Women's Meeting

Our church is Evangelical Church of the Living Word right now (IEPV). Every Sunday we look forward to participating in one of our IEPV churches in whatever capacity that might develop into. Sometimes we preach, sometimes we teach, sometimes we simply participate, but it is our church.

One of the exciting things happening is how the ladies are organizing together. Every month there is a denomination-wide meeting of all the ladies. It is held at different churches and of course always involves a meal! Ann attends as many of these meetings as she can. The most recent meeting was at our Khongolote church. I was doing some other things in the area and snapped a few pictures of the meeting. You'll see Ann's translator sitting next to her - translating from Shanganna to Portuguese. The meetings are in the tribal dialect and many of the older ladies don't understand a lick of Portuguese - the reality of life here when you get out of the cities. It is a challenge with over 40 different language groups in the country so that language translation is a normal part of life.

This meeting had ladies attending from nearly every IEPV church in the Maputo province. Similar meetings are now happening in our northern churches as well. It's important. The meetings are long as everyone gets their say. There is much singing, much praying, much dancing, and much listening and considering. They are a part of the life-blood and fabric of the church here, changing the culture, changing the community, embracing the truth of a God who loves them and is interested in all the details of each life. What an amazing God we serve! This group is truly a family and they are bonded together in a common faith that crosses every boundary.

As an aside, we were able to procure more training books today for our church multiplication and seminary program. We loaded nearly 500 books in the back of our car and took them to the seminary - restocking our dwindling supply with some key titles. We are still struggling to get a few titles we need but the publisher in Kenya has been quite helpful and we may be able to purchase licenses and simply make our own copies legally. That's good news but we have details to continue to work out. The publisher wants 10% of our profit! I laughed out loud - what profit? Does that mean when we go in the red, they will help us with that also? Shouldn't it go both ways? Now that would be a really good negotiation don't you think?

"Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.....a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised." Proverbs 31 29-30