Our Shipment has arrived!

On a hot day on June 9 we said goodbye to our shipment as Suddath International took our ministry supplies and personal effects away in a waxed cardboard box.  We wondered if we would ever see it again for we had been told 'it can't be done!' (to ship things to Mozambique).

Today, October 28, it arrived!  A little worse for wear but intact and praise God, nothing was damaged.  Of great concern was our electric piano that we were the most worried about as it was on the top of the box.  However, although the box was beaten a bit, it had been off loaded in Dubai, in Durban, and in Maputo - I can't complain!  It has been like Christmas today as we had completely forgotten what we'd sent - wedding dresses, audio bibles, Jesus film equipment, music, books, clothes, blankets, baby dolls, kitchen things we can't get here.

Our receiver (Glenscare) got it out of the port without difficulty and there were no additional charges, which was how it was supposed to be, but one never knows!  Great experience and for any of you shipping things overseas - you have our recommendation.  We also extend our thanks to the International Missions Board (IMB) who connected us originally with Suddath.  There you go - another shameless recommendation!

God is good to all of us, all the time.

Blessings.

Dave & Ann


"O taste and see that the LORD is good.."  Ps 34:8








This last photo shows that our little Boabab tree is starting to sprout new leaves.  There are trees like this in the north that are huge beyond belief.

Books

In an earlier post, I wrote about a recent visit from representatives of a church in Brazil, who has it origins 50-years ago from Japanese immigrants to Brazil, who were from the OMS-founded church in Japan.  God's network is amazing and cannot be defeated.

The CONIM church in Brazil had purchased books for our seminary.  We were in a bit of a quandary as to how to get the books to us from Brazil.  Our shipment is still not delivered after four months and we cannot help but worry about how to get things here from overseas with any kind of surety. I still painfully remember an entire large book bag of our personal books that never made it to Mozambique.

So, the idea was to experiment, send some this way and some that way.  Well, today, a box mailed to our address in Machava, arrived at the down-town post office in Maputo and somehow they linked the OMS address in Machava to our down-town post office box (that seems close to a miracle!), and dropped a note that we had a package.  Melvin picked it up and took it to the seminary.  One box has arrived - and we pray that the other 9 will as well.

In the photo, Dave, Jim Pickett, and Daniel Maduel are inspecting these new portuguese books that are a huge blessing to the seminary and its students.  Thank you Lord!  Thank you CONIM.  May the other 9 boxes make it as well.  These new and current books - what a wonderful wonderful gift from our brothers and sisters in Brazil.  THANK YOU!

Ann is in this picture also - behind the camera!

We had a very encouraging meeting today with our Seminary Director and we had some really great break-throughs in thinking that left Ann and I very encouraged.  Jim is a great addition to our Mozambique team and we praise God that Jim could join us to lead the seminary while Don is on furlough.  

Blessings.

Dave and Ann

"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you."  Is 26:3

Church Planting Conference

This past week, we were in Johannesburg, South Africa to attend a church planter's conference at our OMS South African headquarters.  It was a last minute thing that we were invited to by our OMS Regional Director, who is also the head of the OMS South Africa Office.   We attended a similar conference in our first term and it was good to reconnect with church planters from all over Africa.

We each presented the work for our various countries and it was exciting to see how God is moving across Africa.  This program partners with established church denominations in target countries, sharing the vision and strategy for church multiplication as supervised by Africans.  I see great wisdom in the strategy, which functions with minimal missionary support - it's a departure from the standard missionary model, which challenges thinking of lots of people.  However, when I consider the statistics of what has been accomplished with a minimal staff, it is with certainty that this church planting movement, which was birthed out of South Africa, will be remembered as one of the major movings of God's Spirit in our time.  It is exciting to have a small part in such a program.

We heard stories of great and wondrous things in countries that I am not free to mention because of the opposition that might result.  Suffice it to say that Into-Africa is working in approximately 1/2 of the countries in Africa and over 10,000 churches have been planted since the program began around 2003.

In addition, Into-Africa is beginning a pilot program to reach into these churches with training and assistance for the communities covering eight target subject areas, things like healthy living, conflict and crisis, family, HIV training, community mobilization, to mention a few.  A dynamic young couple who were born in Africa but have lived all over the world, bring a energetic and dynamic enthusiasm to this new part of the Into-Africa project as they focus on orphans and the disadvantaged within our churches.  It is the next step in a process of building the church.

I have something like 37 pages of notes from this conference that I need to boil down into things we can carry forth to our Trainers who are training and raising up new leaders throughout Mozambique.  We can include this in our next conference.

This particular conference was in English with translation into French as we had a large number of attendees from French-speaking countries.  Maybe my brain is changing, but I was following some of the French as my high school and college French tried to seep out of my hardened brain!

We stayed in a lovely guest house (bed & breakfast) for the first few days and then moved to the house of some friends of our Director, who also serve on the board of OMS South Africa.  We were blessed to make new friends in South Africa.

We are back in Maputo - our shipment is here, but still not out of the Port.  We hope this will conclude in the next couple of days.

Next to our house today, after a wind storm, a young owl fell to the ground. Interesting fellow and we are hoping the mother owl will keep him fed and protected in the coming days.  He moved around the base of the tree with the shade - it was really hot today; a true scorcher.

We started our day by taking missionary friends to the airport and afterwards unloaded some books we'd make copies of for our trainers and attended church at the church that meets in our Seminary.  It was the first time back at this lovely church since we've returned.  Great sermon by a young man who attends our Saturday certificate-level classes at the seminary.

I'm writing from borrowed Internet - we were so spoiled in South Africa with wonderful access to Internet - still don't have our poor internet situation resolved.  Would appreciate your prayers for this - it just seems so unnecessary (to have this poor service) and we need a reasonable solution.

Blessings to you this Sunday.  Thank you for standing with us.

Dave and Ann

Four Questions to Ponder:
"Where are you?"  Genesis 3:9 - God asks Adam after the fall for He wants relationship and we need relationship with our Creator.
"Where is your brother?" Genesis 4:9 - As God asks what happened to Abel for he cares about each of us and our relationships one with another.
"Who am I?"  Exodus 3:11 as God asks us to recognize who He is.
"What is that in your hand?" Exodus 4:9 - as God shows us that he can use the simple things of life to accomplish great things, for if we understand who He truly is, if we are in relationship with him, and if we are open to what he would have us do, He can accomplish great things through frail people like us, so that only He can receive the glory.  It is not about us, it is all about Him.
(From a devotion given at the church planter conference)

Heartbreak and Culture

In my earlier blog, I mentioned the Brazilian team.  While they were here and occupied with another activity, one evening we went by the main hospital in Maputo to visit the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit).   One of our Mozambican friends who has helped us very much over the years with translations and general assistance in circumnavigating the difficult bureaucracy here had married while we were on furlough and his wife had just had twins.  However, one of them was quite small and in the NICU.  The custom here is that the doctors don't tell you much unless you really insist and no one questions them or asks questions.  So, we see things like people with high blood pressure taking arthritis medicine and no one is asking questions.

Anyway, we couldn't get information from the family and Ann (and our dear team-mate Sharon - who has twins) were concerned that perhaps there was something more we could be doing.  So, Ann and I with one of the leaders of one of our churches went up to the unit before visiting hours and were to meet the father there.  We arrived first and even though we weren't supposed to be there, we are those ugly Americans who will talk to anyone.  Fortunately we had a Pastor with us to help us with the cultural things.  The first clue was that the baby's name was not posted on the hand-written list on the window by the door into the unit.  The second clue was that we kept getting the run-around (indirect culture) in the folks we talked to (no HIPA here).  Finally we connected nurse (Ann) to nurse and learned that the baby had passed away around 1 in the morning (it was about 1630 when we climbed the four flights of worn stairs).  The family hadn't been notified yet as the visiting hours didn't start until 1730.

In the culture, they won't tell the parents this information - you must go through an intermediary.  Had the father come up first, they would have told him nothing until an intermediary came.  This may seem odd but in a culture where conflict is resolved through intermediaries, it is consistent.  In our time here, we have seen how intermediaries can often deflect and disarm conflict much better than the directly involve parties, so we can see merit in this as we learn a new normal.  So, because we were there, we became the intermediary and it was our job to tell the parents.  Very very difficult and certainly a glimpse of cultural differences.  The parents had no clue.  The Pastor helped us with the clues and cues, but felt it was culturally our job and we have long learned to trust him.  We thank God for this precious man who loved us through this experience knowing our hearts were heavy yet full of love.

We were waiting in our car when our friend came up and we had to tell him this heart-breaking news.  He entered our car for the privacy it provided in a busy place.  The grief was consuming and after a time of crying and praying together, we went to his car where the mother was waiting with the other twin, who is healthy and beautiful.  Ann sat with her and told her this news.  Then we all cried and prayed together again.  After a time, the Pastor took them home where the family was assembling as notifications were made through text messaging.

In the culture, the next decision is whether to have a funeral / memorial service or to let the hospital "take care of things".   A memorial service was scheduled, but then canceled at the last minute, as the hospital did indeed take care of things.  It is different but in a culture where infant mortality is very high, and baby's are often not named for some time, to be sure they are 'ok', it is not so unusual and we've seen this before.  It is different, it is hard, but can it be anything but hard?  I pray our words were enough for that horrible moment in time, but more importantly that God's peace and comfort reigned in this deepest valley.

A very hard day and the parents will be expected to suck it up and not speak of it again.  Very difficult, very different, but it speaks of cultural difference.  It is important we don't judge - it is not wrong nor is another culture right, it is just different.  The grief is real, it is huge, it is oppressing, and we must put our trust in the God of Hope, for there can sometimes be no words, no answers, and just our love for one another that overflows over a grief that is so strong.

Give them your presence and strength precious Lord.  Accept this child into your arms and shower your peace, love and presence on this precious couple and their surviving baby.   For it is only in you can we place our trust, even in the darkest of places.  Amen.

Dave and Ann

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 1 Corinthians 13:11


"Finally brothers,...comfort one another, agree with one another....and the God of love and peace will be with you." 2 Corinthians 13:11

Partnerships

 I am writing today from Johannesburg, South Africa, where Ann and I will be attending training with our Into-Africa church planting OMS colleagues.  We attended training here a few years ago but this year it is at the OMS South Africa headquarters, our first time to visit there.  We were invited by our regional director, who lives in Johannesburg and we were intrigued by the subjects which covered literacy training, mentoring, adult learning, along with the normal church planting strategy training.  So, here we are.  At the time we agreed to come, our shipment was supposedly "in the port" and delivery was to have completed by now, but oops, wrong data and the shipment should have arrived yesterday or today.  With unloading of the ship, the container, and the customs inspections, we may or may not receive our goods this week and our team has graciously agreed to receive them in our absence.

We have always loved OMS for the consistent strategy applied throughout the 100 year history: establish an indigenous evangelical denomination in a country and over a period of years, mentor and grow that denomination into a self-sufficient and growing denomination with a passion to follow the job Jesus gave to the church in Matthew 28: Go and make disciples, locally and in all the world.  About 50 years ago, an OMS work was started in Brazil that is now as the CONIM denomination in Brazil.  God has put the desire into the leaders of CONIM to engage into overseas missions and Mozambique is a logical connection because of the common language (Portuguese - although I struggle to understand Brazilians who make their 'd's' into 'g's', make their 'r's' silent and speak faster than Einstein can think!)   We have details to work out in how we meld OMS with CONIM with OMS-Mozambique but we serve a God of details - from the DNA strands that become a child or the plants who give us oxygen through photosynthesis - no detail is forgotten.

For several years now we have been writing back and forth with the OMS church in Brazil and this last week we were privileged to have two Brazilian pastors and one of our OMS missionaries from Brazil visit for about a week to explore first-hand the work in Mozambique.  Our regional director joined us and it was clear that to make this work, we must think a bit out-side-of-the-box and that always excites me.  There is that old saying that 'if you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting'.  We must continue to shift and change, staying relevant in the shifting culture around us.  It is not our nature as humans but we must be willing to embrace change.  While our message doesn't change, how we relate to different cultures truly does and should change.  It has taken me a few years living in another culture to really wrap my mind around that.  (PS - Can you tell who is going to be preaching in our T-3 church in this picture?  In Mozambique, if you wear a tie to church, you're preaching!)

And, as the church sadly diminishes in influence in the northern hemisphere, God is doing great things to raise his church in the southern hemisphere - His work will not be stopped.  Perhaps the craziness in the world right now is that 'one more chance' for people to turn their hearts back to the One who is above all others.  We place our faith in governments and leaders, only to be disappointed?  How easily mankind loses his way in this transient and short thing we call life.

Anyway, we had a great series of meetings with our Brazilian friends and we have laid some ideas on the table on how they can engage in missions in Mozambique, from sending seminary professors, to portuguese training materials, to work teams, to financial assistance from their church to our church, to on-field full-time missionaries.  Really, how cool is this; the circle coming around?  I get really excited because it is my hearts desire that eventually our dear Mozambican church will be able to do the same thing some day!  What an encouragement and vision casting for our Mozambican church leaders here - what a glimpse into the future of their denomination.  The passion and energy of our Brazilian friends was inspiring.

The assignment from our Brazilian friends at this point is for the Mozambique National Church to assign their own priority to the common list of potential partnership areas and we will see what God does with this.  There will be much to work out, as it is one thing to cast vision but an entirely different thing to get the details worked out  -  but pray with us that we will seek ways to break any barriers down and find out ways we can make it work; thus the 'thinking outside the box'.

Jesus film showing in North Mozambique.
Computer/generator/projector hauled in on Motorcycles.

One idea that we kicked around (thank you Bruce) is establishing a ministry partners board in Mozambique where the National Church, OMS, and other stakeholders (such as CONIM if they have people on the field) meet together with equal voice to deal with joint issues that move the overall ministry forward.  To date, we have been too divided - OMS on one side, the National Church on the other, and we walk separately sometimes.  For example, we didn't even engage our National Church about CONIM until late in the process - that isn't right and you could even use the word 'disrespectful' and we have asked forgiveness.  We aren't in a parental-child relationship; we are equal partners seeking to fulfill the assignment of our same High King.  One is not over the other, or we are nothing more than a different kind of colonialist.  We must never be....or as Pastor Jacó so eloquently said, 'we all serve and listen to the same God.  He will direct us together to achieve His ultimate will."  Amen.

But we must do this in humility, for God shows no partiality.

Church in Naritete, Mozambique

Exciting stuff.

Thanks for standing with us.

Dave & Ann


"So Peter opened his mouth and said: "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him." Acts 10:34


"For God shows no partiality."  Romans 2:11