Our Trip to Northern Mozambique - 23 June to 16 July

Report of Our Trip to Northern Mozambique – 23 June to 16 July, 2009

June 23rd. We were up early on Tuesday morning. The pick-up was packed the night before with everything but our suitcases. Orlando Siapange, one of our students who we were taking home for the term break, was waiting eagerly to leave, and as soon as Mama Uate, one of our Bible school teachers, arrived, we had a prayer and we set out on our nearly four week adventure. After filling up the fuel tank, we were headed north.

The trip was uneventful as we crossed into Gaza Province and made our way up to Xai Xai. We crossed the Limpopo River around 9am and continued on through the town of Xai Xai. Half way through the town we encountered our first dose of bad roads – pot holes and narrow pavements and drop-offs on the edge of the road made progress slow and a bit risky. Eventually we were out of town and things improved a little, though preparations were underway for highway repairs kept us from making rapid progress. For the next 80 kilometers (50 miles) we had poor road surfaces, and then we crossed into Inhambane Province and the road improved drastically! In Quissico, we pulled into a filling station to look for toilets and there was our former student, Zacarias Mutombene, just coming out of the local administrator’s offices next door. We had planned to visit him and his family at the church they are pasturing but had not phoned ahead. We followed him down the hill to the church and had a lovely visit for about 40 minutes or so before continuing through coconut palm plantations on to our next stop in Massingue.

As we entered Massingue, we phone another former student, Helder Zimba, who is planting a church there in the town. He came out to the highway to meet us and we followed him back about 200 meters off the main highway to the church. The current church is made of woven palm leaves and thatched roof, but they are starting construction on a block building that, when finished, will accommodate about 300 persons easily. Mama Zimba was visiting family in Maputo with their new baby daughter so we only got to see Helder and his son, Josué.

We left Massingue around 2pm and headed north again for our destination of the day, Vilanculos, and the home of our district superintendent, Rev. Simeão Mulhanga, a 1996 graduate of the seminary. The first 80 kilometers were pretty rough with more potholes, but that smoothed out into a beautiful highway, lined with baobab trees and coconut palms. The closer we got to Vilanculos, the fewer were the palms and other trees took their place. Finally, a large number of heavy trucks parked on the roadside, and a sudden appearance of potholes, told us we were at the turnoff for Vilanculos. We left the main highway and headed toward the coast, driving another 15 kilometers in rapidly fading daylight until we arrived at our church just outside the main town. Here we were warmly welcomed by the Mulhanga family and treated to a lovely dinner of bean soup followed by chicken and rice and fried potatoes. Orlando spent the night with the Mulhangas, but we and Mama Uate had a cottage reserved at a nearby holiday location. It wasn’t the fanciest place we ever stayed in, but it was adequate for one night. On the way there, we thought we had a flat tire from a thumping noise we heard, but all the tires were fine.

June 24th – We were up early and returned to the Mulhanga’s house to get Orlando. Driving back to the Mulhanga’s house, we could hear none of the noise we had heard the night before. After breakfast and filling up on fuel, we were off again heading north. As we turned onto the main highway, the thumping noise returned. We checked the wheels, could see nothing out of the ordinary, and so continued on. It was another 400 kilometers to our next destination and the more we drove, the worse and more worrying the noise became. We made it to Inchope, the cross-roads of Mozambique, where we dropped Orlando off to get a bus to his home town about 30 kilometers east toward Beira. We also met another former student, Jorge Macherenga, a 2001 graduate, who is pastoring there at Inchope and caring for about 70 AIDS orphans.

Jorge showed us the way to the church where he and his family are serving, and the kids were there that afternoon. They children living with older siblings or with aunts and uncles or neighbors, and they come to the church several afternoons a week for activities, lessons, and a basic meal. This ministry is receiving about $300 a month from Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, but he has been told that this help will end in August. Jorge has started raising chickens to sell to help fund this ministry when the NCM help comes to an end. One of the things that we did here at Inchope was to deliver several boxes of handmade quilts that had been sent by the ladies of the Vancouver, WA Church of the Nazarene specifically for AIDS orphans. We also left some candies for the kids that were there. Our hearts were touched as they all lined up and held out their hands to receive the little that we had to give them. We couldn’t help but think of the words of Jesus in Luke 18:16, “Let the little children come to me and do not prevent them coming, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.”

After our visit with the children, we continued on to a mission just outside the town of Gondola on the main road to Zimbabwe. Here we were to spend the night with missionaries who had stayed with us in Maputo on their way to South Africa several weeks before. I had phoned ahead to see if they could help with finding a mechanic who could look at our truck, but as we pulled into the mission, Carlos took a look at our left front wheel and said, “I think I found your problem.” Four of the six lug nuts holding the wheel on were only half tightened. We tightened them up, when for a test drive, and the loud thumping noise was gone! Praise the Lord! It was only the Lord who kept that wheel from coming off as we traveling the nearly 1200 kilometers from Maputo! There at the mission we unloaded our luggage and got a cup of tea, and after a brief visit headed the short drive into Chimoio to visit with Murombo and Ana Moises, 2007 graduates from the Seminary. They are pastoring the main Central Church of the Nazarene in Chimoio. We had a lovely but too short visit with them before heading back to the mission in Gondola. It was then that our next adventure began and we saw another answer to prayer.

Being in a hurry to visit with the Moises family, I had passed several filling stations on the way into town figuring we’d fill up on the way back. But, the first station we came to was closed already at 7:30pm, and when I pulled into the next one, they informed me that they had no diesel. We continued on down the road toward the mission and the next station had the same problem – no diesel! I asked where the next station was and was told it was in Gondola. That’s where we were heading, but by now my fuel gauge was below empty! We were coasting down hills so as not to use up the fuel we had. Finally, the lights of Gondola appeared in the distance and we coasted down the hill into the first filling station we came to. Two mini-bus taxis were there and so we had hope. I pulled up to the pump and asked if they had diesel. The attended said he did and we began to fill up. As he pumped the fuel he asked me, “Are you a missionary?” “Yes, I am,” I replied. Then he asked, “What church are you from?” “Church of the Nazarene,” I said. “Well, I am too!”, he exclaimed. I then asked him, “Do you know Agosto Castelo and Nsolo Castelo?” (They were two former students from that very town.) Rather surprise, he replied, “They’re my brothers!” I told him to give them my greetings when he next saw them and to tell the folks at the church that he’d been an answer to prayer that evening. Our fuel tank holds 60 litres; we pumped 60.2 litres into the tank. We made it back to the mission guest house greatly relieved and praising the Lord for His protection and provision during the day. We a cup of soup and some crackers for our dinner and had a lovely nights rest in preparation for our next day’s travel.


PS - Since preparing this first installment, our computer was stolen in a house breakin. As a result, we lost all the photos we took on this trip. We hope you'll be able to "image" the trip with your imagination and our descriptions. More installments will be forthcoming in the week ahead. Dave