Well folks we made it to Mozambique! After two plane rides equaling 22 hours and then riding on two different buses rounding the total to 80 hours of transport. My entire squad is set up at a compound in Dondo, Mozambique at Iris Ministries. Two of the teams from my squad work directly with Iris Ministries while the rest of us work outside the compound at different ministry sites. Team N’Pursuit, my team, works with a man named Peter and his organization Well of Jacob located in Mafambisse Township. The ministry is an orphanage that cares for 60 children, 15 of which live there while the rest have temporary guardians they spend nights. Out of the 60 children 14 are HIV positive and must have specific care to keep up their health. The ministry puts on multiple programs throughout the day with the children. My team is helping the ministry teach English, lead bible studies, and demonstrate technical drawing to the children. We also have the privilege of working with widows and those sick in the hospital on certain ministry days. It has been such a blessing to have a multi-faceted ministry site, which allows each member of my team to truly use their gifts that God has given them.
Since it took many days to travel to Dondo the squad will not be staying in Mozambique a full month but instead will only be here a total of about 3 weeks and then will be heading to Swaziland. I’m sorry it has taken me a week to communicate that I am alive and have made it here but we can only use the Internet at an Internet café on Saturdays.
Personally I am doing well; however, I don’t think I have had much time to process being here. Don’t get me wrong I love being with my entire squad, squad leaders, and AIM staff but because we minister during the day and then gather at night as a squad I have yet to sit down and self-analyze. Writing this blog is actually the first time I have spend time alone just listening to music and reflecting. I must say all those prayers of being ‘pliable’ for God I prayed prior to launch are finally being put into action. Though this process has just begun God is radically changing me, but is doing so in a way that I have never experienced. God is being very quiet and communicating to me in new ways, which is definitely forcing me to grow. As we all know growth is never an easy process but is rewarding nonetheless. I am realizing that I am stained and tarnished and all the varnish I have used to cover up with is peeling away. Yet even in this new episode I am clinging to God with nothing less than a tattered heart asking Him to shape me into the person I am called to be. I am just a man of God in the process of discovering my identity; a task full of great difficulty but eternal rewards.
I am excited to have more days of ministry and to share each story of God’s love here in Mozambique with each one of you. But until then, go love.
