MozamWeek

You know, if you suffer in the family of God, you don't suffer alone. Since the "incident", we have received lots of love and encouragement. First it came from our Mozambican brothers and sisters. They don't have STUFF to give, and no car to give us a lift, but they love us and we feel it. They are praying for us and offering support in practical ways. Friends in America and Sweden immediately responded with prayer and notes of love. Just knowing that you are standing with us in this whole tough deal helps. We also appreciate the more tangible gifts soon to arrive to a PO Box near us... thanks! We can't replace the stuff immediately... most cars that are here are quite heavily depended upon daily... so there aren't extras to borrow and even the rental company has to order cars from out of town! So we are dependent. Compassion and help come from all over. Some business people and tobacco company contacts have gone out of their ways to help in practical ways! ...

Just happened to have pictures of the stuff that was taken... If you see these things in an African town near you, they were mine :)

On Monday, we dumped several loads of stuff at our new house. Living room, kitchen, 2 bedrooms and bathroom stacked with boxes packed one and a half years ago. How do you start? Tomorrow… or the next day. So on Tuesday, I put the kids in the car with Adriana… a friend needing a break from the hectic Tete heat. Mikael wanted to stay and work on Exodus, put beds together, and meet with the translators. We were off to the Bible College in the mountains for another load of stuff. 3.5 hours away. Cooler climate… quiet area… no noisy neighbors. 2 nights away, good conversation, kids excited about seeing the kittens and excited to be heading back to Tete… a new home… again. Wednesday night there was a storm with power cuts normal for this time of the year. Midnight brought what I’ve always been able to avoid: a break-in. I quickly found out what I’d do if someone tried to break into my house and I was there… and awake (I’ve always prayed that if it happened, I’d stay asleep). I grabbed a f...

So, once we get the keys we need to get the stuff. And to get the stuff we need to get more keys. We have been so blessed with friends in Tete who support us in really "extreme" ways! Our Zambian friends got in touch with a Zimbabwean mission pastor to get permission for us to move into an empty house on the Good News Ministries property here in Tete. Right beside a church in a fairly secure compound this little two-bedroom cottage sits empty... waiting for a missionary to live in it. Our friends got the keys and cleaned the house so it would be ready for us when we got to town. We arrived Dec. 31st, New Year's Eve... on Lavendar's birthday. I brought her a cake; she invited us to lunch. Nice to have friends in town! Upon inspecting the house, we noticed the power line was cut. There have been lots of storms lately. The line was reconnected the same evening. Nice to have friends in town! For several days, we tried to contact our friends in Tete who have stored our stu...

We were in Vila Ulongwe for Christmas... and came down to Tete for New Years. Happy New Year to you all... all over! Thanks for sticking with us. God Bless you!

We are guests again. I enjoy our visits with our friends in Tete, but it is time to have a home. We have looked at some really BAD houses... impractical, small, junky, new, buggy, hot... this house-hunting is just what we thought it would be... and more! I'm glad we had an extra month to find a house! Because of an incredible amount of economic development in this off-the-beaten-track part of the world, there is a housing crisis in Tete! There are several mining companies coming to town... just outside Tete, there seems to be a large quantity of world-class coal. So, these companies are snapping up all available houses for prices that would have seemed rediculous 2 years ago- $1,000/month for places that aren't very nice OR very big. So, those of us who refuse to pay such prices are left scratching around for whatever is left over. I have heard that these companies knock on doors, offer $1000/month for people to move out of their family homes. Now imagine, a school-teacher who ...

The kids and I had a little home school project last week. We wrote letters to our friends in Sweden, on paper, with pictures, and put them in envelopes and stamped them and mailed them from the Tete post office! Now it is pretty exciting to get a real live letter in the mailbox in Sweden, but just think how exciting it would be for the kids to get a post card, Christmas card, or letter from YOU!!! All over the world you are reading this. Our mailbox usually has some boring statements and magazines for the 'other family' in our box. We are now sneaking peaks at the magazines addressed to *** Child. So, this week we have a paper-making experiment going. We are going to try to make hand made paper Christmas ornaments... using real Mozambican recycled paper. So far, we have let it all rot and strained it and dried it in the sun. Tomorrow we will pound it with a mortar and pestal. So, realtives all over the world, be on the lookout for your own ornament from Mozambique! I don't...