October Update...

Here is a quick update on the past month. I (Tim) just got back from a 2 week trip to the coast. It was a 2 day journey for me but I had a great opportunity to teach OT and NT survey to a group of 6 pastors. It went really well, we covered a lot of material. Now we hope they can retain it and apply it. We gave the students two assignments at the end of our time. 1) the students together wrote a song which told the story of the Bible in a condensed version. 2) they will be taking the next 2 months teaching a passage or a book in the Bible in a sequential way. They normally just pull out a passage and use it without any context and it almost always comes from Psalms or from the Gospels. Now they will be forced to preach sequentially a certain story like Moses til the crossing of the Red Sea or the story of Abraham. I think it will be good for them.

We leave on friday for Kenya. The whole trip will take about a month. We are going to visit and observe an oral Bible school there, to see what it would take to start one here. I will also be doing some teaching and trainings with Bramuel (the guy Blythefield works with doing STS). We also be combining the trip with a little vacation. My parents are meeting us in Nairobi and will spend the 3 weeks with us there and then drive back to down to Mozambique with us and stay until the middle of January. We are excited to be able to spend the holidays with family! 

 

 

Growing up too fast!

 



 

Here is the group from Mocimboa. One person is missing.

 

 

A picture of the coast of the Indian Ocean at Mocimboa.

September Update...

 

Just wanted to give you an update on the different teaching opportunities God has given Tim the past month. Most of you read in our newsletter about the teaching time in Itepela and Metangula on Lake Niassa. Tim was in Itepela for 4 days and in Metangula for 3 days and did teaching on marriage and family. It went really well and in Metangula, one man even brought his wife up in front in everyone and told her how much he appreciated her and loved her, which is something that is NEVER done here. It was such an encouragement to watch them put what they were learning into action. 

 

In the beginning of September, we also had a Simply The Story training here in Lichinga, that was done in Portuguese. If you don't remember, STS is a method of inductive Bible study that is done orally for people who cannot read or write or just learn better from an oral style of teaching. We had 25 people attend the 3 day course and through out the 3 days, each one of them was given a chance to share a story and put into practice what they were learning. We are anxious to see what happens now and if the people share their stories and take initiative to learn more stories.  

 

Also the past 3 saturdays, we spent in the village of Mapuje doing a parenting seminar. We had about 20 adults each week. Marriage and family is so difficult here because of different beliefs and traditions. It is difficult to even know how to approach the subject. We are only beginning to realize and coming to understand the complexities involved in family life here. It is so different from our traditional relationship with our husband or wife and kids. There really is very little "relationship" in their family life. It is only about having someone to take care of you--for the husband, someone to cook, do the laundry, etc.--for the wife, having someone to provide financially or materially. So we just start right from Genesis and show them directly from the Bible what God says about marriage and parenting. We don't want them thinking we are just giving them our "western" traditions, because we think we are better than them or know better than them. We just share exactly what God says about it in the Bible. They really do not invest at all into their children either. Children are important here, but only to carry on family lines and to have extra help in the fields and at home. We encourage them to read the Bible together as a family or listen to it on the solar powered mp3 players we provide, if they can't read it. We also emphasize the importantance of being an example to our children, in prayer, Church attendance, and just behavior in general. It is hard to change traditions that have been done for generations, but we just pray that God will produce fruit from the seeds planted.

 

Currently, Tim is in Mocimboa de Praia, on the coast of Mozambique, doing a two week course for 6 pastors, on Old and New Testament Survey. Please pray for him, for the teaching, safety in travel, and his health. He will return on the 16th of October. Then on the 27th of October, we all head to Kenya, where Tim will be doing a couple teachings, and we will be observing an oral Bible school, and visiting collegues. We will also be involved with a STS training there with another couple, who are missionaries from our home church just outside of Nairobi. Thanks for all your prayers and encouragement over the past month, we've really appreciated it!

 

  

The group in Metangula.

 



The STS training, here in Lichinga.

 



The whole STS group.

 



The group in Itepela.

This is harvest time here in Mozambique and everywhere you look there is corn. People are shucking, removing the kernals, pounding, or drying corn. Jurnee loves the empty dry corn cobs. They are a great toy and there are plenty to go around!

Fully Living...

The past few months have been full. Busy, but full of joy, and we feel blessed and grateful to be fully living here in Mozambique! In July we had our annual SIM spiritual life conference. Tim and I were in charge of planning the whole thing and we decided to do it on the lake. We had a team from Blythefield come to speak and lead worship. It was a great week. My parents came and my dad was the speaker for the week. His theme was "True North", talking about where we go in the midst of life's frusterations. Do we go south and grasp to worldly things or do we go north to God and find our significance and security in Him? We also had the Radaz family come to lead worship. They were so good. Worship is something we miss greatly here, so it was such a great exprience to have such talented people to lead us in worship in English! My mom and Jennifer Radaz helped out in the kitchen and preparing food, which was quite a task when you are preparing food for 30 people and all the cooking is done over charcoal. Here are some pictures from the conference.

The Radaz boys leading us in worship.

The lake.

The "kitchen"

My mom and Jennifer also gave all the ladies a pedicure!

The finished product.

We also had Beth Layton here as an intern for three months, she ran a kids program for us at the conference. Our kids really grew attached to her over the 3 months she was here.

Traeger and his friends waiting to play a game.

Our family in front of a huge baobab tree.

The Radaz family. We really enjoyed these guys. In the two weeks we had with them, we just really grew to love each of them. They were so great and we are so thankful for their willingness to serve us here.

Daddy and Jurnee swinging on the beach.

I just love it when you capture pure JOY!

My parents stayed for another 2 weeks after the conference and it was so nice to have them here and have them involved in our life here. It was also good for our SIM team to get to know them. My dad completed a list of more than 30 jobs around the house and my mom helped me redo all the flower beds and gardens in our compound. It was so great to get so much accomplished. The kids loved having grandma and grandpa around and they loved the 8 suitcases of goodies they brought for them. Yes, 8 bags of stuff. It really felt like Christmas and everyones birthday all at the same time. Jurnee turned 6 months old while they were here and they loved getting to know her and her growing personality. Here are some pictures.

Jurnee enjoyed grandma and grandpa

Jurnee loves animals, just not getting kissed by them.

Jurnee and grandpa

 Grandpa seemed to have the touch when it came to naptime.

All smiles!



We also were able to take part in 2 baptisms this past month. In all we participated in the baptism of 10 new believers. At this one, Travis Radaz, was baptised along with 4 other local Mozambicans.

This is another picture of pure joy!

The group of believers gathering before the baptism for worship.

My dad even got to participate along with Tim in this baptism of 5 local Mozambican believers. It was a great experience and priviledge for him.

Sunset at the the lake with a woman carrying firewood on her head.

On the way to drop my parents off at the airport in Malawi, we stayed a night at Liwonde game park. We saw TONS of elephants. We went on a boat ride down the Shire River and it felt like we were in a National Geographic magazine!

We also saw tons of crocs and hippos everywhere.



We saw two herds of Cape Buffalo.

Kudu



Warthog

Sable Antelope

A pod of hippos with elephants in the background.

baby elephant

We ran into this guy just driving through the park and we really were this close to him. We just rounded a corner and there he was.

I also wanted to give an update on up coming ministry opportunity we have in the next few months. We will be busy. Tim will be doing a lot of travelling so please pray for safety and that I will be able to have patience being home alone with the kids much of the time. Also pray for soft hearts for the recipients of the teaching, that God would work in their lives and reveal Himself to them. Here is the schedule:

Aug. 16-19: Marriage seminar in Itepela, a village about an hour and a half from Lichinga. (Tim is currently there right now doing this.)

August 24-26: Tim will be doing a teaching at a church in Metangula, a village along the lake.

September 3-6: We will be doing a Simply The Story training for the church leaders here in Portuguese.

Sept. 15, 22, 29: We will be doing a parenting seminar on three consecutive saturdays in Mapuje, a village about an hour from Lichinga.

October 1-12: Tim will be going to Pemba, a city on the coast of Mozambique, to teach a two week Bible course on Old and New Testament Survey for a Bible School there.

Then the end of October we will all be travelling to Kenya for about 3 weeks to visit an Oral Bible School and see what it would take to get one started here. Tim will also be doing some training and teaching at local churches while we are there.



Story Telling....

Well Tim has been practicing his story telling using the Simply the Story method as well as his Chiyao. We went to a church in a village just a little ways out of the city and he told the story of creation to the people there. He did very well, but didn't receive a lot of response on the observation and application parts. We are still trying to figure out how to best tailor this part to fit the Yao culture and what will really reach them where they are at. Here are some pictures and a little video of Tim telling the story in Chiyao.

Weekend in the bush...

This past weekend we spent some time in the bush of Mozambique with the Paetzold family. The Paetzolds are SIM collegues and friends of ours from South Africa. We had a great time exploring God's amazing creation. We didn't see as much wildlife as we were hoping, but the grasses are so high this time of year, it is hard to see. We were supposed to be really roughing it, but we ended up staying in "luxury" at a hunting camp. Here are some pictures. 

 Here is everyone enjoying coffee in the morning on the steps of the main lodge at the camp. Yes, even the kids are all drinking coffee, dilluted with a lot of milk of course.

 The view from the main camp.

This is a herd of Sable antelope we saw on one of our drives. They are a beautiful animal. Unfortunately though these were the only animals we saw, besides rabbits and monkeys.

 The kids hanging out in front of the lodge, enjoying the view.

 Crossing the river on one of our drives. The boys got to ride on back of the Land Rover and loved it.

 Here is Traeger at one of the smaller camps we drove to. It is called Maganga, which means rocks in Chiyao, for obvious reasons.

Here we are heading out for a bush walk.

 Tim and Alfred grilling up our meat.

 We went on a river walk and saw tons of elephant footprints like this one. We also saw buffalo tracks, lion tracks, and even croc tracks. There were signs of animals everywhere, but somehow we missed them all.

 Here are the boys on the river walk.

Tim thought he would see if the elephant dung really tastes as good as it smells.

The boys loved their bush drive.

Here is the lodge from the Maganga camp. The view was absolutely incredible.