It’s been some time since we were able to add anything to this blog, but with a few extra minutes tonight, I’ll see what we can do.

June started out with a bang here on the campus with the arrival of a small – 7 member – dental Work & Witness team coming from Colorado Springs. Members of the team were Wes & Carolyn Taylor, Mark Taylor, Dr. Bob and Diane Meyers, Dr. John Ley and Linda Dadiva. They arrived on Saturday afternoon, May 31st, took Sunday to attend church and get over jet-lag and get set up, and then on Monday morning they started in on our students, first seeing all the kids and then working up to the adults. Rhoda and I were asked to help with interpreting for them so we adjusted our schedules to lend a hand and look a bit “down in the mouth” with the dentists.

I must say, during that week we truly saw the hands of Jesus working among our students. They were connected to Bob and John and Diane and Linda, but they were the hands of Jesus nonetheless. Although outwardly they ministered medically, it was all done with the grace and gentleness of Jesus. Such care and love they showed to our students and others who came to be seen! It was a blessing to be witnesses of their ministry. During the week they filled teeth that otherwise would have been unceremoniously yanked, rebuilt broken front teeth, restored smiles, relieved pain, ministered grace, and one retired D.S. even had a partial plate made giving him two brand new front teeth and a smile that made him look 20 years younger! If all the work they did had been done in the U.S. at American prices, the cost would have exceeded $50,000! So we are praising the Lord. On the scale of the world's needs, this may be a small insignificant occurrence, but for us here at Seminário Nazareno em Moçambique, it was marvelous!

During the week we also had a four-member team of Youth in Mission, a program of Nazarene Youth International and World Mission, arrive to spend about 8 weeks with us here in Mozambique. They will be working with youth groups here in the Maputo area and attending various churches on the districts and generally ministering among the Nazarene youth here in the city. They are Jerry Romasco and Allyson Yost from Trevecca Nazarene University, Kaylee Brooks from Southern Nazarene University and Kristin Gould, a recent graduate of Northwest Nazarene University. We are enjoying having them around and our house has suddenly been livened up considerably.

At the end of the month Rhoda and I will be heading to northern Mozambique on a four week trip representing the Seminary. We’ll be visiting former students and holding mini-pastors retreats as well as attending eight different district assemblies and preaching along the way. We’d appreciate your prayers for us as we set off on this journey. We’ll be back home in mid-July in time to start teaching in the second module of this second academic term in the Seminary. We’ll be sure to add another installment here when we return with a description of all our adventures.

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!

Greetings! It doesn't seem like a month since our last posting on this blog, and I'm sure no one has checked it out. Still, it's early days and it hasn't been publicized at all. Just a few events since the last posting:

February 26 - March 1 = We took off for a a few days of break to celebrate - 6 months late - our 30th wedding anniversary. We spent a night in White River, South Africa and then the next day headed north to the Letaba Camp in Kruger National Park. We had spent a night there on our honeymoon in 1978 and went back for old time's sake. We spent two nights in a rondavel overlooking the Letaba River. We didn't see many animals on this stay as there's been lots of rain, water is plentiful in the park, and the bush is very overgrown. We had to do an 80km detour to get out of the park as the low-level bridge at Crocodile Bridge Gate was under water. When we got home, we could hardly use the office due to the smell of a dead rat somewhere in the office.

March 2 = Dr. & Mrs. Jerry Porter, our general superintendente and his wife, arrived for a two day visit here in Maputo. The evening of the 2nd we had an ordination service for three pastors who couldn't make it to the ordination services held in January.

March 3 = While the Porters were doing a seminar for pastors and students, we make a lightning trip to the Johannesburg airport to take missionary friends - Phil, Karen, Luke and Isabel DuBert - to get their flight to the USA and a ten-month furlough. We made a stop in Nelspruit to get the front end aligned, have breakfast, pick up mail and let Phil purchase a tire for his car (which we brought back to our house) and had them to the airport by 2pm. After getting them unloaded and checked in, we turned around and headed home. On the way we stopped at our nearest McDonalds (in Witbank, RSA) for supper and also did some shopping as we knew we'd be late getting to Nelspruit. We got back home in Maputo around 10:30pm.

March 4 - We finally were able to hunt for, and find, the dead rat. It was cleaned out of the bottom drawer of the file cabinent, but although the rat is gone (and a lot of stuff that it messed up), the smell still lingers faintly in the office, and more strongly in the filing cabinet.
March 6 = Dave spent the evening in the pediatric emergency room with a couple and their 3-month old baby girl. She was eventually admitted with bronchial pneumonia and spent the next 4 days in the hospital.

March 7 = We took our former neighbor, Dona Beatriz, shopping for a new refridgerator. The one she was using was only about 50 years old and was about dead!

March 14 = Today we attend the birthday celebration of the wife of one of our pastors, Mama Mate. She was 60. It was a lovely time with a service of celebration with lots of special songs and praise to the Lord for His goodness to her. Then we had a feast with the usual African dishes and some cakes. It was all held out in their yard under some big cashew trees with a lovely cool breeze blowing. It was delightful.

Tomorrow we'll be going to Xinavane to preach - about 150km north of Maputo in the sugarcane producing area of the province. We'll take some students with us and do some publicity for the Seminary as well. Then on Monday we'll be back to the regular routine of classes and school activities.

Greetings from Maputo!

Well, at the close of our first week on this blogspot, we've had one comment. Thanks, Dave!!!!

It's been a good week this week. Here at the Seminary we've been having our annual Holiness Convention all week. Basically we've had special chapel services each day with our former District Superintendent, Rev. Manuel Tshambe, as our guest speaker. He has preached well and there have been good responses to his messages. Classes have gone as normal with nothing too special to report on that front. We're at the mid-point of our first module of 1st Term so next week we'll be having mid-term exams and/or quizes.

Believe it or not, we've slept under blankets two nights this week - and it's mid-summer here. Wednesday afternoon a storm blew up and the rain poured and the wind blew. The temperature dropped into the upper 60's which for here, at this time of the year, is COLD!!! It rained all day on Thursday and only cleared in the wee hours of Friday morning, but yesterday the temperature was back up into the normal range - high 80's/low 90's - and it's been that way today as well.

We've had a different kind of day here today. It started out normal enough, and Rhoda and I both had our lists of things to do, what with it being Saturday and a "day off" and all that. I must say that Rhoda's list had things for me to do in addition to my own list, ha! First on my list was to get the grass cut in the back yard. I did the front yard last week but didn't get the back done, and with the rain we've had this week, it really needed it. I could have done the front yard as well it's grown so much since last week, but I didn't.

After that was done, I headed off to the men's dorm to hang up a bulletin board and to replace three lock sets in doors to student rooms. I also needed to replace some door handles as well (our guys don't know their own strength). Just as I was finishing the last door, Rhoda rang to say she'd discovered the drain blocked in the guest apartment where we were planning on putting some visitors tonight, so I went by the took shed and got a plunger and headed up there. When I got there I discovered, to my horror, that the termites had struck yet again and filled the drain pipes with sand, including the trap under the sink, and not only the kitchen but also the adjoining bathroom. My fear was that the pipes from the other bathrooms and the washing machine was also clogged up with sand, but fortunately, it was just the kitchen and the one bathroom.

Well, there wasn't anything else to do but tackle getting the pipes unblocked. I went out to the back of the building to check the inspection plug and found that the sand filled the pipes all the way out of the building and into the ground. So, I came home to get a shovel and the hose pipe since it appeared we'd have to dig up the pipes. I got started on that and a couple of the students came to give a hand and we worked steadily on it until almost 5pm before we finally got all the pipes cleared out and the water running through the drains again! The sun was beating down on us most of that time and we were exhausted when we got finished. In the process, I discovered some plumbing problems in the bathroom which I'll need to fix before we can put anyone in there to stay, and we need to replace some broken drain pipe outside of the apartments as well, so we'll be working on that on Monday it looks like.

When we first came to Mozambique in 1992, other missionaries told us - "Mozambique is a place where anything can happen, and if you wait long enough, it usually will." We've found that to be true! And as we write this blog week by week, we'll try to share some of that "anything" that happens.

Every blessing. Dave & Rhoda

Greetings! This is our first attempt at any kind of a BLOG, although we've been doing daily family letters for some time now. We hope that with this blog, we'll be able to give everyone at least a weekly update on events and happenings in our lives as well as in our ministry here at Seminário Nazareno em Moçambique.

Please feel free to leave any comments.

Every blessing,

Dave & Rhoda