July 2– We were up at 4:30am this morning and aiming to get on the road by 5:30am. We didn’t quite make it, but we were out the gates of the Catholic compound before 6am. It was still dark but the town of Gurué was already coming to life. We made a quick stop at bank with its ATM machines and were able to restock our supply of cash before leaving town.
Our destination was Cuambe, the principal town in the south of Niassa Province, where we were to attend the first of eight district assemblies. There were two possible routes. The long way around was estimated to take between 4 and 5 hours due to road conditions. The other was a possible short-cut across the Lúrio River separating Zambézia from Niassa. We had heard that some missionaries had used the short-cut several weeks before and so we were going to try it. We missed the turn off – it was only a dirt road after all – and only realized it when we arrived in the town of Lioma and had to turn around and go back to try to find it. When we got there it was obvious, but when we’d passed the first time a truck was stopped in front of the sign. Oh well.
The road had been recently graded and the sign had indicated that a new bridge across the river was being built. We made good time and covered the 30 some kilometers in about 20 minutes. The closer we got to the river, the road got more and more narrow and winding and then we came up short as we rounded a curve and there was the new bridge! The only problem was, there was no way onto or off of the bridge. There had obviously been a ford below and beside the bridge where vehicles had crossed, but the people of the area had made a small dam to make the water deeper for washing clothes and taking baths. They had taken into consideration that some missionaries on their way to district assembly might want to try to cross their bathing area! There was nothing to do but turn around and back track the way we had come and then take the long way to Cuamba.
The highway, although dirt and gravel, was not all that bad. After all, it was the main route to the northwestern area of the country. It was bumpy in places and the pick-up started acting up a bit so I stopped to check and sure enough, the battery cable had come loose. I tightened it back up and we were back to normal and on our way, passing beside a range of huge granite monoliths that rose dramatically from the savannah land of northern Zambézia. The landscapes were beautiful and so impressive. The sky was a deep blue and the sun shone off the granite slopes adding to the majesty of the scenery. There were also large, impressive trees growing on the slopes with tall, straight, pale yellow trunks, topped by a large dark green canopy of leaves. They were reminiscent of the classic fever trees that we have in southern Mozambique and South Africa, but these were much taller, with straight trunks. There were surrounded by other trees and bush which added to the beauty.
We finally came to the village of Mutuali and turned toward the west and Cuamba. The road deteriorated rapidly and we had to poke along to keep from damaging the pick-up, and ourselves! The road seemed to go on and on forever until finally we came to a long bridge over the Lúrio River, the border between Nampula and Niassa Province. Once on the other side, the road widened out, had obviously been graded recently and we were able to more than double our speed, except when we came to the numerous railway crossings along the way. This road parallels the main railway line from Nacala on the coast to Lilongwe, Malawi. It was still about 40 kilometers into Cuamba, but we wouldn’t be as late as we thought we’d be.
Finally we arrived in the town of Cuamba and were able to phone our area coordinator, Rev. Bonifácio Mirashi, who was to chair the district assembly. We got directions to a meeting place, and then the local district superintendent, former student Júlio Carlos Américo, met us on his motorcycle. We followed him a short distance, but with numerous turns, to the church where a number of the pastors and some lay delegates had already arrived for the assembly.
The church was made of plastered mud bricks and it had a typical dried, thatched roof. Inside the floor was dirt and but there were a number of wooden benches to accommodate the members. We had chairs on the platform and after greeting a couple of our former students, the assembly began. The total attendance was only about 25 or so, and that was including the children that wandered in and out. Bonifácio preached the opening message and called the assembly to order and various persons were called on to give their reports – district superintendent, district secretary and district treasurer. We were introduced as the representatives of the Seminary and after Rhoda and Mama Uate gave their greetings and testimonies; I proceeded to give a report from the Seminary and to speak about the need for pastors to be trained for ministry, either by coming to Maputo to the Seminary or by studying through the extension program. Once we were finished, the local pastors began to give their reports – district licensed pastors first, followed by lay pastors. This was to be our regular routine for the next 10 days.
After the assembly was over, we spent some time visiting with former students. Two had come from Lichinga, nearly 300 kilometers (190 miles) to the north of Cuamba where the assembly was held. It had taken them about six hours to make the journey and it would be another six hours back. I gave them a ride to the place where they were to meet their “taxi” back to Lichinga and they told me they would be lucky to make it home by 11pm that night. We returned to the home of the district superintendent for a meal together with the pastors. We had rice and chicken as well as xima (she-mah) – a white starch porridge - made from millet. In the south, our xima is made from corn, or maize, meal, but here in the north they use millet as it is more readily available. There were some other dishes as well, but the main part of the meal was the rice and chicken.
By 5pm things were winding up and it was time to get on the way to Malema where we would stay the night. We bid our farewells and before leaving town filled up with diesel fuel. This tank of fuel would have to last us until Sunday and take us all the way into Nampula, about 300 kilometers to the east. One of the pastors who lived along the way asked for a ride and so we squeezed him in with the ladies in the back seat. By the time we got back to Mutuali, it was dark and we still had another 60 kilometers to go. It was almost easier driving at night because the holes in the road were picked up by the headlights. During the daytime, you couldn’t see the potholes until you were right on top of them, but at night they showed up with the dark shadows. We finally pulled into the town of Malema around 7pm. This was where we were to have the first half of the assembly for the Nampula West District. The district is so large that they divide the assembly into two sessions, one in the western area of the district, at Malema, and the other in the eastern part of the district near the town of Ribaué. When we arrived at the church, there was a large number of pastors and their wives already there, along with people from the local church. While dinner was being prepared, everyone sang and had a good time crowded around the cooking fires. It was a good way to keep warm in the chill of the early evening. Once again we were cared for with gracious hospitality. We were served a lovely meal of grilled chicken and rice and millet xima and chicken curry. We met our district superintendent here, Rev. José Zacarias, as well as one of our recent graduates, Heroi Naconaca. He surprised us with the news that he was to be married in a month’s time! Finally, with dinner over and arrangements made for the next morning’s assembly, we made our way up the road a short distance to a “complexo turístico” where we would spend the night. Never having been in this area we weren’t sure what to expect, but we were pleasantly surprised to find a place with very comfortable and clean accommodation. There was running water, but we had to heat water ourselves by putting an electric immersion coil into a basin of water. It was a bit risky, though. If you put your finger in the water to check the temperature, you’d get a shock! We quickly learned to remove the coil first before checking the water temperature! The room was also furnished with a mosquito net which we were very glad to have. I thought it would be rather claustrophobic, but in fact it was more like being in a tent, only indoors. We were glad to get cleaned up and to stretch out and get some rest. It had been a long, but a good day!
July 3 – We needed to be at the church by 8am for breakfast so we were up at 6am to get ready for the day and to get the car packed. Having been on dirt roads for a couple of days now, it was surprise to come out of our room and discovered that the pick-up had been washed! The man who did it had done his work in faith that the grateful owner would find him and “thank” him for his efforts, and we did thank him appropriately before heading off to the church. When we got to the church breakfast was nearly ready. Some of the best bread rolls we’ve ever eaten, some fried eggs and hot water. They had no tea bags or coffee, but we did, so we shared it with the others at the table and we enjoyed our breakfast together.
Around 8:45am we adjourned to the church to begin the assembly. The church building in Malema was much like the church in Cuamba – plastered mud bricks with thatched roof. The “benches” here were plastered rows of mud bricks and spaced about a foot and half apart. There was no concern about benches being stolen here! The assembly was called to order and welcomes were said and introductions made. We followed the same format as the day before in Cuamba – sermon, district superintendent’s report, secretary and treasurer’s reports, Seminary and pastors reports and then adjournment and lunch. All was concluded by about 3pm, and with Rev. Zacarias now traveling with us, we loaded up and then we headed east to Ribaué.
It was another plus or minus 100 kilometers to Ribaué and with road conditions as they were, we estimated about two and a half hours driving time. This was the main east-west highway across Nampula Province and when we asked Bonifácio why the road was not in better condition, he told us that the railway carried the major part of the passenger and freight traffic so there wasn’t a real sense of urgency on the part of the provincial administrators to do much about improving the highway (I’ve since learned that there is a plan underway to rebuild the whole highway from Nacala on the coast to Lilongwe in Malawi, and on to Zambia. Environmental and social impact studies were done early this year).
On the way we were entranced by the many large rock formations that seemed for form a chain all along the route to Nampula, and extending to the north as well. These inselbergs (granite projections from rolling plains) projected several hundreds of feet into the air and dominated the surrounding countryside. On the way to Ribaué, we made a stop at our church in the area of Natete. We greeted the lay pastor’s wife and some children. Neighbors came to see who these strange people were stopping late in the afternoon. While Bonifacio talked with the lay pastor’s family, Rhoda and Mama Uate and I looked in the church – dirt floor, mud-brick construction including the “benches”, rather thin thatched roof, and chickens coming and going through the door openings on either side of the building. It was obvious to us that the people in this area were extremely poor, and the condition of the children who gathered around us confirmed our assessment.
We arrived in Ribaué, a substantial town, around 5pm. A new church is being planted in the town and we made our way to see the progress being made. At present they have built a very nice parsonage that has a room large enough to hold services. Once they have sufficient funds, they will build a church building next to the parsonage. There is a good-sized piece of land and they are already making mud bricks which will be fired and then used to build the church. By the time we were ready to leave there, it was dark. We headed on down the road another 15 kilometers to the home of the district superintendent in the town of Namigonha. As we arrived at the church, the people who had gathered erupted into song to welcome us. We greeted the superintendent’s wife, Mama Carolina, whom we hadn’t seen since they graduated in 2003. The ladies of the church were preparing a meal for us and we waited and visited while the last arrangements were being made. We were a little bit concerned because no word had been said about where we would be spending the night, and it was getting late. Never mind, first things first! Dinner was served – roast chicken and rice, millet xima and chicken curry. It was starting to get familiar. Finally dinner was over and we were told we’d go and find a place to stay. The district secretary would go with us and show us where the place was. Only about a kilometer up the road into town we pulled off and stopped in front of a shop. It didn’t look like a place with accommodation, but we were assured that this was the place and that they had rooms for visitors. Unfortunately, we needed three rooms and they only had two, and the bathrooms were in another building. We asked the district secretary if there was another place in town and he said there was, and we headed for that place.
When we got there, it didn’t look like much, and not very appealing at that. Bonifácio and I went to inspect the facilities and the secretary assured us that this was the only other place in town. I won’t go into details but it will suffice to say that floors were the same color as the dirt outside. They had beds and sheets and pillows, but we couldn’t attest to the cleanliness, nor how many people had used them before we got there. The beds were only ¾ size; that was fine for Bonifácio and Mama Uate, but we were a bit squeezed. Still, we were glad for a mattress and the mosquito nets. We didn’t risk opening our suitcases there and it’s the only night on the whole trip that we didn’t dare turn the light off to go to sleep. We’d seen too many creepy-crawlies escaping when we turned the light on! The bathrooms didn’t merit being called that – they were little more than closets with holes in the floor. There were no windows anywhere and only one narrow doorway into the central hallway from the veranda. As our Field Strategy Coordinator would describe it, it was “condições minimas” – or minimal conditions. Had it been a jail, and a delegation from Human Rights Watch had seen it, they would have raised one royal protest about the terrible conditions under which prisoners were being held. But since it was a “guest house” – well, we didn’t have much of a choice. At least we knew it would be better the next night – we’d be with Bonifácio and his family at their home in Nampula.
July 4 – We were up around 5am this morning, pulled on our clothes from yesterday, washed our faces and brushed out teeth using the bottled water we’d brought with and got out of that place as quickly as we could, hoping that we weren’t taking and hitch hikers along with us. We returned to the church for breakfast and again we shared our tea bags and coffee and powdered milk. The assembly began around 8:30am and by now we were accustomed to the format – and we could almost repeat the sermon with Bonifácio, even with it being in the Macua language! This was a larger crowd than the previous two assemblies and there was more special music and celebration in addition to the reports being given. The district was experiencing good growth and they reported a better than 50% increase in membership over the previous year. Fantastic!!!! That’s not to say that there weren’t problems – some areas of the district were not growing nor were they participating in the budget giving – but the Lord was obviously blessing!
At the close of the assembly Rev. Zacarias announced that it was time to take up the offering. Actually, it was the first assembly where they had bothered to take an offering – good Nazarenes, these! People began to sing and to celebrate as the table was placed in front of the pulpit and people began to bring their offerings to the Lord – a 25kg bag or rice, 20kg of peanuts, a couple of sags of beans, two large branches of bananas, pumpkins, a bag or oranges, and coins and some notes placed enthusiastically on the table. Other items were also presented, all with singing and enthusiastic praise being offered to the Lord for His blessings. Once all the excited had settled down, Rev. Zacarias called us to the front of the congregation and thanked us for coming to be with them at their assembly. We were completely dumbfounded when he then told us that as their expression of thanks, they were presenting us with the offering that had just been given! We were speechless! I must confess, the first thought that entered my mind was, “How are we going to fit it all in the back of the truck?” What gracious generosity! And what a humbling experience to be the recipients of such gracious and loving kindness by God’s people who have next to nothing themselves! We can only pray that the Lord will bless them in the measure that they were a blessing to us!
After lunch of – you guessed it: roast chicken and rice, millet xima and chicken curry – we packed up the car, said our farewells, and set off down the road heading for Nampula, about 80 kilometers to the east. The closer we got to Nampula, the better the road conditions, and the more traffic we encountered. The highway was still a dirt road, but it was graded and we were able to make better time than previously. It was just after 4:30 pm that we entered the city of Nampula and pulled onto a tar road – the first we’d seen since July 1st when we left Milange. Now we were in city traffic and contending with other drivers. Thankfully, Bonifácio was with us and knew where we were going. We arrived at his home just a bit before 5 pm, just as it was going dark. Busi, Bonifácio’s wife was anxious for our arrival and we were delighted to see her and the kids – Khosi, 13; Buhle, 11; Paula, 8 and Lindane, 6. Busi had a lovely dinner prepared for us – not chicken – but homemade pizza! She’d got the recipe from Rhoda when they were here in Maputo and Bonifácio was teaching at the Seminary. After dinner a hot bath as heavenly and a clean, fresh bed was delightful, especially after what we had experienced the night before. It was good to have an early night, but Sunday would be another busy day, with a service in Rapale, about 20km back down the road in the direction we’d just come from, and then a 450 kilometer (280 miles) trip to Montepuez in Cabo Delgado Province for an assembly on Monday.
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