You Know You Are In Africa

You know you are in Africa when...

.....you are giving a Bible study and a chicken runs through your translator's legs with a dog chasing right after it!

....you are sitting in your living room conversing with fellow CRI staffers and you look up to see a monkey's face in your window!

....you awaken in the middle of the night to loud thunder and noise and see the same monkey looking at you in a different window!

With the temps soaring in the high 90's, I was tempted to
do exactly what most Mozambican children do after it rains.

Children are precious in His sight.

The children are always so ingenious
about creating toys.  I love this swing.

Life here for a Wyoming girl is always filled with surreal moments.  This week one of the children in our creche passed away because while home she accidentally fell into a fire. One of our activistas and his family were robbed in their home by four men with machetes and knives. The darkness is always here, but it makes God's light shine even brighter.

In the Bible study, we huddle under the shade on these steamy,
hot days like we huddle around the fire in Wyoming on a
 blustery winter morn.

Everyone is always attentive to the Bible studies...well, maybe
not everyone.

This is one of our Green Door house recipients.
She is faithful, in spite of her age, to come to
the Bible study in the hot weather.

During one of our Bible studies we got to talking about the value of reading (especially your Bible!) and how it gives independence and the freedom to learn. The current illiteracy rate in Mozambique is 51%.  It is my heart to see more Mozambicans find this freedom to learn.  But along with that, is the need for libraries.  There are 121,785 in the United States. On the other hand, our translator had to explain to the people in our PL Bible study the definition of a library.  The infrastructure here does not bestow libraries except in the universities and schools. The average citizen has no access to such a treasure. And if they did, there is a possibility the books would never stay on the shelves.

Women eating our soup at the hospital. It feels cooler
to sit on the floor rather than in the beds.

A mother is feeding her sick child some soup.

I am so thankful for the soup ministry.  We bring soup as a calling card of God's love to the sick and dying. This last week we were in one room serving soup and sharing Christ's message of hope. The next day we walked through the same room and found out everyone in that room had passed away.

We are thankful for the donors who choose recipients to
receive a new cement block house in the Green Door ministry.

One requirement for us to be able to build a house is that
each recipient has land to build on.

A Green Door House can be built in three weeks.

We have two houses waiting to be painted and two more
are being built since we arrived in March.  God is good!