Sunday

Today we attended our T-3 church. It is relatively close to our new rental house in Machava and we can be there in about 10 or 15 minutes traveling the narrow back-roads that we've become so used to. We stopped on the way at a local market and bought some rice and sugar for a widow we planned to visit with after church, a dear lady we have known for quite some time now.

We have known the young man in the photo since he was a baby and he is growing nicely and so well mannered.
Momma (a term of respect here, emphasis on second syllable) has a son who is dieing that she is taking care of. We don't know what it is as these things are not talked about, but we are almost certain it is advanced aids. He is to the point he is unable to get up off his grass mat and is totally skin and bones. Momma is taking extremely good care of him and at this point there is little to do but keep him comfortable. I think it is the love of family that keeps him going. In the past, he used to work in South Africa and return to Maputo but as this horrible disease ravaged him more and more, he had no where to go but home. As we held his hands and spoke with him, we could only offer him encouragement, that God knows his name, and in this case, he also has the peace of knowing the very Creator. As we prayed with him, I so wished that God would allow him to 'take up his mat' but this was not to be. A gaunt face of a young man, burned into my consciousness, laying on a grass mat on a concrete floor in a little block house on the outskirts of Maputo. But by the grace of God go any one of us....

In an oral culture, such as Mozambique, memories are much more developed than in the Western culture where we can look up a name, check the phone book, etc. Today she asked specifically about some dear friends of ours that visited with her back in 2006 - by name. She wanted to hear all the details of their lives, their children, what they were doing and emphasized the importance that we relay her greetings, which we have done. The Mozambican's are a very gracious people and we must seem so crude to them with our "walking with purpose" and our task orientation. But Momma has looked into my heart and into Ann's heart and we have that heart connection that cannot be explain - a bond that we are truly family.

We are reading a book called "African Friends and Money Matters" by David Maranz that should be required reading for anyone coming to African to visit for an extended time or to live. This book really drives home the differences in culture and really helps explain how differently we look at things - the incredible bias we bring into the situation because of where ever we come from. The longer I am here, the more I see the layers of the onion I must shed to truly be as effective for God as I seek to be here. In this culture, it is the relationship that matters, the network you develop, and the understanding that the broad network is literally how many people simply survive day to day as everyone helps everyone else. It is a different way of thinking but I feel like I'm beginning to see it a little better - not in judgement, not to evaluate, but seemly to see how the system truly works and the tiny ripples that move out from the relationships as people help each other. It has much basis in the Bible.

I was encouraged that I was able to follow Pastor Daniels' sermon fairly well but he kept using a word (verb) over and over again that was unfamiliar to me. Afterwards, I talked with him trying to understand what the word meant. It wasn't in our dictionary and so we got out our Bibles and used them as our dictionaries - and it worked. I learned a new verb that isn't in our little dictionary and now I just need to use it about 10 times to cement it in my brain. While we were having that discussion, I didn't realize that Ann snapped a picture - so here is truth. The sermon was on the "call of God" and it was something Daniel and I have discussed many times.
A great day - actually my birthday today - and Ann used one of the boxes of cake mix we brought back with cream cheese frosting she brought from the states. Five candles as we didn't want to burn the house completely down and we didn't want to catch the few hairs I have left on my head on fire!

Blessings to you.

Dave & Ann

"And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’" Matt 25:60