Giant weird fruit,
muddy swamps,
114 degrees weather,
sweet little boys,
mango downpours,
leaches,
big scary cows,
filthy showers,
clogged toilets,
beautiful people,
bumpy bus rides,
tons of waiting,
language barriers,
more waiting,
visa pictures,
45 bug bites,
eating fish eyes,
African voices,
vulnerability,
community,
exhaustion,
sleeping in sweat,
waking in God’s love,
missing family,
missing the people I live the most,
trusting God will take care of them, and of me.
This is where 53 HOURS of travel got me.
If you count the house we stayed a night in because we were too tired to carry on it was 79 hours.
Think about it.
'Bus night' at training camp was nowhere near preparation to our bus time thus far.
Well, my apologies for that run on sentence above, if you could even call it a sentence….it’s kind of a list that exploded out of my mind due to lack of sleep, organization, or any form of coherent thought this morning. But this blog will probably be rather lengthy, due to the lack of updates I've given to anyone at home thus far.
So here we go, this has been the past 2 weeks in Mozambique:
Our plane ride from DC to the airport in Dubai was fun and loooong.
The flight attendants were so sweet and we all became friends.
At the end of the flight I wrote one of them, named Ashleigh, a note telling her how much
her service meant to our team and how much God loved her, and Jess and I took a picture together!
I’ll be completely honest, the first day at Iris ministries was really hard.
I thought I’d be more okay with the dirt, the heat, the humidity, the dehydration.
However, coming from cold Washington DC to the middle of Africa was a drastic transition.
But God is really good through it all, even when I have a bad attitude He just smiles and walks beside me.
He reminded me why I’m here, who I am, and encourages me to choose joy and say YES to this amazing adventure.
So here is my 5 star sleeping arrangement, complete with biting fire ants that crawl on us at night and a friendly little rat running around!
We stayed at a house one night during travel to rest and repack before heading out on our second 2 day bus ride. There was a little guy running around there who we had fun playing with. Anyone with a phone was his new best friend, and he sat on my lap for a while playing with my phone and spreading jelly on it. What a silly boy he was….
On Sunday I was sitting behind the local church having time with Jesus and listening to the singing voices inside when a woman from the congregation approached me.
I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but eventually figured out she wanted me to walk into the church with her. We went in together and I found a few other teammates dancing up front with the kids, so I joined them. The combination of excessive body odor, buckets of sweat and loud Portuguese music made for a beautiful worship time. I sat with a woman on the floor with only one leg and prayed for her.
After worship I left and passed a big room full of children, guessing it was their Sunday school. When I went in there were no adults and all the kids rushed up to me. No one understood English except for a little boy who helped me translate. I was suddenly nervous, all these kids were expecting something and I had no idea what to do. I felt overwhelmed and asked God to let the spirit work right away. God reminded me that these kids weren’t expecting anything; they just wanted to be around me and hold my hand. So that’s what we did. I asked them to teach me their favorite songs, and had them all hold hands and dance. We played games and drew pictures, and they all wrote me notes in my journal. It was such a sweet way to spend my Sunday morning!
Well there is so much more to say, but I only paid for an hour of internet time and its almost up! More to come soon.
Love,
Rachel
