Just a quick update to say that
Luminous is alive and well.. We “survived” the month of July in
Monkey Bay, Malawi by living in a beautiful house with Lake Malawi at our
doorstep, team Tikvah partnering with us in playing on the beach, and an
amazing missionary couple who fed our spirits every morning. Yea, quite a
tough month indeed. =D We didn’t have internet all month, so my
apologies for the lack of updates..
After leaving Monkey Bay, Malawi on
Monday by way of a 4 am bus to Blantyre, Malawi, we were blessed with Benny’s
friends, the Shrum family, who picked us up from Blantyre and helped us cross
the border into Milange, Mozambique, but offered great hospitality for three
nights… We “worked” for our stay, which included varnishing windows
at their home office, replacing screens on their windows, painting signs, and
whatnot… We were fed good homecookin’ and even played Bible trivia (let’s
just say I wasn’t picked first to be on either team)… it was a great pitstop
on the Race (haha first Amazing Race ref all year). Then Jeff personally
drove us 4 hours to another town, Mocumba, where we crashed for a night before
taking another 4 am bus nearly 9 hours to Nampula, Moz. Transportation in
Africa is quite costly, many times confusing, and never 100% guaranteed, so
having an insider connection escorting us part of the way to Pemba was
huge. We’ve been staying at an SIL base here in Nampula for the past two
days, kinda a mini-debrief for our team as we rested, did laundry, got some wifi,
etc..
By the time you read this, Luminous
will be in Pemba for our ATL month in Africa…. quite the opposite experience
from our ATL month in Asia, which was flying by the seat of our pants and
getting deported here and there, no big deal. This time, we’ve got a
scheduled arrival date and location (a rarity this year!): August 9th in Pemba,
Mozambique, where we’ll stay at and work with Iris Ministries’ base.
Pemba is their main operation, so we may even have an orientation and I’m sure
it’s run so smoothly that we won’t know what to do with routine, order, a
schedule, etc. Maybe Mel will finally get to meet her spiritual
inspiration, Heidi Baker, at last. If not, at least we’ll be loving on
the same kids that Heidi loves, and helping to carry out what Heidi has
started.
Hard to believe our time in Africa
is almost over… but I’m excited to go out with a bang.
I’ll try to post some blogs on my
month in Malawi another time… just know that Madonna did right in adopting
kids from that country.. it was a beautiful place with lots of reasons to go
back. In the mean time, check out my teammates’ blogs, as they’ve had a
chance to throw down quite a few entries… Also, here’s a link to Iris
Ministries in Pemba, for those who like to be in the know (or are just bored at
work – you can be honest, I’ve been there with the 9 -5 so I won’t judge).
