Friday, November 18, 2009: I-Squad departs Nelspruit, South Africa (our debrief location) and begins the journey to Mozambique. Bamboo Brigade is sent off by themselves, while Illuminations, Former In Tent City, and S’more join forces for the work ahead in Vilanculos. This tourist “city” (I put the work city in quotations because its really just a small beach town but in the grand scheme of Mozambique it’s a city) is located right on the beautiful Indian Ocean. This news excited me because I desire to touch as many oceans and seas across the world as I can, and the Indian Ocean was one I had not yet experienced. But, I am getting ahead of myself. After 18.5 hours on a tightly packed, very uncomfortable van bus ride thing, we arrived at the abode of the Rudolph family (members include Jaco, Maria, Maggie, and Rudo), our home for the next 3ish weeks. Did I mention that it was pouring rain when we arrived and we had to set up our tents because that’s where we’d be sleeping? And did I also mention that all of our packs had been attached to the van bus thing in metal cart, covered only in tarp, and therefore most of our stuff got wet and some stuff even got moldy, including my Boston Red Sox hat! Huzzah. And we had to walk for what seemed like 30 minutes, but which was actually about 12 minutes, in the rain around a lake. This was the start of our time in Mozambique.
Every night we would fall asleep to the croaking of frogs and the sounds of goats, as we laid in our tents, begging God for a breeze. Often it would rain in the middle of the night and I would find myself scrambling in the dark to put on my rain fly. Jaco and Maria were amazing contacts; they truly blessed us and served us in numerous ways. Maria cooked all of our meals and Jaco would make endless trips into town to bring us to church, the beach, the pizza place or the internet almost everyday. We would pile anywhere from 9 to 14 people into Jaco’s land cruzer and drive for 10 minutes down the bumpiest, sandiest road I have ever experienced. Jaco and Maria also gave us the day off when they found out it was Thanksgiving and prepared a wonderful feast for us!
Our time in Mozambique ended up being one of the most diverse months in terms of ministry on the race yet. We had the opportunity to preach, visit the prison and the hospital, be part of the cooking team, do home visits, prayer walks, spend a night at a orphanage, children’s Sunday school, and show the Passion of the Christ movie outside to the local community. Despite having a plethora of ministry opportunities, when I think about our time there what sticks out the most to me is the internal growth that happened. I was brought to a place of brokenness early on during our time there and through this brokenness God was able to do a work inside of me and grow in ways I didn’t expect. He has continued to teach me about defining myself in Christ and looking to Him for acceptance over others. I can’t fully explain all that happened internally, all I know is that one day I realized I felt like a different person then I had even 2 weeks ago. It was an exciting and surprising realization. Often I ask God to speed up the process of healing or teaching me something, and this month He did.
God also taught me about trust in Him. Almost everyday in Vilanculos people were putting their faith in God: every time we visited the hospital or the prison, went to church, or showed the Passion movie there were new believers. It was exciting but at times I found myself doubting their sincerity. I just couldn’t believe that all these people decided to dedicate their lives to Christ after a 30 minute or less testimony. But, through a teammate God reminded me that there is power in His name and His truth. We don’t need to doctor up Jesus and make Him sound good. We don’t need to prove Him. We just need to speak the Truth and trust that God will take care of the rest. I found that Mozambique was really just the beginning of this lesson and many others that God would continue to teach me about during our time in Malawi, but more on that in the blogs to come.
