September update - Zaccheaus was a wee little man....

We haven't done an update because our Internet, that we continue to pay for, (ooh, I'm detecting some frustration here) has not worked since we arrived except at random times for maybe an hour here or there - I would estimate 10% of the time.  We keep trying to sort it out, but frankly it is very frustrating as we can't SKYPE, can't email, can't do basic business, such as banking.  We have even talked to the owner of the company trying to get some sort of assistance but as the saying goes, TIA (This is Africa).  So - that is the primary reason we have not written for a while.

We have returned to language study and are focusing mainly on pronunciation and better use of what we know already for starters.  While we were in the States, I really think our brains re-wired for our understanding and reading has improved quite a bit, but our speaking; well, there is this disconnect between my brain to a tongue that isn't used to moving that way!  It will be something I imagine we will always need to devote time to as long as we serve here.

Our time thus far has been mostly focused on getting settled back into life here and getting all the details taken care of.   Car shopping has also been interesting.  We have visited many places and the used market is a bit too scary for me.  The horror stories abound with people buying old vehicles for big dollars that breakdown a few days later, requiring thousands in repair.  We have narrowed our search down to either a Nissan Hardbody pickup or a Mazda BT-50 pickup.  They are roughly equivalent and similar in price and should do us fine here.  We hope to make that decision next week as we wait on their final 'best price'.  The Mazda people seem a little more ready to deal and the vehicle is much more comfortable - so we lean that way, but ultimately it comes down to price.  We've pretty much ruled out the Mahindra.  They don't have any right now and anything I can find on reliability and longevity is spotty or poor, so it is probably a case of "you get what you pay for..." It seemed reasonably made, but the fit wasn't great and they used lower quality metal on things I thought needed to be stronger, for example.  I wanted to drive one, but they didn't have one available.

We are trying to minimize driving the vehicle loaned to us by close friends and so we've been attending the same church in T-3 since we arrived (for that reason) and have enjoyed that as opposed to our traveling around like we did our first term.  We need to get around more soon, but want our own vehicle to go the places we need to go, which typically require 4-wheel drive.

Our shipment is still somewhere on the ocean between the US and here - the shipper calls us from time to time but basically to say 'it's not here yet.'  We'll be glad when it arrives.  All of our needed paperwork is in place, including our resident visas - so we don't expect any problems bringing the shipment into the country once it arrives.  We brought a couple of wedding dresses with us and shipped the others - we will be distributing the ones we have with us next week to support several weddings coming up in the next few weeks.  That is such a blessing to the people here and we are so thankful for the wonderful support from our friends in the States who donated their dresses.

Our Christian School that is now on the property where we have lived the last few years, and the grand opening ceremony was yesterday with speeches and performances by the children; and of course - eating cake.  Everyone had a good time.  Our part was to pick up one of our OMS advisors who participated in the ceremonies and who we count as a dear friend.  He lives quite distant but it gave us an opportunity to sit and visit with him and his family.  We know one of his sons and wife (and children) quite well and were pleased to find out that the son had entered our seminary program this year.   He is a young man with tremendous potential who went through a time of rebellion that God has miraculously brought him through.  We must remember to pray (and never give up!) for those who may seem to be on the wrong path, for the God of Peace can turn the hearts towards Him.

In the early days, we lived in an apartment in the city with Wally the dog; we've written about him in the past.  Our interim seminary director this year and his family are living in the same place and we visited there this past week and poor Wally.  The big scary black dog (with a sweet heart) has aged tremendously and could barely walk, see and all those things.  They are considering putting him down, which was sad for me.  I was always so fond of him, even though he did chew the mud flaps off our car when we lived there - until I coated them with Mozambican hot sauce.

We have been quite busy with administrative duties as it is that time of year but most of that is now behind us and we have started meeting with our National church leaders, one-by-one, to hear their hearts and understand the changes over the past year.  There remains much to do but the direction here has changed and we are quietly observing and trying to understand where God is taking the work here.

Mosquitos are unusually bad right now and we are spraying much (better living through chemistry).  Tomorrow, me and a worker are taking off the eve of our roof to install new screening as I think our mosquitos are coming in through the eve where heat excapes.  With malaria an ever present worry, one must take these kinds of things seriously.

Our health remains good.  The doctors in South Africa concurred with the doctor here in Maputo that I had experienced a vitreous detachment and my retina is good although we will need to return in a few months for a follow-up.  The visual disturbance from this in my peripheral vision is wearing but I'm getting used to it.  Our lives full as we engage into life here in Mozambique.

Our hearts are quite heavy for our family in the States.  That has been especially hard this time and compounded by the poor Internet - we feel like we are in a time of testing for this and other reasons, which is what the experts say is normal at the start of a second term.

This morning's sermon focused on a well known story - Zaccheaus was a wee-little man and a wee-little man was he.....(you know the children's song!) from Luke 19:1-10.  But as God so often does, he brought out something new in this very well-known story.  When Jesus told him to come down out of the tree (he had climbed up to see Jesus for he was a short man) and when he told Zaccheaus he was staying at his house that day, the Bible records how Zaccheaus responded in some detail.  Pastor Daniel emphasized this with great drama and action - the Bible says he came down AT ONCE and welcomed him GLADLY.  That was his response to the very King of Kings.  That should be our response as well, for we are daily distracted by the things of life, as was Zaccheaus, but we can respond, for Jesus is always there with His hand extended to us.

May you walk with joy this week.  May our response to Jesus this week be "com alegria" (with joy/gladness) as we respond to His leading this week.  He knows your comings and your goings, He knows your heart, but more importantly, as in the case of Zaccheaus, He knows your very name.

"For He's going to your house today, for He's going to your house to stay!"  (from the song).

Thank you for standing with us.

Blessings this Sunday. (No pictures - not enough Internet!)

Dave and Ann

"When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately.  I must stay at your house today."  So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly."  Luke 19:1-10

"Teach us to number our days aright; that we may gain a heart of wisdom." Psalm 90:12

Chronological Bible Story Telling in Heart Languages

Yesterday we made a quick drive over to South Africa and back to pick up our Chronological Bible Story Telling materials from our missionary friends with African Outreach. This marvelous material is used throughout the church multiplication work OMS is doing in Africa and is the kind of material that really effective in the local languages as it is something you can study at home, in small groups, in Sunday Schools, and it presents the Bible as one story, which it is actually. We use it in our Village Church Planting program and in our seminary program as well, teaching people how to 'tell the story'.

Ann had coordinated the translation of this material into two of the 42 tribal dialects spoken in Mozambique (we have three total now for the larger tribal language groups). We had a couple of starts and stops because some of our 'translators' really weren't and receiving notebooks full of hand-written text that no one could read, complete with running ink from rain drops and the like, just wasn't what would work! So, she finally found folks who were fluent in Portugues and the tribal language, or English and the language, or all three in one case, and they were able to do the translation and email them to us and an independent verification of the translation. In one case, the fellow had attended the training we gave one year on the material and was using it in his churches in Nampula.

This material will be going to Mocuba for the conference next month and we are excited to see what God will do with this material. It is most exciting.

We met with Franz Benz, our friend with Africa Outreach who we have partnered with in several training sessions here in Mozambique and it was exciting to see how his ministry is expanding as God blesses this program that he and his wife Brenda have adapted. He had just returned from Egypt where he was training people how to use the material and has been all over Africa, plus Vietnam, India, Indonesia, to mention areas where this material is being used. It is always so very exciting to see how God works - you won't read about this in the newspaper, but under the surface, this program is transforming lives because it helps people study the Bible and understand clearly God's redemptive plan.

We filled the back of our vehicle with these books, in Lomwe and Macua, and where wondering how the border crossing would be. Large quanities of these kinds of things can be difficult from a customs standpoint, as it would appear that we are going to resell them (we aren't!) and thus, there is a duty to pay. And, on Friday afternoon, the border is always insane (well it is nearly always chaos on the Mozambique side - just worse on Fridays).

We talked to the customs agent, showed him the books, opening and example one. I explained the program and how we had paid Mozambican pastors to translate the materials and were returning the completed books to them in Zambezia and Nampula provinces. I used the time to talk about what we do in Mozambique and after a few minutes he graciously said 'ok'. So, we said 'thank you Lord' and headed to the gate; he left with an ice-cold coke. However, at the gate, another agent stopped us and looked in the back and shook his head and made us pull over. He comes to the window and says that we have a big problem (why is it always a 'big' problem?). So, we go through it again and have a nice conversation, and he then he sees a car with a trailer full of stuff that is clearly for resale, and lets us go. Thank you Lord.

It isn't that we did anything wrong - we aren't selling the material or profiting from it. But these kinds of things can go any which way in Mozambique. There isn't a lot of consistently in how things are done or regulations are applied and it is often up to the individual official who is often paid for his assistance. That inconsistency causes alot of subtle stress in your life, for example, when you approach the border your heart rate increases a little as you begin to anticipate what the chaos will be like today. But it is getting better (or we understand the chaos a little better or have the language to negotiate the process) and I can forsee a day coming when it will not be so unpredictable. It is an order of magnitude better than when we first arrived.

As another example, when we left today, there is a form they give you to 'export' your car from Mozambique and you turn it back in when you bring your car back. They give me a different form and it says that it is for importing the car - what a minute, I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday. I explained that I wasn't importing the car, I was exporting it. The explanation? We're out of the other forms, so just use this one. The good news? I understood everything and when we were done, I thought, "gee, I didn't even have to think about that Portuguese interaction - it just happened." So, how do I keep this up while we are in the States?

But once again as I have done so many other times, I digress!

"Therefore, if I do not know the meaning of the language, I shall be a foreigner to him who speaks, and he who speaks will be a foreigner to me." 1 Corin 14:11

Mavalane, Seeds, and Roses

The days are passing so very quickly. We are very heavy with sadness because we know we will be gone for some time - we have less than two weeks left. We really like our current living situation so very much and really like living in Mozambique, but our housing when we return is uncertain and we aren't confident of storage, so we are bringing things back with us so we can return 'mean and lean' next term and be freer to move into a more rural setting in the north. The translation of that is don't bring anything with you that you aren't willing to lose! We also need a better car, so we are selling ours - we have loved it but it has been expensive to keep up because of its age and we've heard all the horror stories from others who have left cars for a year - better to sell it and use the money to buy something a little newer when we return. It is worth more today than it will be in a year. Plus, rats eat out the seats and wiring, the salt air rusts it, the maintenance stops, the tires go flat, the air conditioner leaks out, you get the picture. You return after a long absence and pour a wheel-barrow of money into the thing to get it going again, and when you're done, you still have an old unreliable car! So we are praying that we can fund for something a bit newer with less miles that can still take the rough off-road work that we do. The buyer of our car is a friend, so that helps also. It's a decent car, just old and tired and if I had confidence it could be stored well, I'd probably try to hold on to it - but it seems wise to let it go.

Today, we attended Mavalene church. Last night, Pastor Abel (pastor of this church) called to say his wife (Victoria) had been in an accident near a town between us and Xai-Xai. He didn't really know her condition, but he wanted to drive up and get her and bring her back to Maputo for care. Ann and I were trying to understand well the situation, weighing it against our driving at night - we both have great difficulty driving at night now because of the glare of the headlights - add cars without lights, push carts on the road, pedestrians, and then an inability to see, we really don't like to drive at night. A couple of close calls on our trips north really convinced us of this. Fortunately, our dear colleague, Larry Weil, was able to make the run and take Victoria to the hospital in Maputo - by the time they got to the scene of the accident, the people on the minibus had been moved to a local hospital. The hospital loaded her into Larry's car and he became an ambulance driver!

Basically she has a broken collarbone and after being treated overnight in Maputo, we took her home this morning, arriving at church only a little late. I was slated to preach and with much prayer, it went pretty well. I wish my language was better, but the people are always willing to help you when you get stuck and we had a nice time of back and forth. Afterwards, we all gathered around Victoria as a church and prayed for her. This church meets in a lean-to adjacent to Able and Victoria's home.

I tend to get a bit discouraged with language but I have this wonderful wife who reminds and encourages me that we haven't been here that long and while we have a long ways to go, I didn't have to have my Portuguese translated to Portuguese (that is not a misprint!) today, so it is progress. We continue to pray for improved language and think that moving north will help us there as well as there is quite a bit of English around here, but not so much in the north! If that's all there is, that's what you speak!

Ann did her medical thing and was quite impressed with the cast that they put on Victoria to immobilize her - a very clever design that Ann thought was much better than the slings used in the states. Still, as we drove the bumpy roads from the hospital, Victoria would wince with pain at every bump. She has a long road to recovery but the prognosis is very good, for which we are thankful. God really protected her in this bad accident.

The Mocuba training center construction project continues. I have gone through Belarmino's receipts and nearly have my report ready on the financial part of the project. I need a little more input from Juka in the north to close this out. The photograph is of Belarmino greeting his church on his first day back (last Sunday). His wife, Abertina, and their son Junior are on his left. Everyone was so glad to have them back from their four-months in Mocuba.

Our coming missionaries from Ireland, Melvin and Sharon Kelly, sent a sea-land container full of used desks, chairs, and other things that can be used by the seminary, our training center in Mocuba, and CAM school. It was packed so tight, it was like a giant jigsaw puzzle unloading. It was a 20-foot container but we filled our chapel in the seminary and an adjacent room with the incredible amount of stuff that we received. What a blessing and well done Melvin and Sharon! Another missionary myth busted (who says you can't ship something to Mozambique?)! Over 20 seminary students helped, so the unloading went quickly but there is a ton of work remaining to re-assemble the desks, shelves, and other things. But, what a blessing.

Another myth busted - you can't get long-stem red roses in Mozambique. I have always gotten red roses for my wife on her anniversary, one for each year we have been married. But, the first year here, I gave up trying to find red roses - found some white ones, yellow ones, but no red ones. Well, this year, our dear friends and neighbors surprised us with red roses on Ann's birthday, knowing she missed them, and so another myth busted! Here is the proof!

Today, in our time at Mavalane, we talked about faith, mustard seeds, tree seeds, trees, forest fires, pine cones, airplanes, chappas and Elevators. It all gets tied together with faith, faith in a Creator who loves us and assures us that we can move mountains if we have just a little bit of faith. But, that faith needs to be in God, not ourselves. That is something that the disciples had to learn and something we fight with daily. We all have this tendency to want to 'do it ourselves' but that really doesn't work and it certainly doesn't give us peace. Grow our faith dear Lord.

Blessings.

Dave & Ann

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see!" Hebrews 11:1

PS - As I'm writing this, Spain won the World Cup. It has been crazy here - when they scored, I could hear the people cheering all around us - a literal roar across the village we live in. Soccer is a big deal here - a really big deal. Every little kid can do amazing things with a soccer ball and his feet. When we came into the property where we live yesterday, there were six games of neighborhood soccer happening all around the property. We weed our car around the various games to get to our house, enjoying every minute of it.

More on Language

Lately it seems I've been asked to preach on Sundays. I always squirm with this mainly because of my language. It seems the more I learn and understand Portuguese, the more aware I become of how badly I speak! Yet, somehow, God blesses it and I am able to say things that I wouldn't be able to in normal conversation which to me is a miracle every Sunday morning! It is quite a process as I generally need to type out what I feel God has put on my heart in English, and then after I'm relatively satisfied with that, I prepare the same text in Portuguese. Then, I study the Portuguese, practice pronounciation, and continue to refine it using words I think I'll remember on Sunday. And then there is always the shortening process, which is necessary because I always have someone translating into the local language as well, so any sermon takes twice as long. I'm also aware that the translator will wing it if he doesn't know what I said, and that can be a problem as sometimes what you meant to say gets all scrambled up, as has happened to me in the north a time or two. In the south, there are usually enough multi-language speakers that the translator has to stay on-track because there are enough checkers in the audience.

And then, you pray much, and when it is time to speak, you set the notes aside, and what comes out of your mouth is what comes out of your mouth! I still struggle with wanting to throw in English connecting words and conjunctions, but we've come a long ways. I always watch Ann as I can tell by her expressions how it is going and she always is there to encourage me along.

It was Pentecost Sunday and we had fun walking through the story in Acts and while talking to the children, we again played with matches and candles. I was surprised at the seemingly unfamiliarity with this special day in the history of the church. Some call it the birthday of the church because of the significance of the event. We continued the theme for the morning and I praise God for his graciousness covering my language limitations. This morning, we returned to the same church and a man approached me requesting a meeting with me and the Pastor to talk about what I had said, as he feels he needs to make some changes in his life. If one life is changed, it is all worth it!

But then, we met a young couple Saturday morning in their mid 20's. They were new missionaries here who spoke Portuguese fluently. We asked them where they learned to speak so well, and they said that it took them a long time (they were dead serious!) and had spent 3 months in Portugal taking language 3 hours a day, and that's where they learned. So, here we are at 4 years, not speaking nearly as well as this young couple. Oh to have the gift of language and be young again! How I wish I'd taken language learning more seriously in my 20's!

After church today, we spent the afternoon with a young couple who recently married. We had to miss their wedding and so enjoyed sitting with them and looking at their photographs. We ate together and they returned the wedding dress we had loaned them, thanks to dear supporters who have generously provided them. They are precious people who are making a difference in their community and at their places of employment. And, some friends stopped by while we were there and there was quite a spirited discussion of the upcoming world-cup soccer games in South Africa and which teams are the most favored. People love soccer here and true fans are wearing plastic bracelets in the color of their favorite team.

We also have some dear missionary friends who are leaving to return to the states and who will not be returning to Mozambique on their next term. We have been helping them pack and prepare some, with it bringing back our own memories of leaving the States. They have moved out to where we live, staying in our guest house, and they go in one week. We hate to see them go as they have been faithful friends here. But, that is the world we live in now - people come and people go...

My side project of renovating a guest house on the property where we live has been doing wonders for me. The one photo is of the outside - the left unit is renovated and use and we are working on the right side now. It is a simple block structure with an asbestos roof. I enjoy the physical labor and have been doing various repairs, installing a drop-ceiling, electrical work, fixing cracks in the cement, and generally trying to get it ready for use before we leave. It will provide more housing for teams and guests and needed some updating to make it more live-able. Ann took this photo of working in the space.

"For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed..." Ro 15:18 (what a challenge this verse is!)

"...but no human being can tame the tongue - a restless evil,m full of deadly poison" James 3:8

"For he that would live life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile..." 1 Pe 3:10

Puzzles

One of the traditions that sort of evolved in our house was working puzzles over the Christmas holidays. I don't remember when it started but as long as I can remember, we have set up a table during the holidays with a new 1000 piece minimum puzzle to work on. Everyone would work on it some and the harder it was, the more we liked it. It was a kind of mindless activity but at the same time a great thing for goal-oriented people!

So, when we returned to Mozambique and with the increasingly stringent luggage requirements, we brought back some children's puzzles to give as gifts to some of our 'grandchildren'. They are the 25 piece variety and didn't weigh much!

We have given away quite a few but it has been extremely interesting. The children have never seen anything like it and so it overwhelms them at first as we work together. The adults end up working the puzzles but because they have never seen them before, we have been extremely surprised at how hard they are for people to do; extremely surprised. Little things that just don't seem to connect - yes there is a picture on the box to help you, yes each piece can be placed four different ways, there are shape cues, there are color cues, straight edges, corner pieces. We went through this several times but it wasn't easy. I think about this and the difficulty we see with math and science here and some of the abstract thought required in those disciplines. It could be related to that lost generation I have talked about in the past not having the opportunities they needed when they were young because of war, hunger, displacement, and the like. Or, it could just be having not ever seen one before. Like the first time I saw one of those rubics cubes or whatever they are called.

So, as I have thought about this, we went to language class today and it was horrible. Our teacher got very fustrated with us, pounding his hands on the table a few times and speaking quite strongly about our not remembering things well, not spending enough time studying (which is true - we have been buried with administrivia and unplanned groups since we've returned) so we are right back where we were, not being able to continue language - extremely fustrating.

But, I digress, my point is that we come from a culture where you write things down, you use computers with spell check, day-timers, watches, calendars, alarm clocks, and reliable mail systems. Here, it is all oral - and everyone remembers everything - tell people once or twice and people remember. We want to look it up, make a list, check a dictionary. Our professor was very angry with us today, fustrated, and looking at us - WHY CAN'T THEY WORK THE PUZZLE?

It depends on they type of puzzle, doesn't it? Or maybe whether you are watching someone work a puzzle you are already familiar with or maybe trying to work one you've never seen. Isn't life like this and isn't it easy to make unfounded judgements?

I am so glad we serve a God who knows how all the pieces fit together. I certainly don't know how the pieces fit!

"For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things." 1 John 3:20

Language Update

This week, we took a series of tests at the Language Institute and our instructor has 'graduated us' to the next level of instruction. We will get our certificates in January when we resume classes at the next level. On Monday and Tuesday, we took our written exam that went on and on and on. On Wednesday, we both had to do oral presentations on a subject of our choosing. Next we each listened to a Portuguese 'story' and were quizzed on our comprehension. We next read different texts and were again quizzed orally on our comprehension.

In the final analysis - we did well on written and comprehension, but our speaking was not so great, although 'passing'. We both have this tendancy to throw in English connective words because we aren't sure which of Portuguese connective words to use - so we use English words (unintentionally) like "to" and "so" more in the sense of "uhhh" that some do in English.

As an aside, we've become quite attached to our instructor but his contract runs out at the end of the year and he is not planning to return. He says it is because his income is inconsistent and completely dependent on student contact hours. No students, then no money. For example, we are not there in December, so he will not receive any pay related to our fees. It makes sense to me, for without students, the institute has no income - but it doesn't to him. And, as we've seen other do, they will 'quit' and put themselves in a worse situation (no job) for what seems to us as crazy reasons. We argued with him that he should continue until he finds another job, not just 'quit' with nothing to do, but that is Western culture talking. We have been starting to talk a little bit more about the things of God, and it would be my prayer we could spend more time with him.

I am convinced language learning will take the rest of our lives and we will never be truly 'fluent' although we will be more or less 'proficient'. The people we work with say they can tell a difference; we hope that is true!

Blessings!

"....Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other. So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel - because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world...." Genesis 11:7 - 9

September Update

I haven't written for a while due to our incredibly busy schedule. So many things I could write about, but let me try a 'short' update on a few things.

One of the things that has really tied up our time is resuming Language classes. Being in our third year and still struggling with language,we felt that it was essential for us to resume formal study. Originally, the plan was to spend our first year in language study but that was just impossible because of the situation we found ourselves in. So, we learned "street portuguese" on the fly and desire very much to improve our skills. We have a relatively large vocabulary but our pronounciation is poor and our sentence structure is close to terrible. We signed up at the Language Institute and the class is moving along quickly because we really have a decent base and we're filling in a lot of holes in our knowledge. However, it is every day and with the homework and transportation, it's a five to six hour commitment every day. Our instructor's name is "Junior" and we get along quite well although we do drive him crazy with our American accent. He knows English but is refusing to speak it to us, which is good but can be a bit frustrating when trying to learn the finer points of language! We feel we are making good progress and are committed to 100 hours of instruction between now and December. It's just the two of us in class and we are at the same level of knowledge, so it is working well. We just had our first test (which was a surprise test!) and we will get our grades next week.

We had a wonderful seminary dedication as described in earlier posts, and have named a new seminary director, which we feel releases us from worrying about the seminary and was one of the things that we felt allowed us to resume language study. In this photograph, our OMS International Ministries Director (Randy Spacht - right (who visited with us earlier this week)) is standing with our new director, Don Hulsey (left). Don is our neighbor and has many many years of exprience in Africa and in Mozambique leading Bible Schools. He is steady, experienced, and fluent in Portuguese and the local dialect. We count him and his wife as close friends and are excited to have them partnering with us. He has already had a big impact as he knows the hard questions to ask but even better than just asking the questions, he can follow-up with reasonable solutions. We are absolutely thrilled at this. We've already had great discussions about the future of the seminary program and he brings to the table an incredible grasp of the reality of education and culture in Mozambique. Did I say how thrilled we are? Thank you Lord for this incredible answer to prayer - INCREDIBLE!

Last Saturday, we attended the wedding of one of our Mozambican Advisors' (to OMS) youngest daughter. It was a lovely wedding, probably the nicest of any we've attended here so far. This many, whom we are very fond of, and how has helped us so much since our arrival, is the National Superintendant for his denomination. As such, many people came to the wedding and the following dinner / celebration. We had great coversations and knew so many people at the wedding, which was also a great encouragement to us. We even ran into the "well installation" people and made arrangements for fixing the well at Intaka this November. There was much singing, dancing, and praising God as all celebrated the wedding of this young Pastor and his new wife. The first photo is at the wedding with the bride and groom in the middle with the God Mother and God Father on each side. The second photo is of us standing with our dear friends and parents of the bride.

One of the things that was a little different in the church service was how each of the God Parents spoke for the groom and the bride. So, are you thinking four people? Nope, lots more. There were those who stood with them when they were presented as babies and committed to helping them as they grew to young adults; there we those who stood with them during their baptism and committed to spiritual support; there were those standing with them as married people. (that's 12 people). And, then the God Parents for the God Parents of the bride and groom spoke as they saw this as a great thing that this couple had matured and grown to the point they were helping other couples. Then the grandparents spoke, the parents spoke, and other interested people involved in the lives of the bride and groom. They were eloquent; they were loving; they cared for this new couple and it was clear to me that this young couple had a tremendous support network, all desiring that they succeed as a married couple and as Christians. It was quite touching and a far cry from the fierce independence of my Western US heritage. The culture here brings with it great support, but relational responsibilities that boggle my mind. But, with it comes tremendous hospitality for one another, patience with one another, and a tremendous ability for tolerance as the culture works in the lives of its members. And, weddings that go for hours, if not days as all the relationships unfold and work. It is easy to see how Christianity, the concept of a loving father, and the command to love one another reverberate so quickly within the Mozambican culture.

All week long in the evenings the houses behind us have been full of music and celebration as they prepare for a wedding this weekend. The singing and dancing groups have been practicing. The tarps have been installed in the yards to make shade. It will be a noisy weekend and all day we've been listening to the Eagles, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, and other western music - LOUD. It will go all night I'm sure for the next three days as wedding celebration continues.

We're working with two more young couples we are trying to encourage through the cultural barriers so they can be married instead of simply living together. This photograph is of a young man with his sister-in-law, wife, and baby. He is in church leadership and very interested in helping us with the church multiplication program but we need to work through this marriage issue first. We have begun routine meetings to counsel with them as they take this new step in their life together. The young man is a hard charger who is always busy, working at the pre-school in T-3, doing construction work, and has been a great worker on nearly all of our OMS-related construction projects. It is such a pleasure to stand with him as he works hard to provide for his family, attends seminary on Saturdays, and serves in the local church. We are very encouraged to see how God is blessing his faithfulness. This couple has been together nearly three years.

In another case, we have a couple wanting our help to get married, but the fellow just isn't willing to help himself but rather is content and almost seems to be desiring some sort of a dependency relationship, which isn't good for anyone. He has actually almost been blackmailing us to help him finance his wedding - demanding in a sense, which is quite sad and heartbreaking for us. We have given him many leads on employment, but he doesn't act on them. So, we try to teach about God's design for marriage, but our experience in life says that this marriage is a train wreck waiting to happen. However, we tend to second-guess ourselves because we bring so much cultural bias / baggage - but we don't think so in this case. We want to encourage this couple but at the same time, we have so many reservations that they just aren't even close to ready for marriage. Pray with us.

Blessings to you!

Dave & Ann

"Salvation belongs to the Lord. Your blessing is upon Your people." Psalm 3:8

Short Cuts

This note is especially for my four precious pearls! You know how your dad likes to take short-cuts – and is always looking for a new way to get somewhere? Well, it’s been especially fun here to find new short cuts (and be a bit confused for a couple of hours afterwards – like “where am I?”), especially during the days of confusion after coming from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere. You know, just like the time I took a short cut home from the airport in Pittsburgh and we ended up in West Virginia! However, my internal compass has finally reset and I do finally know what direction is north, south, etc., so the being lost phenomena has decreased considerably.

Today we took Aimee out to meet our head OMS advisor, who works at the Nazarene College outside of Maputo. We drove in to town to pick her up and then headed out to the college to show her the ropes, introduce her, and also show her the nearby Baptist College where the director’s wife has a literacy program she is doing with the wives of students who come from remote areas of Mozambique. (Aimee has a great interest in literacy programs as her focus is women’s ministries). We toured both schools and met the various people at the schools, hopefully opening future partnership doors for Aimee. However, we knew we had to be back for our language class at 1300. It had taken us about an hour to get to the school because of some construction and traffic issues, and as we were leaving, one of our Nazarene friends mentioned he could be at CAM School (our missionary school) in about 20 minutes. I said “no way” and he explained his short-cut. He told me they had just completed a paved road that went straight to the coast and that we were only about 5 km from the coast. I had to scratch my head, thinking that it was possible – and I knew some of the area between the school and the coast – so, he gave some directions and with 45 minutes until class, we left the second school, with me a little panicked to think it was even possible to make class on time. So, we headed down the sand roads, second right, third left past the wall with eucalyptus trees and vines with fruit hanging over the wall, and onto a new paved road, and boom, we were at the coast and in a few minutes, dropped of Aimee at her house, and made it to class with five-minutes to spare. He also told me about another one I’ll try another day! I felt like I’d gone through some sort of time warp or something. Thank you Lord!

And then, after all that, our Instructor said, “what are you doing here? You have class on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, not today” Oops – we mis-communicated that somewhere along the way. We readjusted for next week, but he was busy today - so after all that – no class.

On the way home, we stopped at the body shop to see if our car was ready (we’re using a rental and wanting to dump it as fast as possible!). I talked to the guy who took the car into the shop (it’s quite large – lots of wrecks here every single day!), and reminded him about the car. He looks at me and scratches his head and looks out at the shop and says “I’ll call you by the end of the day”. Not a good sign – where is the car…..Of course he didn’t call at the end of the day so we’ll stop by tomorrow and at this point I’ll have to insist on seeing the car! Gulp!

Our Advisor today told an interesting story to our new missionary. He advised caution as she moves forward. He pointed to a picture on the wall and spoke of a lady from Gaza province, who had been to the United States for a conference. When she came back, she spoke to the school there and said that she had never understood Americans. Her view was that they came here and acted peculiar and arrogant, always trying to push their culture and ideas on everyone. However, now that she had seen the houses they lived in, where they slept, how they ate, where they worked, and how they lived, and she finally understood what the missionaries here had given up to come live to Mozambique. She said she could have never understood without seeing what she’d seen because if you’ve only lived in one place, how could you possibly know what it was like somewhere else. She finally understood that it would take have to take a call from God for someone to leave America to come live here. So, our advisor then cautioned us to recognize that in ministering to those in the villages, and especially to the older of society, that there is absolutely no way they can understand where you have come from and your frame of reference. However, you are here, and you can, through asking questions and participating in culture can, over a long time, begin to understand and to be understood. However, the cultural gap is very large and will likely always be large. He said that God has called us as we are – we should not try to be someone we are not or could never be. We are giving the most important thing we can – ourselves. We discussed this some more as honestly, none of us felt that the cost of the things she had mentioned (the houses, cars, food, and the like) were things that we ever thought about as ‘giving up’ as we gained so much in other ways. The true sacrifice was not being with our precious pearls and we are so thankful that even in the last three years, we really have been able to visit with you, that you’ve been able to come here, and that we could talk on the phone - so more than we ever imagined would be possible and truly a blessing.

As another example, he talked about the Shanghanna word for human. The word actually refers to a Shanghanna person as a human and it doesn’t apply to other people. Other people would be Americans, Makua, Chinese, Lomwe, Mexican, etc., but you wouldn’t apply the ‘human’ term to them. This is a cultural phenomena that explains a lot about the southern culture of Mozambique and some of the conflict we’ve seen between southern and northern people groups. For example, if you act inappropriately relative to the Shanghanna culture, it is relatively tolerated because, well, you aren’t ‘human’. So, if you come in and try to say “you need to clean up how you handle your water because it makes you sick,” they might listen to you until you leave out of respect for visitors, but then go back to the old way because, after all, how do you know? You aren’t ‘human’. You must take the time to develop the relationship, and it is best to work with an intermediary, such as someone in the culture who has been educated and has an understanding of what you are trying to do. However, this person is critical to your success and must be chosen very carefully and very prayerfully, for your ministry to succeed. Wise counsel from a wise man.

I have pondered this counsel all day and have reflected on how we used to live in the States and how in our ignorance, we couldn’t really begin to fathom life outside of America because that was the only reality we knew. I wonder if culturally as a nation, we are also looking beyond our borders and starting to assume others ‘aren’t human’. It’s something we’ve seen through history, the dehumanizing of people groups, and is it a subtle trick of the enemy. But, I’m getting off-track.

We weren’t the world travelers that you guys were!, and even after a few short and carefully orchestrated trips here, we couldn’t possibly understand the living conditions and culture here in Mozambique until we lived it and experienced it. And even now in our third year, I recognize that it would take a life-time to fully have the understanding we desire and the language we need to move fully into community. But in the meantime, we need to try and be all things to all people so that some might learn the truth. There are no short-cuts for this work.

Blessings to my precious pearls. I love each of you dearly and thank you for your steadfastness, your faith, your love, and your gracious patience with your missionary parents. Our absence does not diminish our deep and abiding love for each of you. Not a single day goes by that you are not on our minds and deep within our hearts.

PS - I thought you might enjoy the photo of us with Juka (and me trying to smile. ;-))

Dad

“To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.” 1 Cor 9:22-23 (Paul’s advice to all of us).

Back to Language School

While our Portuguese has been improving all the time and we can function in the culture, our speaking is still crude and basic. Our comprehension is decent both reading and listening, but we really speak poorly with regard to accent and sentence structure. As an example, I sat next to an English-speaker in church this morning and was able to translate the sermon into English for her, but in the midst of all that, the preacher decided to ask me point blank a question and in the midst of the translating, I realized he was asking me a question directly. Now somewhere in all of it, I missed a vital piece of information and pretty much missed the question and then he used a little different bit of language. The question was basically, can you work for two masters? But what I heard was can you do two different jobs at the same time. So I missed the intent of the question and didn't help him too much in his technique of seeking audience participation! It all worked out, but it is an example; I knew enough to translate the gist of the sermon, but got pinned on the matt with a question that was worded just a bit differently than I expected, and I missed the meaning.

In addition, there are a couple of tenses that Portuguese uses that we don't even have in English, so that kind of stretches the mind a little also. In the end, there is also just alot of plan memorization - no way around it.

We have been able to move things around sufficiently with our work here, that we think we can make time to once again enter into language school. Because of the unusual situations we found ourselves since arriving here, we have not been able to give language the time it truly deserves. So, last week, Ann set up an appointment with the Language Institute in Maputo. We went on Friday and were evaluated as to our proficiency (tested!). We talked the entire time in Portuguese but they were asking tricky questions and we didn't do as well as we would have liked - a lesson in humility! We signed a contract with the Institute and start classes on Tuesday. We will have to juggle some things around and it will limit our availability for other things, but it is really important to do this. We will go four days a week for the next three months - kind of intense, but so very important.

We also think this will be better than meeting in our home as those lessons in the past have drifted off point and became more of a time of fellowship as opposed to structure language learning - both approaches have their place and value, but we're ready for some disciplined study outside our home.

The sermon in church this morning was from Acts Chapter 2 - about Pentecost and where people were gathered from all over and as the disciples preached, everyone heard the message in their own language. In addition, it says the disciples were filled with the Spirit and speaking in other languages as the Spirit enabled them. It would have been great to have been just blessed with the inate ability to speak another language, like magic!, but in our case, it is going to take disciplined study, practice, and more study. That's perfectly ok but wouldn't that be nice!

We're looking forward to the class with a new instructor (his name is Junior) and pray that we can move quickly through the material we know and that our tired old brains will assimulate the new information quickly! I think I've forgotten enough other stuff I knew that their should be room in my brain now for new langauge words!! ;-) We're especially hoping that we'll get lots of help with our pronounciation; we speak with a horrible accent!

So I can add a picture today!, we did ship seven boxes of Bibles in various tribal dialects north today to our church planter / teachers in the north. Included in one of the boxes is the wedding dress that we loan out from time to time. The first place we stopped and have used in the past didn't have a bus going where we needed the boxes taken until Friday. That won't work because the wedding is Saturday. So, we went down the the crazy "Junta" where there is the chaos of busses parked in a dirt parking lot where you wander around trying to find your bus. It went well and they weighed and stuck our boxes on top of the bus; they should arrive on Tuesday. The system is that they load the bus and sell the tickets the day before it leaves - so this bus, headed to Nampula, will leave about four in the morning tomorrow, stopping to unload (we hope!) in Mocuba. It's almost become 'old hand' going into that place that scared us to death the first couple of times we would go there. So that is progress! The crazy Junta seems quite orderly to me now, now that I understand the way it works and that I can communicate now! After we visited with Mike Thiessen at the airport (he left today), we drove back by the Junta and saw our boxes still on top of the big bus - and the stack of cargo on top of the bus was easily about 12 feet high so far; I really should have taken a picture of that!

Blessings to you!

Dave & Ann

"Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language." Acts 2:5-6