Differences & Change

The other evening I was watching the evening news to work on my Portuguese and there was this story about a man falling out of the back of a truck and being killed on the highway. Now it was a quick story and not much reaction to it. The next day Ann snapped this picture - that is how someone falls out of a truck onto the highway. The police are very strict - you must wear your seatbelt inside the car, but if you are in the back - no worries, you are CARGO! People pay a small amount to ride in the vehicle like this and the above is a very normal thing here.

We've had a series of meetings to discuss our upcoming ECC conference in Nampula this coming January. Every year, we try to get all our church planter-trainers together to share stories, encourage one-another, do some training, and spend time in bible study and prayer. We decided to do the conference in northern Mozambique some time ago as about 1/2 of the people are in the north and 1/2 in the south - so alternating the site seemed to make sense. That was BEFORE we did the crueling 3-day drive ourselves! So, we are preparing to go back in mid-January and are doing the preparations now; getting lesson plans together; making arrangements; gathering supplies. This second photo is at our planning meeting as we put together the agenda for the conference.

We have a guest speaker coming who does Chronological Bible Story telling all over Africa. In addition, later in the week, we have people from OMS Men for Missions International coming to check out the work in the north. So after the conference, we plan to make a trip down to Mocuba with the OMS folks for a couple of days and then return to Nampula. It will be HOT then - our summer and we're headed towards the equator! I hope our air conditioner keeps working on this trip (if stopped working on the last one!).

Tomorrow will be quite a day - we have another ECC planning meeting in the morning to finalize the details for our upcoming conference, assemble the information for the monthly report we owe OMS, and talk about next year's strategy. I just sent in the budget request for our ECC Church Multiplication Strategy as we work towards next year in this interesting economic time. We are feeling the impact of the crisis and taking steps to further cut back and simplify. We proposed a year of stability so we could focus on strengthening our trainers, establishing distance learning centers that are tied to our Maputo seminary, and strengthening the rapidly increasing number of churches. One of the lines we heard in the recent ECC conference we attended in South Africa is "the resources are in the harvest". What that means is that as people's lives are changed by the gospel, that is where the people come from that are the leaders of tomorrow, the church pastors of tomorrow, the business leaders of tomorrow, the seminary students of tomorrow. The harvest is so white.....

We also have one of our quarterly meetings tomorrow with our board of Mozambican advisors. All of us on our Field Leadership Team will be summarizing the last year here and bringing a few items to their attention but it should be a fairly light meeting for a change and will end with a time of fellowship and celebration as we thank them for their service this past year.

A final small story tonight. Shortly after we arrived in Mozambique, the government began installing new traffic lights all throughout the city. At the more major intersections, the lights included a green turn arrow. Well, no one explained to anyone what they were for, so in the beginning the green turn arrow would come on, people would stare at it, but no one would go. After a while, enough of us familiar with the arrow would go, and people slowly began to get the hang of it. So, for quite some time, traffic has flowed a little bit better in those intersections with the lights - less 'playing chicken' which is quite common on the roads here.

Well, we've progressed to something new now. If you have a leading green, now people read that as a green (everybody goes). So, if you get the green arrow - you'd better be moving before it changes to green and shoot through immediately. EXCEPT, you still have to wait after the green comes on for the six cars that run the red light. So, we are almost back to where we started - intersections where the cars are all jammed in, no one can move, the police walk around with their whistles blowing frantically but not doing anything - but eventually, it seems to sort out and the traffic starts moving again. Order in the chaos.....

It has been a blessed year here - so many things have happened in spite of our bumbling. God always finds a way to accomplish his purposes using flawed vessels like you and like me. One thing I keep learning is that it is less about what I want to do, or what I think, or implementing the plan I think is the right plan, but to simply trust that God will accomplish His purposes. Is 'trying too hard' kind of like kicking against the Goads? It can very well be just that...as we learn more about resting in Him - to do the 'right things - right'.

It's His plan and His work - we are all very priviledged to have a small role in it. He can accomplish His tasks with or without us and I don't know about you, but I'd rather be on the "with" team than the "without" team!

"And he [Saul] said,' Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest; it is hard for thee to kick against the goads." (a goad is a sharp stick on a cart used to drive oxen). Acts 9:5