It’s
hard to sum up last month and put in a nice neat blog, because last
month was messy and all sorts of things were happening. I know I need
to share something, so I’ll do my best to portray the main things that
happened.
The
beginning of the month started off waiting at the Betor House in
Nelspruit, South Africa for transportation to Vilanculos, Mozambique.
It was only suppose to be a day, but instead we spent about 4 days
waiting. God knew that our squad needed this time together and a few
more days before ministry. Plain and simple, we just weren’t ready for
Africa yet, myself being one of them. We just needed more time to close
out Asia and to get ready for what laid ahead here in Africa. Well we
finally got to Jaco and Maria’s in Vilanculos after a 16 hour van ride
through the night.
Normally we would have stayed at Jaco’s for a day or two and spend the
rest of our time in the Bush. Once again that would not be the case, as
we waited for a group to come up from South Africa and some other
assorted details that detained us. Once again God knew what was best.
Oh, I think I failed to mention that we were 4 teams there, that’s half
the squad (we named ourself ‘SKIM Squad’ from the first letter of all
our team names.) During our waiting at Jaco’s we were able to pray,
worship and (I hope) be a blessing to his family.
Finally we were able to get all packed up and head out to the Bush AKA
a village called Machanga, about 200 kilometers north. We finally got
there after a confusing bus ride and going over a river in dugout
canoes. Yes. Only we found out that we weren’t going to be staying
there, the plan was to move the next day to the other side of Machanga
(about 10 kilos away) because there was a woman’s conference going on
there with the church. Two days later, with a goat we arrived where we
would spend the next 7 days in ministry.
Our time in the Bush was marked with visits to the school and doing
Bible stories for the children, preaching and teaching at the
church/woman’s conference, house visits, prayer and chores of living in
the Bush; such as the 6 hour process of making bread over the
fire-actually doing all the cooking over the fire, bathing down at the
river, and washing everything by hand.
The
people there were so hungry for God that they wanted us to teach for
hours for the three days following the woman’s conference. However, we
ended up having to leave a day early so we only did it for two days.
God gave me a word to share so the first day after the conference I
preached. Yup, I did it. I told God that the Holy Spirit needed to show
up big time and speak through me, and He did. People were surprised at
how calm I was and how smooth the message came out, I told them that
mostly what I remember is saying “Hi, I’ve never preached
before….that’s all there is.” I am so grateful the Holy Spirit showed
up and spoke.
Finally the day came for us to head back to Jaco’s for a couple of more
days before we left for Nelspruit for debrief. I was grateful for the
opportunity to get some rest and spend some more time with Maria
(Jaco’s wife) before the 16 hour van ride back.
Like I said at the beginning, so many things happened. I thought I
would at least share a little bit about the crazy stuff that went down
last month. Maybe there will be more blogs to come….later or maybe
you’ll just have to hear the stories in person.
