Traveling

Tonight, we arrived at OMS headquarters in Greenwood Indiana, where we will be staying this week for meetings. We will be staying in a small apartment "on-campus". We have a full schedule but probably won't have much to blog during this time. It's a time of reviewing what we need to accomplish before we return to Mozambique, debriefing, and reviewing our furlough schedule. This will also be the time we establish our funding needs that we have to meet before we can return.

Part of our time is getting checked out by the OMS contracted doctor, who is also a specialist in tropical medicine. I think that means that he studied in the tropics or only uses medicines from the tropics or maybe he wants to live in the tropics? ;-) We don't have any issues that we know of but they want to do some blood work and see how we are doing compared to five years ago. We pretty much had a checkup in South Africa not too long before we left, so there shouldn't be anything new to learn.

We haven't heard too much from our colleagues in Mozambique. We understand that the Kelly's have arrived, which will be a wonderful addition to the team and we pray the make the adjustment to living there quickly.

We stopped at a Kroger grocery store on the way in to Greenwood, Indiana tonight to pick up some fruit, cereal, and coffee for the morning. We were really wowed by this store - America is so blessed - the grocery stores are just unbelievable. So nice, so easy. Wow! We still just stand and look at the aisles of food, overwhelmed. Tonight, Ann said - you go pick out a cereal box - it's just too overwhelming for me tonight. In Mozambique, we were overwhelmed if the store had any cereal - one or two varieties was a treat!

On our way here, we passed through Nashville to see the Grandson. At one point I was just sitting holding him and looking at him with tears running down my face. I asked Ann, how is it even possible that I can love this little guy so much, so instantly!

Blessings to you this week.

Dave & Ann

"Thy kingdom come...." from the Lord's prayer.

Thy - not ours

Kingdom - you are the king now; nothing happens that You do not know about.

Come - return Lord Jesus, but not until all you intend have found the joy and peace from knowing you. While I want you to come quickly from a personal standpoint, there are so many in this world who do not yet know You. Bring them to you, bring workers to the harvest field so they can hear the Good News!

Tragedy in our Field

We received a text message during the night that the 8-year old daughter of one of our Christian School Teachers had died last night (actually her 8th birthday is today). Our colleague, Larry, was summoned to the hospital where this dear child had been taken. This is a deep tragedy for our team and for this dear single mom who was from another country herself, bravely serving as a missionary teacher. They were a part of our team and she and her daughter attended conferences, meetings and were a daily part of our colleague’s lives through the Christian School. This dear child was sweet and extremely smart – brilliant actually, with incredible potential. She was sick last week but actually feeling better and was in school early this week.

The information is slowly coming in and the doctors are narrowing the cause down to some tragic and aggressive disease. We won’t know cause for a couple of weeks, and it seems that as humans, we want to understand cause as we reach inwardly and heavenly to try and understand; we trust You and Your mercy, but these things are so difficult Lord.

The normal and daily pressure on our colleagues is already monumental; Father in Heaven, strengthen our dear team, draw them together in this horrific time as they sort out all many things that must be done in this situation. Bring the right people to the side of all our colleagues, comfort those who grieve, strength those working in the background, and shower your mercy and grace upon all of them. There really are no words; there is only Your presence.

The funeral will be at our seminary on Saturday.

All of our days are truly numbered. Our hope is in You dear Lord. Amen.

Dave & Ann

“In Christ alone, my hope is found” from the song by Keith Getty and Stuart Townsend

Third Generation Church

Since my last entry, we have issued two church planting reports in conjunction with our friends in Mozambique. We continue to be amazed at what God is doing in Mozambique with our fledgling OMS-founded denomination. We now have 125 churches as compared to the 10 when we arrived four years ago – not anything we did – we were the planting and watering department, it was God who did the increase. I am convinced that God works through very ordinary people so there can be no doubt that only He deserves the credit.

One of the reports we issue is what is called a “church register”. It lists by name each church planter/pastor and the church or churches that he has planted with some basic information about those churches. This last report contained two very significant things that thrilled us:

1. We have a new training center outside the city of Quelimane (the meaning of which is "kill a man" because of the low-land and high incidence of Malaria!). We had visited the pastor of a church in that area who wanted to partner with us and had already begun to teach our program. He has fully engaged with us and is now fully participating. That is wonderful. He is older, experienced, and trained, which is God’s provision, that is clear. I will try to include a photograph if our Internet speed will let us upload. His name is Arcanjo. He and his church planter/pastors are responsible for starting five churches. This photo is at Arcanjo's church, he is the man on the right and his wife and youngest child is to his right.

2. In addition, we have our first ‘third-generation’ church. What is that? Well, our Trainers that teach at our training centers have as many as 20 people who they are training. When one of those 20 starts a church that would be the first generation church. That Pastor (of the first generation church) is expected to be mentoring and training his own group of people, some of which would start a church, and that would be a second generation church. And if we are all doing our jobs right, then the leader of the second generation church will in-turn work with another group of people, some of which would start a church – that would be a third generation church. The idea is that we have a self-sustaining program that continues on and on, with people teaching what they know, but everything stemming from the formal training program at the Training Center. In some countries in Africa where OMS uses this program, we have 7^th generation churches, perhaps higher now. Sound familiar, mmmmm, let’s see, there was Jesus, and 12 disciples, then there were the 70, a three-year program, and then there is Paul and his journeys, mmmmmmm.

Our first 3^rd generation church is in a place called Tatala, stemming off from our Training Center near Elope, where Dinis Ramos is our trainer. God is blessing Dinis as he teaches at two different centers. You might remember that a few months ago, he took some of his church planter/pastors and they did an extensive evangelism campaign using the Jesus film, where over 1000 people made decisions for Christ. I suspect this church is more fruit from that campaign. Pray for Dinis, for where there is great success, there is great opposition and resistance as well. It is not easy for him. Dinis is in the back row of this photograph of some of his planter/pastors (stripe shirt). The other photo is the outside of the same training center.

We begin our first ‘road tour’ tomorrow where we will be traveling and sharing, speaking, preaching, and teaching about the marvelous things that God is doing in Mozambique. Pray with us for traveling mercies and that we can represent the Field and our Lord well. This kind of life-style does not come easy for us as we continue to grow in understanding of what ‘Trusting God’ really means. But, we have a great story to tell – but those of you who read our blog – you already know the stories!

Dave & Ann

“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, Amazing Love, now flowing down

From hands and feet, that were nailed to the tree, As grace flows down and covers me.

It covers me…..”

Song by David Bell, Luie Giglio and Rod Padgett

First Wedding; Mocuba Training Center

Sometimes we just get so excited about things we can hardly stand it.

We just sent in our monthly church planting report, and we were thrilled to see that 2 new churches, 62 baptisms, 217 decisions for Christ, and over 800 in structured discipleship training. This is great news. But some other things really excited us in a few emails we’ve received the last couple of days.

One is that we just had our first wedding at the Mocuba Training Center; that just thrills us to no end to see how this facility is being used for our OMS-founded denomination. And, the wedding dress is one of the ones sent by some of our dear supporters. There is something so very special about the love shown across the miles from the churches in the States to the churches in Mozambique. And then, Antonio and Theresa are the Patrinho and Madrinha (Godfather and Godmother – very important cultural role in Mozambique) and Juka officiated. We still could use an influx of cash to finish off some things at the center – I think that is always the case!

And on the 14^th of August, our trainer in Ilhe, Dinis Ramos officiated a wedding there as well.

I am also including a precious picture of Milca, Juka’s daughter carrying water for the garden at the training center – you can see the center in the background and the small house. Juka will move there eventually. In addition, this other picture shows the water well that is the solution to water needs at the center in the short-term; a hand-dug well. There was not sufficient flow to support a pump type well.

I am also including a photo of Juka and Milca planting a tree - I had always cast a vision that the center would be like the SIL center in Nampula - that someday there would be big trees to cast shade and provide a respite from the heat and a peaceful place to study and learn about God. I almost cried when I saw the picture as I miss them so much.

Blessings!

Dave & Ann

“Do not let you hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” John 14:1

Setting up Housekeeping

We have now established a temporary home in Zionville, North Carolina. Some dear friends of ours are letting us use their cabin, which is located on the top of a mountain overlooking Snake Mountain and Rich Mountain, if you know where those mountains are. It takes us 1/2 hour to get off the mountain on a winding gravel road that goes over 1200 ft in elevation in about 3 miles. I cannot imagine doing it in the snow and the neighbors say they were snowed in for over a week last year! That is a big change from Mozambique.

We have set up a small office but we have very poor cell phone reception - we are on the edge of coverage areas and if atmospheric conditions are just right, we can make and receive calls. Otherwise, we have to drive to Boone, North Carolina where we have signal. Our Internet is also linked to the cell phone, so we have the same problem - can receive email, but not always send and it is entirely dependent upon atmospheric conditions. Plus, we are roaming - so it is almost like being back in Mozambique, where our friends tell us that the Internet is not working any longer where we lived.

However, I love it here and I think it is what God knew I needed. In our Transition training/counseling, we are studying lots of different things and one of them is learning our individual styles for worshipping God. For example, some people find great comfort in tradition, litergy, and grand cathedrals and are able to best worship God in that environment whereas others are moved to worship through the natural world around them (mountains, streams, nature). There are nine different styles. In the testing we've taken, I score exceptionally high on the nature side, and so living temporarily in this location is just amazing and thrilling to me and does indeed move me to worship.

Yesterday was my birthday and daughter 3 of 4 came up for the day and that was very special. We have to drive down and lead them up here and back out again. We use a GPS (Garmin) system but in these mountains, it is extremely unreliable. We've been taken all over the place by the GPS and in some cases to places we should not be as we have tried to find this place. In one case, we ended up at the end of a small road (after an hour) that we knew was 'close' to the road we needed (above us about 300 feet) but there was no way to get there. So, we go back down the steep narrow road and get the map out and then find our way back to the house.

I think there is a sermon in there and we've experienced some of this since being back in the States. It seems that we are always seeking new paths or ways to God. In the Old Testament, we see the same thing where the nation of Israel would follow 'new ways' (false Gods and idols) introduced by those around them. There is much talk about making the church relevent to the culture and thus we hear about and see new 'paths' to make the Gospel more 'seeker friendly'. I think that's all good stuff but it is also frought with compromise and dilution. Like my newfangled Garmin, I can use it to find the right road but sometimes I end up at a dead end or in total confusion, so I pull out a map, and sure enough am able to figure it out. It reminds me of God's word. The Bible remains relevent to the culture and is key to staying on the correct path. When we try to do it the new way, or the short way, negating what He has given us in his word, we get fustrated, lost, and confused. Great lesson for us all.

As a PS, today there are riots, gunfire, and mobs running through the city we used to live in. The reason? The economic crisis is starting to reach Mozambique and the goverment lifted the price controls on bread and fuel to mention a few things. In addition, the value of the local currency is falling in relation to the dollar, affecting quite a bit as well. The expectation is that the Goverment (or Patrao, chief, boss, etc.) is responsible for taking care of everything and meeting every need. When they cannot, then riots break out. Often it becomes self-defeating as well. This is the third time since we've been in Mozambique and it can be quite dangerous if you have to venture out in your vehicle during these times. I have been praying for my colleagues this day as these kinds of things can be quite dangerous and are certainly stressful. There is alot of tension just under the surface, which is why our work there is so important. People need to learn to follow a different path....

Time to continue with preparing for our upcoming travel schedule!

Blessings.

Dave & Ann

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." Ps 119:105