MozamWeek

For me, what makes it feel like Christmas is... having kids home from school choosing, buying, wrapping & giving gifts baking cookies and making candy decorating the house and putting up the tree reading the Christmas story and setting up a Nativity set remembering other Christmases visiting and visitors... making time for family and friends good food from far away... smells of cinnamon, orange, cranberry and chocolate with peppermint candles and tiny lights Remember my homesickness in November? Click to see the post Is it homesickness...? Before Thanksgiving I was feeling sad and missing family and all that comes with it. It was hot and my house was torn apart with renovation projects! I didn't think I could feel Christmassy in Tete.I asked for prayer from all my friends. It was a tough week. Guess what! You prayed and I started feeling better soon after. We made an early Thanksgiving dinner when the power cuts thawed our precious turkey legs. We enjoyed our ce

We were declined permission for permanent residence. They said that since we didn't have permission to stay out of the country for more than 90 days, we relinquished rights to residency when we left on furlough 2007. When we started over in 2008/2009, we don't get credit for any of the previous 9 years residence. So we are now required to renew our documents in January. We will pay $730.60 per person on January 2, 2011 if the exchange rates stay the same. (That's about $30 more this week than last week! Exchange rate is DOWN!) And we will pay that amount in 2012, and every year we are in Mozambique. Ouch. I can think of better uses of my partners' money! Thanks for praying... and I know that God has all this in His plan. Of course, if anyone wants to donate to our ministry, it would sure help in 2011!

There is a chance that we can get permanent residence visas for Mozambique. We have lived in the country for most of the past 15 years, actually... 12 of them in Tete. The law required 10 years residence for permission to apply for permanent residency. Some setbacks... like long furlough and renewal dates made it impossible to apply before now. With new biometric residency docs... and the world's most expensive yearly renewal fees coming into effect, we really want permanent residency. If they look with favor on our request, we will have the right to stay for 5 years without renewal... and we can come and go without restrictions. We would also save the $700/person (x5) annual fee. This would be wonderful. God is all knowing, all powerful... and all good! Join us in prayer for a positive response. We should know the verdict on Thursday. Thanks, Jeni

I'm writing from our new broadband connection. It's fast! I'm still working on getting the wireless working, but this is better than the last connection.This is another sign that we are moving forward. Last year was really tough in a small house in a bad location... all very temporary. In January we moved to a better area of town for work and school. We are happy for this house, but it needed lots of work to get it in shape. There weren't ACs, the yard was a real mess, plumbing and electricity needed an upgrade, inside we needed to paint and even the floors had patches of cement that crumbled when we cleaned! Since each step of the process involves lots of mental and physical energy, we've spread it out. We want to be done by the end of the year. Some of the changes are painful, but some, like this internet thing, are a pleasure. Here's a list of the past month's changes: Air-conditioners. With temperatures around 100F/40C for about half of the ye