The past few months have again been so busy, but also full of encouragement and answered prayer. One of things we have been praying about since we first started the plans for INTEL, the Bible School here in Lichinga, is for a Mozambican to join us full time on our staff. In May we went to the city of Mocuba and interviewed Fernando and his wife, Esperanca. Fernando has completed Bible School and is currently pastoring a church. He is well qualified to teach as well as lead our students. He also speaks 8 languages to top it off. We have asked him to come join our team starting in November. He has accepted and will be our Dean of Students as well as teach classes each semester. We are very excited about him and his wife joining us, along with their 5 girls. Below is a picture of us with them during our interview with him. Please be praying for him and his family as they move to Lichinga, for good transitions for the family and for Fernando, that he will be a good fit and that God can really use him in the lives of the students.
Another thing we had been praying about for the past couple of years, was for the electrical system to get set up at the school. After an original quote of $25,000 USD to get it set up, we prayed and prayed for another option. We later were able to get the price down to $8,000 USD, but still thought this was too much money at the time. Just about a month ago, our electric company gave us a quote of $2,000 to set it all up. We were so excited, we signed the contract right away and it has now been hooked up! That is a $23,000 answer to prayer! But the next thing was that we needed an electrician from the States to come out and help us set up the electricity. Someone to put in all the wires and outlets and lights. There are not very many skilled electricians here and we really wanted it to be done well. After 2 years of not really being able to get anyone to come, we asked my aunt's father-in-law, Bob Gudbrandson. He is a semi-retired electrician and we knew he had been to Southern Mozambique several times with his church. Within 2 days, he agreed to come and bought plane tickets. Another incredible answer to prayer! He arrived June 12 and stayed 2 weeks, working non-stop from 7-6 everyday including weekends to get our electricity all up and running. He did an incredible job and I don't think there is a neater electrical system in all of Mozambique! Here is a picture of him with our workers out at the school.
We have also been working on the false ceiling and recently the doors have been hung. Next step is the windows and security bars and then painting and we are ready to go. Below are a few pictures of the ceiling going in.
Just this past week our team had our annual Spiritual Life Conference. I, along with a friend and colleague, Carla Overton, were in charge of planning and running the conference. Our speaker for the week was our SIM International Director, Joshua Bogunjoko. His wife Joanna also attended with him. Despite a cancelled flight and arriving a day late, it was such an incredible blessing to have them with us. Our team has been quite discouraged lately with the lack of leadership after having lost our previous director to ALS and then also just the trauma of losing him and his family to that serious illness as well as another close colleague to a brain tumor. For our small team of 16 adults, it has been quite a blow. His messages on God's peace from John 14-17 were so needed and just to be able to share with him personally where we were all at and get to know him on that level was an incredible blessing. We are so grateful for his humble leadership of SIM. Below are some pictures of us out at the Bible School and at the conference.
Below are just some pictures of various other activities over the past couple of months. A couple churches we have visited where Tim has preached. Both are small Yawo home churches around the city. Also a photo of an incredible rainbow over our SIM guesthouse on our property. Then some pictures of our trip to Mocuba, Cuamba (with the Overton family), and Gurue...just some of the beauty of Mozambique.
