For the last three days, we have been meeting together as a field to review plans and objectives for the next fiscal year and to make assignments for preparing our Mozambique Field Plan. Ann and I did this plan last year ourselves because we were the team! and it is so nice to be able to work with a team on it this year. We have only met a few times as a team at this point and are still learning how to work with each other. Our regional director came up from South Africa and helped us with planning and vision casting and we have set an aggressive schedule for completing the field plan over the coming weeks.
This photograph shows our current Mozambique team. The little puppy is a new guard dog for our Christian School. The other dog is getting quite old and so they have started training a new one - I suppose you could say the old dog will mentor the puppy?
We ended our weekend of meetings with a special church service in our home and a cook-out afterwards and a time of relaxation. The service was especially meaningful as we ended our meetings and bonded together through the process. The young couple in the back row of the photo are our short-term missionaries who have been helping us the last several weeks and we really hate to see them go as they have been such an amazing addition to our team. They attended all our meetings and were able to bring really good comments and observations.
Tomorrow at "zero dark thirty" we will be making a quick run to South Africa to deliver a car to a team from Ireland who will be joining us from South Africa later this week. We will also be checking our mail box and look forward to seeing what surprises are there. We will also be picking up a guitar that was being repaired for one of our churches plus several boxes of books we will be using in our ECC program. Juka will be accompanying the Irish team which will be led by a former OMS missionary to Mozambique. They plan to travel to our northern-most work later this week and assist the church pastors and trainers.
Thank you for standing with us. So much is happening here as we see God's hand in so many places and the answers to prayer have been especially encouraging the last couple of weeks. Thank you for praying - it has truly made a difference. Big impacts for the kingdom the last few weeks, great leadership training sessions, new teams that are being sent out, and amazing community health outreaches - but it is nothing we have done but rather a very tangible movement of God's hand - amazing things we have seen.
A prayer request we have is for our family. We have both been dealing in different ways with a deep sense of loss as we miss our daughters so very much. The young couple who is staying with us reminds us so much of our own wonderful children and sons-in-law - while it is unbelievably wonderful to spend time with this lovely couple, it also drives home the deep loss we often feel for our dear daughters. We pray that God will richly bless our girls and their husbands in incredible ways for their perserverence, patience, and faith that allows us to serve Christ in this way. We know with certainty that this is where God wants us, and with that we find peace, but our sense of loss relative to our children remains the most difficult thing we face as missionaries on a daily basis. In just the past few weeks, we have had a number of people who have stepped in and filled gaps in our children's lives because we are here, and we are so incredibly thankful for those acts of love and kindness.
Thank you Lord for your strength, your peace, and your presence. May our faces and our hearts always be turned towards You, may we always hear your voice, may we follow your leading, not ours, and may we always be in the shadow of your wings. Thank you for the absolute priviledge of serving you in this way and for the incredible group of people and churches that make it possible. Bless them for their faithfulness; may they feel your presence and see your hand at work just as we have been so blessed to see here. Amen.
Dave & Ann
"Because You have been my help, Therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice." Psalm 63:7
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