Sunday - 3 May 2009

We're having a recuperative and lazy Sunday afternoon here in Maputo this afternoon. For the past hour we have been "enjoying" one whopper of a thunder and lightning storm. The lightning flashed all around us. The thunder crashed, the rain just poured down and the wind whipped the trees here in the yard. The electricity in the house flashed on and off a couple of times, and the dogs nearly turned inside out. Finally, it passed over and the sun shone for about 15 minutes, but now it's clouded up again, though I think part of it might just be the hour of the day as the sun is starting to sink in the west.

Now, let me bring you up to date on our comings and goings. I will try not to go into too much detail since it will take too long to read it anyhow. Backing up to Thursday, we went to the memorial service for the Tshambe's son at Central Church. Rev. Mrs. Tshambe is our pastor at Maputo Central Church and Rev. Mr. Tshambe was our District Superintendent until he retired a few years ago. On Saturday night, their son, Morgan Teófilo, was killed in a horrific accident as he was driving to Maputo from Johannesburg where he lived. He was about 50km from his parents' home when the accident occurred.

After the service, as Mama Tshambe's brother was talking about arrangements for the funeral in Jo'burg, Rhoda passed me a note saying she thought we ought to try to go too give give support to the family. I was hesitant because we didn't know where it was going to be, who else was going, where we'd stay, if we'd be able to book a hotel room, etc. etc. When she said to him after the service that we might try to go, he started thinking of who we could take with us, and several names were suggested of people who wanted to go too and needed a ride, etc. We got home and I got on the internet to see if we could make a reservation at the Road Lodge by the airport and to our delight, found we could, AND that I had enough "frequent sleeper" points that we could stay for free! Then we called Ginoca Mondlane, a pastor's wife, and made arrangements for her to come with us. Rev. Tshambe called and asked if we could pick up two more ladies - Mama Carolina Mula from Central Church and one Mama Tshambe's sisters - at their house. And so the arrangements were made.

So, at 4:15am I got up (I'd woke up at 3:30am and couldn't go back to sleep) and got in the shower and at 4:50am set out with the two visiting superintendents from Tete to take them to the bus station. I dropped them off and returned home to get Rhoda and get ready to leave for Jo'burg. Ginoca arrived a bit before 6am and shortly after we set off. We got to Tshambe's at 6:30am thinking we'd pick up the ladies and continue on, but that was not to be. It had been decided that the 5 cars going to Jo'burg would all travel together, and that they'd accepted our suggestion to avoid Ressano Garcia border (we'd spent 4 hours there two years ago on May 1st trying to go to Kruger) and travel via Swaziland instead, and that they would follow me! Well, the convoy wasn't ready to leave till 8:45am! They did have tea and bread for us all while we waited though.

The trip went without any problem, but it just took much longer than it would have had we been on our own. We led the group, followed by pastors Admirado Chaguala and Mordecai Nhabanga, Tshambe's son-in-law and one other car with some ladies from Central Church. All together, there were 24 of us. There was very little traffic on the roads or at the borders but a couple of the cars had a bit of difficulty with the long and steep hills first going up to Goba border post, and then up to Mbabane in Swaziland. We did manage to by-pass all the toll booths in South Africa and we got to Tshambe's son's house not far from the airport just before 6pm.

When we got there, there was already quite a crowd gathered. We all just sort of marched in and took over as only Mozambicans can do. Teófilo's wife, Nellie, six-months pregnant, was in the large main bedroom on the bed with a big blanket, and her sister was with her. Mama Tshambe climbed onto the bed beside her. It was a touching scene. There were chairs all around the bed on both sides and at the foot and our delegation filled the room and proceeded with a consolation service. That lasted about an hour, then most of us left and a group from Nellie's church came to take our place and they had a service. That was all over by about 8:30pm and then they served a meal to everyone who was there. I'd say there must have been 60 or so people there. A lot were family. Filimão and Samantha, another son and daughter-in-law (he is our former colleague here at SNM and is now Regional Education Coordinator for Africa) and their two kids were there, plus some others with Mozambique connections. There was a lot of visiting and reminiscing, and then Samantha started letting folks know about arrangements for accommodation. Some stayed with neighbors and some were taken over to the guest apartments at Wilro near the Regional Office. It was about 9:45pm that we took off and headed to the Road Lodge - only about 20 minutes from the house, but on the other side of the airport.

Yesterday morning we were up early and had breakfast at the hotel, then about 8:15am we headed out to return to the house. We got there shortly after 8:30am and the street was already full of cars as people had gathered for the procession to the funeral. Nellie's church was way over in Soweto so they'd hired a school hall on the other side of Benoni for the funeral - about 10km from the house. There was a of confusion getting there, but enough folks knew the place, and the rest of us managed to follow. We got there about 9:45am and the service was due to start at 10am. The hall was full of folks, and there was a worship team leading the service which was more like a worship celebration than a sad funeral. It was very different from funerals here in Mozambique! Filimão read a brief story of Teófilo's life and then shared how he and Samantha had been praying for him and had been talking to him about getting right with the Lord. He had worked hard and done well and had become part-owner of an engineering firm there in Jo'burg. He owned two houses (the house we were at was beautiful and large) and several cars and was well off, but had not been following the Lord for some time. Fili and Samantha were with them on Easter Sunday and I guess Samantha preached him a sermon and that day he prayed and accepted Jesus as his Savior. Then it was only two weeks later that he was tragically killed in the accident. Fili told the whole story and really preached the Gospel with all these non-church folk there who had known him from work etc. Then the pastor brought a powerful Gospel message as well. There was a tremendous sense of the Lord's presence through the whole service.

From the service, there must have been about 70 cars that proceeded to the cemetery - only a few kilometers away. We were there at the cemetery with a cold, stiff breeze blowing for about 45 minutes, then returned to the home for a lunch. Tshambes decided to stay there for a few more days and so Nhabangas decided to stay too. Also, Tshambe's daughter and son-in-law decided to stay too, so there were only three vehicles to return. We decided that we'd travel together for safety's sake and we left around 3:30pm and headed for home. We stopped in Nelspruit to get a few things from one of the grocery stores and to visit the loo, and then headed on. The border was not too busy and we got to Tshambe's house around 10:15pm. One of Mama Tshambe's sisters - Maria Mucavele, who has been a Mozambican ambassador to various places, and travels on a diplomatic passport - was with us and we dropped her off to pick up her car. Another sister was staying at Tshambe's house to keep an eye on it while they are away. We headed on for home and dropped Ginoca off at their house and then came on home. It was about 11:30pm that we drove onto the campus and home. Needless to say, we were rather exhausted!

Today we went to a new church out in one of the new bairros northwest of the city - Khongolote. The church is only a little over a year old and one of my former students is pastor. They had 37 charter members when the church was organized and now they are running around 100. They have a little reed building, which was full this morning, and they are accumulating cement blocks and raising money to build a building that will accommodate at least 500! They have a lovely large piece of ground with enough room for a church, a parsonage and Sunday School rooms. We had a lovely service, and our six students that went with us sang and one of the guys gave a testimony about how he'd been called to ministry. After the service, they gave us all ham and cheese sandwich on a bread roll along with a glass of juice - so we'd be nourished for the journey home. It was ever so nice of them!

It's now 5:30pm and it's nearly dark outside. I'll get this finished and ready to post, then I'll go down to school and see if we've got any emails waiting for us, and I'll get this sent off. Tomorrow we start a new term with new classes and new schedules. I'm sure it will take a few days to get into the swing of things. I'll also call Tropical and ask if they have any intentions of restoring our internet service!