Mariana

It truly amazed me that Mariana had walked across the busy highway in Chimoio to greet us as the bus randomly pulled to a stop to add water to the radiator. What she heard while lying sick in her mother's mud home was the singing of the women in the bus.  She recognized their engaging voices and the African worship songs and in spite of her weak legs, hurried across the highway to greet us.  I had no idea that in exactly two weeks I would be speaking at her funeral.

It was a most unique funeral.  Several of the dead were buried in the cemetery simultaneously.  The holes dug for the graves were three feet apart, several lined in a row.  The dirt dug from the earth was heaped high around each grave. It was expected that the person in charge of speaking position themselves at the head of each grave. So I gingerly made my way like a mountain goat terrified I would fall in one of the open graves. (I mentioned my fear of falling to my translator Simone but he quickly assured me that had I fallen he would have quickly rushed over and buried me!) It was quite an experience shouting the message on the mountain of dirt as the funerals to the left and the funerals to the right proceeded in the same manner. We were one of fifty funerals that day at the cemetery.

One only needs to walk into a Mozambican cemetery to get a wake-up call as to the daily devastation of AIDS and a host of other illnesses in this poverty-stricken country.  170 people were buried in one day in a cemetery in Beira.  The mass of sandy mounds in sizes from small to large screams the insanity of their ambiguity. As if insult to injury, the names on the homemade crosses soon wear off with the tropical weather. Yet each is not so easily forgotten by God.

I was thankful that Mariana had heard the women singing that day and decided to greet us.  It must have been an encouragement to her to see all of her friends from Dondo. None of us knew that she would soon hear singing again but not of this world.  I am thankful for the ministry of the Ray of Light to women with AIDS like Mariana who have the hope of eternity in their hearts to sustain them beyond the grave.

Gorongoza

We took a quick weekend trip to Gorongoza National Park (about three hours from Dondo) and here are some of the pics from the trip. We had a great time enjoying God's beautiful African animals and birds.

African Fish Eagle

Baboons

Do you see the croc?

Bushbuck

Elephants

Um....I can't remember - he was hiding his face.

Impala

Pelican

Wart Hog

In the Palm of God's Hand

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands... Isaiah 49:16

Today I saw Pam.  It was sad to see her spindly legs and swollen belly much like a stamp endorsing her life in Moz. Over a year ago we had rejoiced that God had blessed this childless couple who had suffered many miscarriages. When they had asked me to pray, I was almost speechless in wonder as to how one prays for a couple with AIDS. Yet, together we prayed for God's will to be done, not ours.  The next year, they were holding a beautiful baby daughter named Pam.  God had spoken.  And He has spoken again.  They are expecting their second child.  As I watched Pam in her mother's arms today I couldn't help wonder about the social, economic, and moral issues that would be sparked for debate over the justice of this couple to bear children.  They are illiterate, they live in extreme poverty, they bear a deadly disease that can be passed on to their children, and they can't provide a square meal.  There was nothing they wanted more in this world than to have a child.  A far cry from the other side of the world where the educated, rich and healthy abort over a million babies a year.

Yet, the Giver of gifts knows all.  And I watched as Pam safely snuggled in her mother's love.

* * * * * * *

Divine appointments.  We have them often here in Moz.  Today Lou and I stopped by a man's house in Project Life.  He is a regular at a weekly bairro Bible study.  Last week we prayed for him as he was not feeling well. Normally I am at the Bible studies but this week I felt compelled to walk in the bairros visiting the patients.  As we arrived at his house, he didn't come out the door to greet us.  Instead, his wife quietly took some chairs into the house for us to sit on. No matter how sick a Mozambican may be, they will come out to greet a guest. This man was too sick to walk, could not sit, and was barely audible.  It was apparent that he was in serious danger from dehydration.  One more night, and we would have returned for a funeral.

It is hard to imagine a world where you just accept your fate without a fight; no emergency service, no availability of a car, and the hospital too far for the ill to walk. Our car became the ambulance and we rushed him off to the local hospital.  We were thankful that there was a nurse on hand.  They started an IV and wisked him away to join a few others in the adult wing of the hospital. Once again I marveled at God's timing.  As Lou would say, his name was written in the palm of God's hand.

* * * * * *

I just received word that my friend Mariana passed away.  She had been so ill that she had gone to live with family in Chimoio. (It is about halfway to Zimbabwe.)  I was sad that I would not be able to see her.  Yet strangely enough, as we were driving to the Women's Congress a week and a half ago the bus stopped along side the road in Chimoio.  Who should come across the street to see me?  Mariana!  I was able to see her for a few brief minutes. Another divine appointment.  Now my friend is free from all her pain and sorrow.  She is in the presence of our Savior and holding His hand.

Women's Retreat Video

You can see short clips of the retreat from last weekend on this video now.  Internet here in Dondo is both slow and sometimes non-existent.  So it took all night last night- but it finally uploaded.  Enjoy their culture!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbfmcIU5IoA

The Women's Congress Retreat

The beautiful lake in Chicamba

The map said we were headed to Chicamba, a dam and lake south of Manica close to the Zimbabwe border. It was my first experience at the Baptist Women's Congress; a four-day retreat serving over 200 Mozambican women.  I knew I was in for a cultural awakening when the bus in front of my car stopped to let our women out as if they were at a stateside rest stop.  All the women aboard (except for my American friend Lou) used the side of the road to relieve themselves, boarded the bus and off they went.  The bus driver let Lou, Cristiana (a Brazilian missionary) and myself use the more modern invention, the gas station bathroom in the next town of Chimoio.  None of us knew exactly where we were going (including the bus driver) but after navigating through miles of washboard roads we found the four-wheel drive entrance down to the remarkable lake.  There wasn't a lodge with a beautiful fireplace and a kitchen that could whip out pancakes and syrup.  Instead, stretched a over the top of indigenous poles was a variety of tattered canvass creating a make-do shelter. Their kitchen was a large pot over a fire. A generator supplied energy for three small light bulbs in the erected tent - the only light in the camp.  Of course Lou and I, a culturally coddled couple of missionaries, had forgotten our flashlights. Close to the campsite however, was a small hotel that offered us the advantage of paying for a room.

The women from Dondo, Savane, Mafarinha and Mafambisse

For about $4 a night, we were able to rent a room that was large enough to fit two twin beds.   There wasn't a key that worked in our door so the bus driver invented one.  He promptly broke the handle off the door, shaped the handle crudely and showed us how to pick the lock to make the door open.  It served as our "key" to get in until we handed in the handle at the end of our stay. The bathroom for all the guests was outside of the rooms - a hole in the ground with a squatter seat.  We had a choice for taking a bath - we could join the women in the lake, or use a bucket of lake water in our shared bathroom with its accompanying fumes.  Knowing the lake had the potential for crocodiles, we chose the latter. :-)

The women washed clothes and bathed in the lake.

When we arrived at the camp, we parked our car by two grazing goats.  Ah...cute camp pets. No...camp dinner. The night's meal would be boiled corn flour and goat meat.  Without modern amenities, it would take until 10:30 that night for dinner to be served...yet a treat for the women who rarely buy meat. It had cost them a month and a half of their wages in order to attend.  They brought their own dish and mat to sleep on. They would bathe in the cold lake each morning, and sleep together on the hard ground under their makeshift tent. They would drink the water from a faucet that came from the lake. No one seemed to complain though many came down with diarrhea.

The makeshift tent

The night picked up speed as the women started to worship. They had come not for the comforts of life but for the comforts of the heart. It didn't matter what part of Mozambique they represented....they had a special comaraderie in their dancing and in their songs of Shona, Sena, Ndau and Portuguese.  Their obvious joy was so loud I am certain it was heard in heaven, if not across the lake.  It was a great genesis to their retreat.

Four of our activistas with Project Life at Chicamba

The rest of the weekend the women listened and shared their hearts about life as a woman in Mozambique.  What do you do when your husband cares for his second wife, but not you?  How do you respond to physical abuse as a Christian wife?  What do you do without a husband, money or job?  It was a joy to see other Mozambican women counsel their sisters in their desire to seek God's will in difficult circumstances. Though no different from some issues we have as Americans, their fight for the basic necessities of life constantly abrades their armor as they try to live a godly life.

Women danced and sang their worship songs.

The last night it rained off and on bringing water through the holes in their makeshift tent.  Many did not sleep, especially the babies. Though tired physically, inwardly they were renewed through the shared encouragement from their Christian sisters.  We went home treasuring the cultural experience, the joy of watching the women grow in their pursuit of God and a renewed sense of God's blessings.

(I am trying to post a video of the conference I created but the internet in Dondo is not cooperating. I hope to get it up in another post so you can check back later.)

Back in Dondo

Psalm 56:8 (New Living Translation)

You keep track of all my sorrows.

You have collected all my tears in your bottle.

You have recorded each one in your book.

We are convenience-challenged when we live in a third world country. It all comes back as we settle in our daily routine. The rules are simple: Don't sit barefoot at the computer or get shocked when you touch metal. Be detail oriented. Remember to bring your phone with you or sift through endless keys and doors getting back into your bedroom to find it. If you see an item in the store and think you might need it - buy several, you won't see it again for weeks. Need a bath? Don't hesitate. You may not have electricity by morning. Making plans for the day? Don't set them in concrete or you will wear out your hammer. Life here continues to shift like the sand we walk on. Thankfully God's mercy and goodness will always remain the same.

The spiritual battle for men's hearts continues to rage. Activista Emelia asked me to meet her at her home after the Bible study. I found her cradling a frail two-month-old baby in her arms. A sweet, toothless grin and wide eyes looked up at me in innocence. She explained he was the grandson of her dead brother. Emelia needed my help to move his dying daughter and her belongings to another home where another relative might have time to offer some care. We gathered her belongings: a bucket, a mat, two capalanas filled with a few worn clothes and....her baby boy and his sister. Too ill to walk on her own, Tomás and I gingerly placed the mother in the car. At the other house she joined her mother, lying on a mat too sick to care for herself. I watched as the older sister played outside with sand in a broken dish, intimating some kind of normalcy in this calamitous drama. This family's history of witchcraft was coming to fruition; a continuous and repetitious history in Mozambique. In faith we shared the gospel in the few moments afforded and then we prayed. Emelia quietly sobbed.

No inconvenience rivels the opportunity to reach out to one soul. We are happy to be back in Dondo.