Happenings...

Sorry it has been awhile since we updated the blog. With my camera broken I have not been motivated to update the blog. Thankfully, we have a very generous collegue here who loaned us a camera until we can get a new one. It has been so nice to have a camera again. We have been busy the past couple of weeks going back and forth to Muembe and there have been some new happenings.

One thing that impressed us the past couple of weeks has been the seriousness of the health situation here in Mozambique. On our way to Muembe about a week and a half ago, we came across a bad accident. One of the chapa(taxi) trucks had tipped over. These trucks carry many passengers in the bed of the truck as well as inside the truck and there were probably about 20 people needing to go to the hospital. We were the first vehicle to pass and the accident happened about a half hour before we arrived. There is no cell phone coverage in this part of the country or anything, so we with a full carload and an extra passenger, because we were giving her a ride out to Muembe, we played ambulance and carried the four worst of the injured back to Lichinga to the hospital. We put a lot of cargo on top of the truck and Traeger and Karis and Kallen all sat on my lap, while we had two barely conscious people in our backseat. We also loaded another two in the back of the truck, one with a very small infant. It took us about 1/2 hour over very bumby roads with them riding like that to arrive at the hospital. We have no idea to what extent these people were injured, only that they were barely conscious, but when we arrived at the hospital, they just pulled them out of the vehicle like they were dolls and carried them in and because they were short beds, laid two people on a bed the short way! It was a scary experience and makes me pray every trip out to Muembe or anywhere for that matter that we are protected from accidents. Also in the past few weeks team members of ours have had very serious health problems and one had to be med edvacuated out of the country to Joburg and the other almost. We are thanking God for his provision of health for our family thus far and ask that you all continue to pray in that regard.


We also killed our first poisenous snake in Muembe. There was a Mamba, which is very deadly, in Mateus' garden, so we were called over with Tim's big Katana to kill it. He sliced it in half and it fell into a trash pit, which we then lit on fire just to make sure it was dead! We always knew these were around, but we didn't know if we would come across one, at least we can rest knowing this one is dead.


On a lighter note, Tim constructed a swingset for the kids in our yard in Lichinga. The kids have been loving it and we are pretty proud of Tim's first construction project ever. It's a little bigger than we planned, but at least there is room for growth.


Tim is going to be going out to Caia tomorrow for an outreach event. They are planning on showing the Jesus film in Yao for the people there. Jeffrey, our guard, will be presenting the gospel afterwards, so you can be praying for him and the whole event. Tim will spend the night out there and meet with any people the following day that have questions, want to know more, or want to make decisions.

Our last bit of news is that Kallen is finally crawling!!! 2 weeks after her first birthday and she has finally started crawling. It has been fun to watch her and she is getting around good. She now follows me into the kitchen and her knees are permanently red. While in Muembe this last time, we had to keep her in the sandbox or in the house so she wouldn't crawl through the red dirt. She still got pretty dirty of course, but at least is wasn't that red awful dirt.

Here is our swingset, with one swing for each of the kids.

I also got to play barbershop in Muembe this week. I brought my clippers to cut Tim and Traeger's hair and I ended up cutting almost Mateus' whole family as well. They all got a buzz cut!

Happy Birthday Kallen!

Yesterday we celebrated Kallen's first birthday. It is crazy how fast time flies. We just spent the day with our family. She was so happy all day. It was a bittersweet time for me. It was a good day, but so sad that no one could share it with us. I think first birthdays are more for the mom that the one year old. She doesn't know what is going on, but I felt so sad for her that no one could be there to celebrate with us. My camera broke while we were in Muembe(our guard dropped it) and I was so disappointed I barely got any pictures. These we had to take with our cell phone, but they just don't come out great. I am lost with a camera, it so key in our communication for this blog, for the grandparents, and events like these, that are only able to be witnessed through pictures, so please pray that I can get another soon. Here is a little video of her eating her cake. She enjoyed it as you will see.

The time is now

A short video...

Here is a video of Kallen's newest thing, fake crying. If you tell her no or look at her sternly, she pulls out this fake cry and we just laugh at her. It is so funny.

A new faith...A new church...

After 2 weeks in Muembe, Tim spent 3 days in Caia, with the new believers there. There have been 7 professions of faith in the past couple months in the village of Caia. They recently constructed a new church "building" for the new church to meet in. Tim and Jeffery, our guard, spent three days, discipling and teaching the new believers there. They talked about baptism, confirming and making public their decision to follow Jesus. They also talked about church and what it looks like to part of a body of believers. It was a great time getting to know the people and how they live as well as showing our commitment to them and willingness to invest in their lives to teach and train them as they begin this new church.
Here are a couple pictures of the new church "building" and the new believers there as well as one of our meeting times, where a lot of people from the village came out to listen.

Muapula...

We spent last week Muapula at an SIM spiritual life conference. It was a good time. We were able to meet the whole Mozambique team for the first time, which was nice. We also had a great speaker from Nigeria. He challenged and encouraged us spiritually. The kids had a program as well and really enjoyed it. It was a week of sunday school, which is so nice, because that is one of things we miss the most here.

On sunday Tim preached at the Anglican church here in Lichinga. It was a 4 hour service, and we also had lunch afterwards, so it was a long day, but it all went well. Tim did a great job and he got to share his time with the Anglican Bishop, so the service was packed. The Bishop also just happens to be a relative of Tims. I am sure most of you have heard the story, but if not...Tim's dad and Mark's mom are cousins, and we discovered this detail after we had already decided to move to Lichinga. His family lives in Rockford, which is another crazy detail. Mark was voted on by the people as the bishop, which is remarkable as a white man. The people like him, because he is honest and money actually goes to the church and not to line the bishop's pockets.

Anyway, here are some pictures of trip to Muapula, it is beautiful country and in the middle of nowhere.

This is elephant dung. We saw many piles of it along the way, but unfortunately, no elephants.

We did see plenty of babboons like this one.

Here is Tim giving his message in Portuguese. The guy in the white robe is translating to Chiyao for him.

Here is Mark, the Bishop of the Anglican church in Mozambique.

Confirmation...

After a difficult week the last time we were in Muembe, this past week and a half was great confirmation. After all the discouragement came all kinds of encouragement. We started our time there celebrating Traeger's 5th birthday. He had a great time at our little party and was able to share it with true friends. The next couple days Tim had the opportunity to teach at a conference for the Anglican church there in Muembe and he did a great job and had wonderful feedback from the pastor. We are confident this will lead to many other opportunities of teaching at the churches in Muembe and in Lichinga. He also was able to really develop more of friendship with Pastor Luis and hopefully they will be working together a lot more in the future. He will also be starting a Bible study with Mateus' oldest son, Jildo(who we also hired to guard our house while we are away, so hopefully there will be no more robberies). We are really starting to develop great relationships with Mateus and his family and that is so encouraging. It is amazing how fast relationships can form when you are with each other 24/7, well almost anyway. It really feels like family in a lot of ways. We were also able to visit some missionary friends of ours in a nearby city and their dog just had 9 puppies, so the kids were thrilled to be able to pick out another puppy to replace Jalea. We will have to wait another month to take it home, because it was just born a couple weeks ago. So, we praise God for the confirmation and encouragement after all the distress and discouragement of the previous week. Thanks also for all your prayers and encouragement.

Enjoy these pictures of the past week and half.

Mateus' family made this flower arrangement in honor of Traeger and here is Mateus presenting him with it. Of course he cried because everyone was looking at him.
Now a bit happier with his birthday dinner of shima(the white glob is shima) and beans, papaya, and banana bread(the only thing he ate that I actually made).

The birthday cake, made by mom(I am not very creative)!

The "feast".

Traeger and Armindo.

We also made a trip to the "mato" or forest to cut fire wood. Here is Tim cutting down a tree that he and Jildo cut into firewood size pieces and put into our truck.

Here is Kallen tied to Louisa's back. She gets carried around by one of the girls a lot of the day, it's great having so many babysitters!

Karis decided she wanted to carry around here baby, so the girls helped her tie her baby to her back.

The kids most of the day, look like this.

Stopping for a break and some bread.

Here is our kids favorite snack, suger cane, and this is how you eat it, you peel the skin off with your teeth(who needs a knife when you have teeth), and then you chew on the inside until all the suger is extracted and spit it out. It is soooo fun for kids, but a pain in the neck for mom's and dad's and they have to clean up the mess it creates.