teens what they wanted to do when they grew up and left the home but many had no response. The teens didn’t have many plans, hopes, nor aspirations for the future. In Mozambique at age 18 you must leave any kind of orphanage/ children’s home. But, having spent their whole lives in these homes, many of them would go onto the streets having no direction for their next steps. Within two months Angie saw this need and felt the Lord calling her to create a place that helped equip young men to learn skills and to be educated in ways that would help prepare and enable them to have successful futures. After raising enough support and the finances to purchase a piece of land, Beacon of Hope had its first boys come through in 2002.
For 13 years now Angie has sought to find boys who are most in need and eager for an opportunity. Often the boys come from extreme poverty or from parentless homes to live on the grounds of Beacon of Hope. Angie usually has anywhere from 5-10 boys that she prefers to start when they are around 13 years old and then stay for about 3-5 years. There has been a total of 36 boys over the years in which 10 whom have graduated from her program. During their time at Beacon of Hope the teens learn a variety of skills; manual labor/ construction, computers, cooking and bible classes. In their final years they will sometimes attend trade schools. The oldest boy here, Josiah, is in trade school now for mechanics. Several of the boys have been able to get good jobs; doing computer IT for a ministry, working as mechanics, and in marketing.
However, being in Mozambique has not always been easy for Angie. She has dealt with health problems, government regulations for the organization, trying to obtain visas, trying to get adoption rights (for the 3 children she took in) and several other obstacles. In addition she has had staff that has broken her trust and stolen from her. Angie came to Mozambique alone and knows God called her here to show Christ’ love to these boys and to fulfill Jeremiah 29:11 “I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans to prosper you and give you a future.”
I want to ask for your prayers for Angie, her children and the ministry. That the Lord would provide her the strength and endurance and the hope to continue furthering His kingdom here in Mozambique. Please pray against spiritual darkness. Pray for doors to be open and lives to be freed here in these beautiful and dark mountains of Mozambique.
