I wish all of you could be here in Africa with me.
I would love for you to feel the heat of the sun on your skin during the day and the breeze at night.
I wish you could look up to the darkness and see the many stars I get to see in the African sky.
I would love to walk you down the dirt road to the stand and buy you a little ice cream and a cold drink in a glass bottle (all for less than $1 USD).
I would invite you to our morning home visits where we walk slowly along the sandy roads with the Mozambique women entering random homes, praying for sick, and singing praises in either the tribal language or Portuguese (I hum or make up words and I think you would too).
I would show you the patterns of the African clothe that are so fabulous and explain to you that you wear it as a skirt OR carry an obscenely beautiful child on your back wrapped in the fabric.
I would tell how excited I am to do that one-day when it is my turn to have a baby. For dinner you would eat a lot of rice and potatoes, but for dessert, fresh mango that you have to peel with your teeth. It is so juicy you will need to rinse off after eating it.
I would remind you to take your malaria medication. If you stay the night in our simple, yet, extravagant house compared to many in Maputo, you could stay in our room- made of concrete walls and a tin roof.
The rain on the roof is amazingly powerful and loud. You would have to sleep in a mosquito net (and sleep on a pad on the ground) to avoid the millions of mosquitoes that find their way into the house and into our room.
Maybe one afternoon we could pile into the truck, sit in the back with the speaker system and the keyboards and hang on for dear life as we head to a remote neighborhood for an outreach.
We would dance with the Mozambicans’ and you would be reminded that yes, this is Africa. They have great rhythm and LOVE to sing. At the end of the outreach, we would pray for those that came forward. You will feel the presence of God. I feel the spirit with goose bumps- even though it is 90 degrees out. You can also see the spirit in the smiles and the tears of the African people.
Some moments we have running water and electricity.
Some moments we do not.
If you wanted to write home using e-mail, you would have to wait a while until we could get access in town. I would tell you that it is hard, but there is also freedom from lack of Internet and knowledge of current events. You would start to relax and maybe read a book. You may just sit outside under the tree and watch the wind blow and the clouds float across the huge African sky.
I really think you would like it here if you came to Africa with me. I know, I too was scared of this kind of Africa.
Trucks filled with people. No safe drinking water (we have some!). Mosquitoes and malaria. The heat. The crowded markets. It is not so bad. Even for a germ freak like me.
I really think you would like it in Africa. I wish all of you could be here in Africa with me.
