Life from my point of view

Finding a Rock

2011-03-13T07:17:00.000-07:00

This past week significant progress was made on our training center facility roof trusses. Although “significant” is likely a relative term since our realities are not what they are in the developed world, but we are grateful for progress.

A big reason for the progress has been the arrival of two capable people to assist at the mission. Rick Cogbill and Bob Denusiuk have been here for almost two weeks now. Bob is a contractor and Rick is a mechanic who is now transitioning to being a missionary mechanic doing training and in the initial stages of starting Mercy Tech Missions. Besides the training center, foundation work began on a mechanic work shop that is desperately needed for all the mission vehicles and will also serve as a training shop for a mechanic training program that is in the initial stages of development.

This week both Rick and Bob shared in the weeks’ morning devotions and a story Bob shared really seemed to make an impact.

Bob and his wife (who I have not yet met) apparently love collecting rocks. One day as they were out exploring a river bank in the wilds of British Columbia, Canada, they found and incredibly beautiful but very big rock. Bob’s wife fell in love with it which launched them on a quest to get the rock downriver to the camp and into their vehicle so they could take it home and plant it in their yard. As Bob described the various ways they tried to transport this rock, our local Mozambican team laughed and laughed! Finally they were able to roll this rock into a blow-up boat they had and Bob held on to a rope navigating the little boat and rock downstream to the camp site. They then had to borrow the campsite wheelbarrow and only after pumping up its tire were they able to use it. They rolled the rock into the wheel barrow and as Bob’s wife cleared the small rocks that littered the beach out of the way, Bob maneuvered the rock up to the vehicle. Lots more laughs by this time as Bob described the difficulty of this project and the concern his wife had for the rock! Finally they backed the vehicle into a ditch which lowered the tail-gate enough to get the rock in. The rock now sits in their yard as a monument to their effort together.

The application Bob made was that we were all important rocks being built into a “building” in which God’s Spirit wants to dwell. Not only so but the building is founded on the rock Christ Jesus. And this foundation is what has helped he and his wife build a strong home.

I am sure I missed some of the application but we had lots of fun listening to Bob’s story. On Thursday when time is given for feed-back to the weeks themes, Eunice a Mozambican lady who heads up ladies literacy ministry, commented on how impressed she was by Bob’s story because it illustrated so well Bob’s love and concern for his wife's interests and his willingness to listen to her. This is the kind of difference a solid foundation in our life has and Bob’s story illustrated that clearer than he might have guessed! This is also most definitely the reason we are all here and working to build strong Christ-centered families, churches and communities.

My wife Lynn had the privilege of making a trip home to Canada to be with our family. There are key times in life where our families need us to be there for them and this is one of those times. We are soo grateful for friends who partnered to make this trip possible. Lynn will be very busy with family priorities, so she will have limited time to meet with friends and supporters. Thank you for your understanding.

As Lynn mentioned in her last blog, Ron and Barb Wayner are back working hard on their house and helping on numerous other projects including the bridge, runway and finalizing fund raising for the hangar that will be on it’s way from the U.S. soon. The runway project is an important one for all of us here at the mission and we have been grateful for those who are partnering to make this a reality. The "Ed Lepp memorial fund" donated a further $5,000 to the project this past week and another private foundation donated $5,600. Besides this a donation from a Swiss company for $2,000 has come through, so we are well on our way to our goal. Check out the project page if you are interested. www.samministriesprojects.blogspot.com

And don’t forget the importance of a Rock in your life and the value God places on you as someone who can be a part of building something that lasts!

Rest

2010-12-05T09:57:00.000-08:00

Retained

Energy

Soon

To-be-needed

Lynn and I enjoyed a wonderful 7 days on the Mozambique coast. This is the first time in a very long time we have taken that many days off at one time and just rested. Well at least I did, Lynn worked on her English health manual a fair amount of the time, but she did so without distraction, so that was refreshing for her.

Amazingly four weeks have already passed since then and each one of them needed some of that “retained energy.”

The first of these weeks we spent in South Africa purchasing a trailer, lots of building material for the training center and Mercy Air house, and picking up a few thousand books for our leadership training program. After all the effort of sourcing and purchasing these supplies, the biggest challenge was the importation of it all into Mozambique and then the transport of it to the mission here in central Moz. That took another week of frustration and effort and certainly drained a little more of that “retained energy.”

We arrived back on Saturday evening only just in time to start welcoming all the pastors and leaders arriving from different parts of the country for an intensive training time. Early Sunday morning the bell rang (our door bell that is) but it may as well have been the bell signaling the next round! The bulldozer was already on site ripping and clearing the airstrip site and they needed my input. It is a good thing that the day of rest is something we (many of us anyway) understand as a state of being rather than the cessation from work cause otherwise I am in trouble and so is every other pastor, nurse, farmer (etc.) out there.

This past week flew passed with very early mornings to monitor progress on the airstrip, welcome a huge grader on site, and then teaching almost all day every day. Oh and did I mention that we arrived back just in time to find our litchi trees laden with fruit ready to sell and distribute to the orphans and others. Needless to say, when fruit is ripe, it is ripe and it is not going to wait for you to have seminars or build airstrips. So the new trailer was put to work immediately loaded with fruit to sell to travelers passing by the mission. What a blessing to have the income which provides a number of jobs for our mission staff and is a contact point for relationships and influence which is what our life’s work is all about.

If you are one of the unlucky souls who never learned to take a holiday, learn to, because the energy I have had after a good rest has been absolutely amazing. I do know that many are praying for us and I am one of those who believe this makes the difference. But rest is critical for our physical parts and it seems that although we do need hard work to keep us healthy, we also need times of rest.

And regarding rest, one of the things in life that I am continually learning is to “rest in Him.” For those not familiar with religious language, “resting in God” is hard to explain any other way. Three simple words, but they are pretty loaded. They include the idea of 1. Accepting and trusting that God has paid for our sin and from His perspective has done everything possible to restore us into a relationship with Him. 2. Learning to totally trust that the God who loves us is working out a perfect, awesome and beautiful plan with our lives regardless of the trials and tragedies we face.

As I walked the airstrip under construction and talked over the strategy with the equipment managers and worried how we are going to get the levels right and fill the BIG holes, I have purposefully had to rest in Him. I am constantly driven by the huge benefit, added value and expanded capability to connect people and empower people the airstrip will give us. And in my weak moments remember that “faith is defined not by the absence of all doubt, but by the presence of action!” (not sure who said it but it stuck with me).

We received news of the passing of two dear friends this past week. They will be sorely missed and we weep with their families. But they now rest in the presence of the One they trusted and we will see them again one day.

Hey… get some rest…It will do you lots of good and give you the soon-to-be-needed energy for the challenges ahead.

Here is CBK (the mission Cessna) getting some rest at Mercy Air in South Africa just after having a new engine installed :) .

Maturity comes with age

2010-11-06T06:10:00.000-07:00

“…but sometimes age comes all alone” says John Maxwell.

My prayer is that maturity is coming with age, but I can see why I could really appreciate the idealism of youth. I remember when I was a little younger challenging my co-pastors (most with a fair amount of maturity than I) that “you don’t need million dollar buildings to build Christ’s Church. The first century church never did build buildings, they built people!” I think one of the leaders attending the conference who was facing the challenges of providing space to worship for his growing flock, kindly said, “give yourself some time Dwight, and you may change your mind.”

Well he was right J. And I apologize publically to all those who I put on a guilt trip for planning and dreaming and finally building a place where people can gather, grow, get help and get launched. So now I am in that place and we are building, building and building and it seems like we will never run out of things that need built. When you come to a country where most of the infrastructure has been destroyed by war, there is a lot of building to do that may otherwise be there.

Tome, Charles and I putting on the latest clinic roof

So we are building schools, clinics, mission houses, cottages, offices, widow and orphan homes, carpentry shops, grain storage facilities, churches, and a multi-purpose training center.

The Mercy Air mission house roof half up November 2010

Although the training center has been planned and badly needed for a number of years now, security of land, finances, and mostly all the other building, has kept it delayed. In the meantime we have used our school, under trees, and our unfinished other buildings to host our intensive training times. Needless to say it has been less than ideal, but it has worked and we now have about 700 leaders enrolled in our training program in 34 communities.

But now the administrative challenge is looming large as we work to keep adequate books, exams, administrative records and student records. So the training center’s progress is a big encouragement.

And I trust it will be to so many of you who have generously donated toward it.

Training center left wing foundation dug

Training center left wing foundation wall built!

The big challenges we have and are facing are…

· B Building on uneven ground which meant trying to level, but an even bigger challenge has been all the back-filling that is needed to get the foundation walls filled so the floor slab can be poured and the building built. Back-filling has come one shovel full at a time. But now we have been promised a back-hoe to rent and if that does not come as promised, Mercy Air has had a back-hoe donated which they hope to ship and we hope to import early in the new year.

· S Stone – building stone makes up a big part of concrete mix and out here the only stone we can get is that broken by hand…a guy with a hammer banging on a piece of rock until It is broken into little pieces. ..you can imagine the time and effort that takes.

· S Sand – river sand that makes a second significant part of the concrete has to be dug out of a river bed one shovel full at a time and then loaded on a truck… you almost have to be involved in the process to understand how tedious this is.

· CCement – well as I am sure most people are aware, you cannot build a brick and concrete building without cement and well out here the factory is broken down more than it is working! When there is a supply of cement, the construction place feels like an all-out war zone with people screaming and shouting and demanding and pushing and shoving. Well I think you get the point…not a fun place to go. So we graciously try to await our turn and get the number of bags of cement the manager can give us without getting shot by someone else who needs it.

Building out here, even if you have the money, is not a fast or easy process. But it is important, because people do need a place to gather and grow together protected from the rain and sheltered from the scorching sun. Thanks for your patience and support for this important project and be encouraged, we are making progress!

Training center right foundation wall built

Training center water tower built and tank installed

Progress to date. Foundation walls on left and right wing built and foundation walls and slab poured on main conference room, office and admin. storage wing.

And although I am definitely getting older, and even feeling older, I sense the need to keep working at the maturity part J

Thank you!

2010-10-31T09:26:00.000-07:00

A couple simple words that, most of the time, seem so inadequate to express how we feel are pretty much the only thing we have. And even if we embellish them with a number of other words, they still feel rather limited. So a few weeks back Lynn and I mobilized over 200 children who attend the mission grade school to help us thank some important people for helping to provide food for them. The pictures are at the end of this post and really were an attempt to apply the term “Actions speak louder than words.” Words that a new friend Bernie reminded us of with a project his daughter is doing to raise resources for missions.

The Global Care-a-thon is an expression of a group of good people from a very small community just North of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, called Heimdal. They are joined by many other good people from surrounding communities and are sponsored by a number of churches across the province so that they can give 100% of what they raise to feeding children. Besides supporting a few other organizations, they support SAM Ministries and their faithful help is what keeps little tummies full and little minds and bodies functioning in Mozambique. And this is so incredibly important! On the eve of their thank you evening I prepared a video to thank them that did not turn out so well due to software problems and no quick fixes out here in the bush. But I feel it is important to get the word out about the big difference these people make because they work together doing something fairly simple...asking for sponsorship from friends and walking.

This year their walk resulted in well over $100,000 being raised and $31,000 of it was given for our feeding programs. This provides the base support which helps us buy in food for the year ahead. Here is the script from the video I prepared along with a few pictures...

“Greetings on this special occasion; It is an honour to have this opportunity to bring you greetings from SAM Ministries here in Mozambique.

Peter Singer is a professor of bioethics at Princeton University but he is also a self-confessed atheist. He writes in his second edition of practical ethics the following example…

“The path from the library at my university to the Humanities lecture theatre passes a shallow ornamental pond. Suppose that on my way to give a lecture I noticed that a small child has fallen in and is in danger of drowning. Would anyone deny that I ought to wade in and pull the child out? This will mean getting my clothes muddy, and either canceling my lecture or delaying it until I can find something dry to change into; but compared with the avoidable death of a child this is insignificant. A plausible principle that would support the judgement that I ought to pull the child out is this: if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance, we ought to do it. This principle seems uncontroversial.”

George Bernard Shaw says, “The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.”

It is a challenge when one is distant from a crisis to stay aware of the needs without becoming indifferent and to respond, even though it means going out of our way or getting dirty, or missing another maybe more exciting appointment. But you guys keep doing this year after year and your willingness to persist is a powerful expression of compassion.

This year again, your walk enabled us to continue feeding hundreds of children, thousands of meals. And you are joined by others who graciously share in the challenges we face to feed hungry people. This past year the global care-a-thon contributed 72% of our annual feeding budget, so you can imagine the important part you all play in this effort

Besides the mom’s or grannies left with malnourished babies that receive life-saving milk, are the various feeding programs.

This year our match to multiply program saw another 100 orphans added to our Amor orphan program run by groups of pastors who receive leadership training from us, and are challenged to mobilize others to address the critical needs in their communities. There are now more than 800 orphans enrolled in the program and the food you help to provide, and stimulate others to provide, multiplies your effort and is saving lives.

“Whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me,” said Jesus (Matt 18:5).The word “welcomes” is translated “receives” in some translations and means among other things… “to take with the hand or, to receive into one’s family to bring up or educate, to embrace, to make one’s own.”

In every way you translate it, the word “welcomes” certainly includes the critical importance of addressing the nutritional needs of children.

Richard Stearns in his book “The Hole in our Gospel” says “One out of four children in developing countries is underweight, and some 350 to 400 million children are hungry. Worse, it is estimated that a child dies every five seconds from hunger-related causes.” He goes on to write “Malnutrition in children stunts brain development and can leave children mentally impaired for life, producing a whole generation of adults with compromised mental abilities.”

This is why we started a feeding program for our rural school here in Mozambique and why food is such a critical component in everything else we do for the children under our care. We started with an egg a couple times a week and then with a glass of milk due to the terribly malnourished state of the children. Then global care-a-thon found out about our situation and since the start of your participation we have been able to provide a full meal a day for over 240 children along with a de-worming program.

Food storage is critical since we can only access food at cost-effective rates when it becomes available. This is the reason we are now mobilizing food security storage facilities in other communities where we have orphan feeding programs operating. Food stocks have already been secured in a number of rural communities and it will be an ongoing priority for us to establish more of these in the years to come and work with our associations of pastors to stock them and manage them sustainably.

Growing vegetables and fruit to provide a rounded diet is critical in our context since purchasing these is impossible, or would simply be too costly and too distant to transport. This year your help again has enabled us to grow tons of supplies of vegetables and fruit. Our banana plants have taken off and are now producing significant quantities which the kids just love.

An African saying expresses it well… “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try spending the night in a closed room with a mosquito.”

We will let some of the many children you feed thank you personally!”

This last picture is of myself and the team of guys working on the new Health Post at the school. We just finished putting on the roof in the roasting heat. Thank you to the dear family who donated to make this a reality!

"I killed many men there"

2010-10-04T01:47:00.000-07:00

Chiriza is a place not many foreigners have visited. In fact I guess the total would be three (including Rick Neufeld, Matthias Reuter the helicopter pilot, and I) after landing there in Mercy Air’s helicopter earlier this year. Rick then made a trip there on the back of a motor-cycle to hold a children’s ministry training time with our extension school, and then I made it right to the spot in our vehicle…supposedly a “first since the foundation of the earth” according to Pastor Pires.

Pastor Pires celebrating our arrival in Chiriza to a packed church

Our goal (as expatriates on the team) is to try to visit each of our leadership extension schools at least once per year and more often if possible. Our coordinator and supervisors of the program visit much more often, but those studying still count it a high honor when one of us foreigners visit and provide encouragement. As I headed out in late August on a tour of as many schools as possible along the Zambezi, one of these schools was going to be Chiriza. The only problem was that there was no way I would be able to take the time to walk, bike or motorcycle in this time, so we organized the meeting at a place called Nyakamanzi where the pastors and leaders would meet us for a seminar. Although this was still a two hour drive from the town of Doa and the little rustic room I rent to sleep in on the way through, it was doable.

As we arrived in Nyakamanzi a miracle awaited us. I say miracle because that is what the local people called it and in this out of the way forsaken place, I am not sure what else you can call it “if you have eyes to see”. At Nyakamanzi there is a river that cuts off any further passage to Chirize and only at the driest times and only in some years is it actually passable. We pulled up to the rivers’ edge only to find a stone bridge! A bridge that was constructed in less than 15 days by a Chinese mining company that apparently was given rights to a mine discovered during the Portuguese era. We think it is a gold-mine but nobody is saying. In any case, the pastors had been praying and hoping for the seminar in Chiriza and when they saw the Chinese building the bridge another miracle happened. They all “as one man” got their hoes and axes and built a further 15 km of road and two small bridges to ensure we could get all the way to their village. The scene was rather festive as we pulled up and our time of teaching and encouraging was soaked up in rapt attention.

While sharing with our monitor and other key pastors over a lunch of beans and rice, they thanked us again for intervening during the hungry time and assured us that all those who received help are participating in making bricks for a food storage facility to help with these kinds of crisis in the future. They then shared a little of the history of the area with us. It was here, said Pastor Wairosse that RENAMO had their main camp and many thousands of soldiers gathered. The reason for this is that because of its remote location and because it is so difficult to get here, the resistance soldiers felt that FRELIMO, the then Marxist government forces would never find them. It was between these two groups that the civil war raged in Mozambique from soon after 1975 until 1992 and totally devastated the country. In places like Chirize it is the conflict and death that can be remembered since nothing much else can be found here.

On Saturday this past week my travels took me to Tete, a city now a little more than 3 hours to the North of us. Here we shared with a group of leaders from 4 different extension schools. Pastor Pires from our Region 3, (http://dwightlagore.blogspot.com/2010/09/trip-is-over-journey-continues.html) see the link) met us there and shared in part of the time. Although he focused on a number key administrative issues, he then shared the story of Chirize and the miracle we experienced there a few weeks back. As soon as he sat down one of the pastors jumped to his feet and very emotionally began to share his joy with us. “I can hardly believe what I am hearing here this morning,” he said, “but I am so thankful to hear the gospel has arrived in Chiriza and pastors are being trained.” “This (Chiriza) was a very hard place and during the war I killed many men there…many people died in this place. And now I am hearing that God is working miracles there!”

Pastor Bulaunde and me

Later after our time of training together I sat with Pastor Bulaunde and he shared a little of his story with me. Like all men his age who stayed in the country (many millions fled as refugees to surrounding countries), he had been force drafted into the FRELIMO forces and fought the war against the resistant movement in many out of the way places. The war was very much a guerrilla war with RENAMO destroying infrastructure and hiding out in remote areas. FRELIMO controlled the cities and tried to govern their recently liberated country. But with significantly different ideologies and personalities involved, along with a poor country flush with Communist era military hardware, there were no victors and the country slid to the world’s poorest.

But now pastor Bulaunde, along with thousands of others are engaged in another war. And this one is for the hearts and minds of people who now have a chance to experience personal salvation and transformation as they give their lives to a God who can build beauty out of ashes. These men and women need our help and encouragement as they exercise their faith and express that through the hard work of not only teaching and preaching, but also loving and working hard to bring development to their people and communities.

Leaders having a chance to catch up

I am honored to work alongside them.

The value of time

2010-09-25T05:47:00.000-07:00

If someone had told me that one day I would be married to a 50 year old woman, I am not sure I would have believed them. Who in their right mind would want to marry a person that old? Clearly the only thing lacking in the above two sentences is “perspective”. That of a 20 year old contemplating marriage compared to that of a 50 year old who has had the honor and privilege to have been married to his beautiful bride for almost 30 years! How do you place a value on this kind of time? I wish my beautiful wife another 50 and trust I can share them with her.

Lynn and Anne on the special evening

John and Anne along with their son Andrew joined us at the last minute for a rushed birthday supper for Lynn on Wednesday evening two weeks back. We had planned to be on the road making our two day trek North, so no birthday plans had been made. And when at the last minute the surgeon wanted to see Bero (who had surgery the week prior) on Wednesday for one last checkup, plans changed. But at my age it took a while for the implications of the plan change to sink in. “Hey we will still be here for Lynn’s birthday!” and “Hey it may be a great idea to get some of our Mercy Air friends to go out to supper with us.” Well by the time these amazing thoughts had penetrated this 50 year olds’ grey matter, it was terribly late and I only had the courage to call up a couple who have known us for a long time, have grown kids, and I was sure would not be offendedJ. At the last minute Andrew, their son, who was supposed to be away doing an instrument check ride and proficiency check, had finished early so he also was able to come for supper. Again the value of time in the building and maturing of relationships can’t be measured! Thank you guys.

At supper we had a chance to talk a little more with Andrew about the aircraft accident he had the week prior (see my last blog) and to thank God that he was safe and now had his license back. Flying is an amazing blessing and as I have mentioned before, has saved us so much time on the road. And I am not referring to international commercial travel; I am referring to the time flying the Cessna 182 has saved us on so many occasions. Driving back to the mission from South Africa after having flown down to South Africa reminded me again of the dramatic difference. Over this time (including my trip to Beira) doing a quick comparison between driving and flying…the same trip that would take 47 hours on the road and the best part of 5 full days, would take almost exactly 10 hours with the Cessna and can be done in only two and a half part days! That is less than half the time! Not only so, but driving on roads that are challenging with traffic and conditions that are even more challenging is pretty tiring. Yes maybe flying a plane is stressful for some of you, but taking off, turning on the auto-pilot, looking for traffic and monitoring the flight (and doing a little reading when there is nothing to see anyway), and then landing the plane is pretty easy in comparison and a whole lot safer. If something could give you more than half your life back, what would it be worth? Now obviously we don’t travel every day of our lives, but hey at my age, every day is worth a lot! And what is more I get to spend them with a 50 year old beauty J.

Bero's 21st birthday celebration

Lynn was not the only one who had a birthday, Bero also had one. He turned 21 just after his surgery and we were able to take him for a good birthday meal. He had the chance to taste his first ever ice-cream sunday. He tasted the chocolate sauce, but made it clear to us very quickly that it would make him sick to eat it! He did seem to enjoy the ice cream though. Bero's Canadian friends and all the others who made his surgery possible have certainly helped to change his future, and only time will tell the full value of this investment in his life.

Lynn attending to Bero's wounds after our long trip

We arrived back on Thursday evening, unpacked, slept and Friday I was off to Beira to pick up a team visiting from Christian Fellowship Assembly in Grande Prairie. This church has been one those that has supported us monthly for just over 22 years now! That kind of faithful commitment has pretty high value and what is more that amount of time investment has allowed us to establish ourselves in a country that experienced 26 odd years of war and be in a position to contribute toward the equipping and empowerment of leaders and their churches and communities. Someone once said, “we overestimate what we can accomplish in one year, but we terribly underestimate what we can accomplish in five years.” How much more can be said of 20+ years. This past week we had the privilege of delivering 3 cattle plows to two associations of farmer/pastors who will use them to improve their food production. The gifts were the result of Unique Christmas gifts given this past year but are just in time for field preparation for the coming season.

Tamara, Steve and Laura Lee visited much of the work here and contributed in some neat ways. Steve, besides helping to source the plows mentioned above with one of our staff members, helped me to survey the runway so we could plot the grading that would be needed. Russell, our son, got the data via email and very quickly had prepared a profile along with details for the work that is needed. The girls helped Lynn to love on lots of sick people, women and orphans.

Time passes quickly and another week has come and gone, but the value of the time spent will impact the days and months to come in important ways!

TBO

2010-09-11T07:21:00.000-07:00

Acronyms are great for all those who know what they mean. The thing I find is that even common acronyms end up meaning different things to different people, as in the case of TBO. In aircraft terms it is an expensive word, regardless of how you translate it. Some refer to it as “time before overhaul,” others as “time between overhauls,” and for others I think it means “too busy to overhaul!”
But TBO is hard to ignore…kind of like death and taxes! Because if you do you will be dead and won’t have to worry about taxes :).
It is that time for our trusty old (well 36 years old anyway) Cessna 182 to have her engine overhauled (although we will be getting a factory re-manufactured engine which is like new) and the timing worked out well. Although we had been running the trusty bird “on condition,” meaning that although TBO had come and gone, our specialized engineers had determined that it was safe for her to run a few more hours based on compressions and oil analysis etc. Well a fair amount of liters per flight were being burned up now and it simply made sense to say enough is enough.

Charlie Bravo Kilo awaiting fuel in Vilanculos on the way for a new engine

The mission plane has served us amazingly and really has been a story of faith and God’s faithfulness and provision. Bob Guzak a very good friend of mine called me from Canada in 1996 and said he felt strongly that this aircraft we were able to purchase, needed to be in Africa! I agreed but had no way or resources to do this, so Bob took on the challenge single handedly. He drummed up support from a number of different people and donated a significant amount himself. Then along with the strong support of his wife Sharon(also a dear friend of ours) , he got into the plane with a ferry pilot and flew this plane the 95 hours through 9 odd countries all the way to Zimbabwe.
As I stood alone at the little airstrip in Mutare, I could hardly believe my eyes when the little plane came into sight. There were some tears as we celebrated their safe arrival and the realization of a dream I had for many years (that will wait for another time).
And now C-GCBK or Charlie Bravo Kilo as she is known by those who have flown her, has flown more than 1500 hours on this engine with never an incident (only a little fire on the ground once :), and is ready for a new engine. I have to say however that this last flight down to South Africa did have me thinking some. Andrew Herbert, a good friend of ours and son of John and Ann Herbert who work with Mercy Air (John has worked hard with Gary Hillman of Hillman Air to keep our aircraft in excellent shape), was flying a Cessna 206 owned by Iris Ministries to South Africa last Friday for its engine change. As he passed Quilimane the aircraft was running smoothly and although it was getting dark he had taken all the precautions and the weather was clear, so he pushed on to Beira where he would rest for the night. Thirty miles or so out of Beira as he prepared to descend, his engine gave a shudder. He quickly checked the fuel, changed tanks, turned on fuel pumps etc., but then a sudden jerk and roll as the aircraft propeller tore it-self free and slammed into one of the wings! Andrew could barely get the wings level again and now was speeding toward the ground at 2000 foot per minute in pitch black conditions. “Beira, I have an engine problem and have to do an emergency landing,” says Andew. “Cleared to land runway 12” says Beira tower. “Negative Beira, I have an engine out and going down,” says Andrew. ..hessitation… “Cleared to land runway 30,” says Beira control. “Negative, MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY,” says Andrew in desperation, but now with little time to say anymore. “Give your coordinates…” says Beira Tower. Andrew tries to give them to them but they misunderstand. “Too late, going down, “ says Andrew. He only has time to breathe a prayer, “God, thanks for having a chance to be a part of your Kingdom and for the time you have given me. I only now ask for your grace…” He turns on his landing light at the last second only to see trees. He pulls up hard to flair and either try to clear the trees or mush into them. Next thing he knows he is clear of trees and landing in an empty patch of ground. One bounce, lands and then crashes headlong into trees. The next thing he knows he is feeling his face to see if he is okay. Hardly a scratch but a long way from help in the middle of the Mozambican bush. His survival and the next 7 hours waiting to be rescued were traumatic, but God answered his prayer….”grace” That is all we all need right?
As we took off three days later to bring our bird down for the engine change, it was pretty hard to not think of Andrew’s experience. Thankfully we were flying in daylight (albeit instrument conditions), and the new autopilot and GPS made the flight a relaxed enjoyable experience. As I chatted with Andrew and we talked about safety in Mozambique, I mentioned to him how many times I have almost been killed on the highways driving. In fact one of these experiences is told in my last blog! Flying in a light aircraft saves literally days of travel on each trip, it prevents tons of damage to perfectly good vehicles due to the horrific road conditions, and it is certainly safer than the roads in Mozambique. We have been soo blessed to have been able to fly these past 14 years in support of our lives and ministry along with many others we have helped.
The timing worked well as well since Bero had to come down for his second surgery. He has been waiting for a few months for his TBO, “time between operations”. His first surgery was in February and the release of his first arm from burn strictures he got due to being badly burned as a baby during the war has given him a new lease on life. This second one on his right arm has already allowed the arm to stretch out normally! He may yet need a final surgery to get a skin graft on his left arm to fully allow that one to extend normally, but that will be up to the good graces of the surgeon who has offered all of his work for free. Grace :)

Joao and I in front of the University he attends

So yesterday I took the day to drive to Maputo, Mozambique, from Nelspruit, South Africa, to meet with the Civil Aviation authorities. Laws have changed in Mozambique and the license our aircraft was under was lost, so we will now need to try and apply for a private operators license to be able to continue our flying in Mozambique after the engine change and annual inspection. The meeting with the two guys at civil aviation went well (I think I was able to start making friends…an important step). After an ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) audit, the entire department in Mozambique was revamped with new people. I guess it was their TBO but that has left us with no one we know there and so the rebuilding of trust and relationship starts. They will study the steps we need to take to be able to get a new operating license so right now we are praying for …you got it…grace.
Since I was visiting Maputo, I called Joao (our sponsored student in university there) and he met me and just spent the day with me. What an awesome time to talk about the vision for the future with him joining the mission later in December after he has completed his university studies. He will have a business degree and his and our dream is for him to work with the pastors and their associations as they work at developing projects to feed the orphans, the widows, the elderly and themselves in very difficult rural conditions. For him this is his “time before overtime!” Knowing him he has put in overtime at school as well, but anyone who has been to the mission knows that Joao spends most nights working in the office until the generator goes off and he is forced to his tent. He is so thankful for the grace he has been given and is living it out. Keep him in your prayers so he can finish well.

The trip is over, the journey continues

2010-09-04T09:11:00.000-07:00

Travel seems to be what characterizes at least one significant part of my life! I guess in most cases that is what defines a missionary…leaving home and going somewhere in obedience to Someone important who said, “Go!”

The purpose of the trip is the story of one’s life I guess and I have become very aware of how every trip I make is so integrally tied to all the other trips I and Lynn have made. And these go back a very long way.

The stories of this past week could likely fill a book, but I will share them over the weeks to come as they relate to the journey we are on out here. This last road trip I was accompanied by Pastor Pires Alberto Williamo (don’t let the name throw you!). He was selected by his peers to be the supervisor of zone 3 which is the area (of our extension schools) I was visiting this past week. His home village is Sinjal (on the banks of the Zambezi River). This is the village we have selected to establish a remote base for the mission because it would facilitate much training close to home for many of the monitors (pastor trainers) who we train.

But besides location, the real reason we have selected Sinjal is Pastor Pires and his proven faithful track record. Someone once referred to something called the “speed of trust” which can be illustrated by how easy it is to drive fast on a two-lane paved highway in good weather conditions, compared to the speed one feels comfortable driving on a pot-hole infested road where every turn you are faced with sharp-edged crevices that threaten to destroy your car or send you careening off the road to miss them.

Let me digress…On my way back this time I came around a corner only to have a big truck bearing down on me on MY side of the road. I had just reminded Pastor Pires to put his seat-belt on, so as I jammed on the breaks and swerved partly into the ditch to miss the truck, he was thankfully held tightly in his seat. Another pastor who was with us said I was a prophet because I knew the truck would be coming and that is why I made sure Pastor Pires put on his belt. I assured him that this was not the case J.

Getting back to the speed of trust…when one builds a relationship of trust with someone as a result of mutually faithful experience, the wheels become greased for a faster pace and effectiveness of work. And this is what we are seeing in the life of this amazing (“little” in the physical sense) man. Let me just add that this faithful pastor serves without a salary and finances himself from a little shop (Banca) he and his wife run along with a small hand powered carpentry business which operates out of grass covered shelter. He had a great opportunity to work for the government and has many family members in key government positions, but he had God’s call on his life, and simply turned them down and keeps turning them down to ensure he has enough time to fulfill “the call”.

This past year was a very hungry year and as some of you may have read from earlier blogs, there were many areas on the Zambezi that simply got NO rain. Not only so, due to that the people planted in the low areas by the river only to have the river come down in flood when the big hydro dam up-stream opened its gates due to heavy rain fall further up in the catchment area. We were able to respond to 16 of our pastors groups who formed associations to enable them to get some emergency food. The condition was that they would work together to “earn” this food so as to try and improve things in their community through various projects. In Pastor Pires home village 60 men and women who are studying with us formed an association and have done amazing things. They were helped with the food aid, but are now working together to “pay” for it. They worked with local government to get a piece of land they could fence and that would have the ability to irrigate from the river. They dug three wells along the one boundary of the land and by hand fenced the entire two hectares! This “fencing” material is not available in their immediate area, so they had to trek into the mountain area, cut the wood, and carry it by hand. Besides that they had to cut thorn bush which they then stacked around the bottom part of the outside of the fence to keep goats out and it works!

They have already planted a variety of crops and are now working to make bricks so that a food storage shed can be built in the years to come to try and keep enough food stocks in the community. It is hard to fully visualize the beauty that can come from people who are willing to faithfully work together for a better future. And the only likely incentive to keep serving together faithfully on this difficult journey is Christ-modeled, Christ-empowered servant-hood.

As mentioned there are many stories to come, but I simply cannot end this blog without talking about the 3 new graduates of our program that graduated in Nyangoma after a full 7 years of study. Pastor Thomas Inacio who was selected to speak on behalf of the graduates shared how he and his colleagues struggled to imagine how they could ever get through this kind of a program since they were already advanced in years. Pastor Ricardo had shared with them the story of Simeon and how that he had the promise that he would hold the messiah before he died, and challenged them that if they could believe, they would hold a diploma one day. Pastor Inacio said that did it. We decided to believe we could do it and now we have. And the blessing of the things we have studied and learned has helped us to now be able to really help and teach others truth.

I honestly could go on at length about all the encouraging words he shared, and the other two graduates shared. The reality is that their lives have been changed and empowered and they are making a significant contribution already to their churches and communities. These are the kinds of moments that make the journey so rewarding!

Pastor Inacio sharing the challenges of the Journey

Pastor Joalinho and his wife (she is happier than she looks since pictures are normally not taken with smiles...there is a reason :)

Pastor Domingues with his wife (took lots of work to get the smiles)

Thank you to those who are on this journey with us including the One who called us and walks with us.

A road trip

2010-08-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow very early starts an 8 day road trip for me visiting our extension schools along the Malawi (North) side of the Zambezi River. I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to visit these rather remote areas and encourage the leaders and pastors there who serve their God, their churches, their communities and the orphans as best they can.

If you read this and believe that there is a God (your creator and Father) who answers prayer, ask Him for a special blessing on all those I will be visiting and for my dear wife who awaits my return. Also, if you have another minute, remember Francois who is back but still struggling with asthma as he visits a number of our other extension schools on the South side of the Zambezi river. Finally, please pray for Rick and Heather and little Tendai, so that the Canadian consulate issues a visa so little Tendai can accompany her new mom and dad to Canada for a much needed visit.

Have a great week ahead!

Moments that define the reason why

2010-08-15T10:03:00.000-07:00

Our latest visitor brought up the question the other night which I am sure many have different opinions on (as most everything). Her comment was that for her Christ is the way…or put another way, for her God is not the destination, He is the path. It is the journey that is important and the experience and awareness of His presence as you live out the adventure of life. This is truly what it is all about.

I am not sure (from my perspective) there is this distinction, but the moments in our adventure of life that we “see” God at work, and specifically God at work because we have chosen to partner with Him, certainly are powerful. A few of those moments were ours to enjoy this past week.

After 10 years of study and relationship with us, we celebrated the graduation of 4 of our pastor/students. These were the very first pastors to start studying with us and there were five, but this past year Pastor Pedro, one of them passed away suddenly. But the remaining four have persevered through many challenges and have now graduated. The eldest of them, Pastor Ernesto Mabuleza, leads a strong church and was the delegated speaker for the group. It was a moment of rejoicing for them, and for us. And the reality is that this (along with practically everything I write about) is because of so many out there support and stand by us and those we are serving.

Then yesterday (Saturday) another two events occurred that were truly defining moments for me. The first was as I sat and listened to Pastor Paulo (picture above...a graduate of our program and now a supervisor of one of our training program’s regions) teach a session at a pastors seminar in Honde. The church was packed with pastors and leaders from a number of different churches; a great number of them studying with us at different stages. As Paulo taught, I started asking myself why I was even scheduled to teach today. This man was explaining, illustrating and describing the process and fruit of internalizing the truth in ways I could never do in this culture. But his starting point was that we can only start and stay on the path of truth’s transformational process if we 1. Are willing to recognize and highly value those God brings our way to teach us (regardless of what color, class, or culture they may be from) and 2. If we are willing to humble ourselves to listen to things we don’t immediately identify as valuable. The people laughed and clapped and whooped as he shared funny and interesting stories and illustrations. And then nodded and verbally “groaned” their acknowledgment as Paul emphasized the application.

Left to Right...Pastor Ricardo, Matthew and Rick Neufeld

It was great to have Rick Neufeld, our missionary partner, along and enjoy his enthusiasm as he shared and challenged the leaders about the danger of letting leadership go to your head! It is so rewarding to have other foreigners come and invest their lives in the lives of these awesome people and embark on the huge challenge of cultural and language adjustment as well as the perseverance needed to have the privilege of “those moments”.

The second event that impressed me significantly was the visit of Carlito Rui. Carlito is a young man we as a mission sponsored to take his teachers training. He graduated top of his class and because we did not get our application in early enough to have him come and teach at our school, he was posted to a rural school North of us. We encouraged him to live out the mission which we had emphasized many times and sent him on his way. That was 8 months ago and yesterday he came back to tell how difficult his past 8 months had been. He had to work without a salary and had to survive from the small gifts offered by relatives of a group of orphans he took the time to start teaching a craft. It was hard, but he persevered and two months ago one of the secondary schools in Catandika (ironically the same town we were in for the seminar yesterday), desperately needed a sixth grade math teacher, so they researched all the teachers in the area to see who may be qualified and because there was simply no secondary teacher available and Carlito had graduated top of his class, they called on him. Then this month, after the long wait, he received his salary! And the first thing he did was come to see us and gave an offering of almost $80 to help someone else. “I want to give more, but my two younger siblings are also needing me to help them to stay in school, so I will see what I can afford,” said Carlito. I almost didn’t take the money, but realized that it was critical I accept. He got a receipt for the money from the mission and the reminder that he is now a partner in helping us “to love people, so they have a chance…”. Carlito now wants to travel down weekly to help our orphans with craft making, so time will tell how that works out, but this moment in time yesterday is the reason why!

Between cloud layers on the flight to Beira with Lynn and Keren

We said good-bye to Keren (a ten month volunteer) this past week. She contributed in awesome ways and was such a great support to Lynn. As she left she was unsure of the next step for her. We prayed with her and gave reference for a masters studies program she really wanted to do in the UK. Although she did not think she had a chance, and even if she did get in, had no idea how she would finance the $40,000 per year studies, we encouraged her to “go for it and see what God would do.” She was accepted into the program, but when she got on the plane in Beira, Mozambique, she still had no clue how she would ever finance this opportunity. Well, she got to Johannesburg and from there shared her excitement with us at the news that a miracle had happened and financing was in place and she was off to study and drink tea (something she loved to do), in the place that prides itself in tea and education! We are proud of Keren and so excited for her…thank you God!

Lynn and Keren at the Beira airport while re-fueling for our flight back

A day before Keren left, Priscilla arrived. She would only be here for a couple days but was out volunteering with Mercy Air from Switzerland and really just wanted to see the work here in Mozambique. Although we were terribly busy with so many things, Priscilla was game just to jump in wherever and enjoy the ride. She shared her love for remote areas, the mountains, flying and adventure, and it was her who shared her perspective about Jesus being “the way”… emphasizing for her His presence on the journey which is an adventure if we are willing to embark on it. She was adventurous enough to accompany our guards to the only “mountain” we have on the farm where she shared Swiss chocolate and as much conversation as she could with guys who don’t speak English or Swiss German. They called her “Mamma Montanha” at some point and that seems to have stuck!

So whether you are looking for an adventure or a destination, it is awesome in life to experience the moments that define the reason why!

And it is so awesome to have someone to share those moments with! Here is my beautiful wife coaxing a praying mantis off of a bottle of suntan lotion as she cleans up the camp kitchen after lots of visitors. Visit her blog at www.lynnlagore.blogspot.com

What does impossible look like?

2010-08-08T03:34:00.000-07:00

Not much after just wolfing down the last piece of my birthday cake (poppy seed chiffon backed with much love by my wife), bring on the world! I may be 50 years old, but I’m not dead yet so people are still going to have to put up with me and my weird and "wonderful" ideas for a while.

My 50th Birthday Christmas party shared with Keren's (a nurse who has served for 10 months) farewell

This past Sunday the week launched with the Mozambican leaders heading back to their homes after intensive training to face a lot of situations that I am sure look impossible. The day was then filled with the trip to Chimoio to meet a Mercy Air team arriving with guests from the UK. New people visiting are always a lot of fun (and some work). Introducing them to our world makes us aware of how much God has enabled us to do to this point, but it also makes us aware of how crazy some of the things we are trying to do sound like to people from another world. I am very aware that some of the things we are trying to do would be relatively easy in a developed country, but transplant that project here and…well there are days they start to look close to impossible.

We walked the team up across the bridge “under construction” to the site of the airstrip “under construction.” And as we checked out the area cleared for the hangar (already donated in the USA), I explained how I had searched for the right site, how Ron Wayner and Nate (another pilot) and I walked the route through the thick bush and determined it should be level enough, and then how we had started the tedious time-consuming task of de-bushing by hand. I explained to the team how I actually picked up the written approval from the Mozambique transport department to go ahead with construction (a miracle in itself). Rose, the leader of the group kind of stepped out and looking down the de-bushed but still very uneven stretch of land and said, “I can really SEE this being an airstrip.”

And that for me determines what possible looks like and as a result what impossible also looks like; impossible is simply something you don’t have the ability, willingness, creativity, or faith to “SEE”. So impossible is the way things look today with no one willing to take action by God’s grace, power and provision to change them or at least to SEE them from a better perspective.

And it is hard to SEE the things the way they could be or the way they should be. As we battled for almost 3 months to find a clutch for our truck to carry on the critical work on the training center and other projects, there were moments it looked like there would be no change. But with a number of us persistently looking for the solution, it came when Rick was able to find the right clutch in South Africa! And the truck is BACK, and working hard to help us achieve other projects (like the training center) that have also sometimes seemed impossible.

This week the “thatchers” (the guys that tie down and then beat the grass into place) completed their work on the roof of a meeting area/rest area in the camp site which is going to bring blessing and refreshing to many short termers. This has been long in coming, and although it is not finished yet (kind of like most things around here), it is looking beautiful.

Peter our brick layer and his assistant decided that since other projects were awaiting the truck, he would work on a few long needed finishing touches on the campsite kitchen and bathroom. So he has put in sidewalk and a step where there use to be an eroded ditch that threatened the survival of short termers trying to get to the kitchen in the dark. Now it is soo much better.

All ready for more people to come and SEE what will be possible so that peoples’ lives are changed and empowered in this amazing yet challenging country.

Taming the elephant

2010-07-31T03:06:00.000-07:00

An old story is told, that Circus elephants are trained from when they are very young. To keep them from wandering about as little ones the trainer hammers a stake into the ground and chains one of their little legs to the stake. This serves to ensure the little jumbos are kept under control while training is in process. The ironic thing is that as the elephants grow, they have become so used to the now, relatively, little stake in the ground holding them that they remain where they are tied. The reality however is that they are now so big and strong, that little stake couldn’t begin to hold them if they actually became aware and made the effort to set themselves free.

This illustration is told to emphasize what often happens to humans when small events, thoughts, beliefs from the past hold us in the same place when they certainly do not need to! “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds” says Paul in the book of Romans. Change the way you believe and think and you change the outcome of life!

As we met with our 35 leaders/monitors who have been selected from the same number of communities to come and receive intensive training so they can return and train the leaders (now over 600) who selected them, we spent time talking about the challenge of our thinking and how if change is to happen in our homes, churches and communities, it has gotta happen inside us first!

As this week progressed I had a great stimulus to contemplate how awesome my wife is! She introduced a new manual to the leaders this week entitled “Building Healthy Communities” which she has worked on for a number of years now and which has finally gone to print and been included in our training program. Keren, an LPN who has spent ten months with us jumped into the project with Lynn and was a big part of writing some of it, illustrating it and getting it done. Together they introduced the manual and a practical guide which WILL help to build healthier communities. When one studies the dramatic difference in health and life expectancy from the first world to ours, you only get a glimpse into how important this teaching is for families here.

As we talked about the critical importance of transforming our thinking to effect lasting change, I challenged the leaders with something Tommy Newberry writes to husbands… Your wife has 10 awesome qualities and 10 not so awesome qualities…just like you! Your happiness in life and the success of your marriage is going to depend on which 10 qualities you spend time thinking about!

I internalized this thought this past week and realized that I imagine my wife may have a bigger challenge with this than I do. Finding at least 10 awesome qualities in my wife is pretty easy, but letting her know that I see them is the bigger challenge for me. I am very proud of Lynn and her achievement in getting this book done, but also because she has consistently been willing to do the hard things in life even though they stretch her hugely!

The problem is that elephant though! Someone forgot to tell me to chain your projects to a stake in the ground when they are small. Because the fact of life is things grow and that growth poses huge challenges. We have had 7 requests brought in this week to start new extension schools which would almost add an additional 200 leaders to our program within this next six months! The little elephant has grown into a really BIG one and it just simply has not been trained to stay in one place. It wants to wander about! And that wide-eyed little human hanging onto the tail and being flung around… well that’s me trying to keep focused on the 10 awesome qualities of this awesome program and the awesome people that are bringing change in many lives.

Pastor Ricardo and I with the orphan kids in Nyangoma

P.S. One of the 10 awesome qualities is that there are actually quite a few of us hanging onto that tail…although I do think we all feel the wide-eyed fear/thrill/exhaustion of the ride some days.

Burnt Offerings or Living Sacrifices

2010-07-24T11:10:00.000-07:00

The title of this blog for some likely conjures up images of ancient rituals and terrible cruelty. The thought of someone tied to a pole amid a pile of firewood with flames ready to inflict horrible pain and suffocation as the fire sucks up all the oxygen resulting in lungs screaming for fresh air, is not a pretty one and likely would not have one laughing so hard they cried!

But the burnt offering I am referring to had Lynn and I in fits of laughter as the meat I was supposed to be barbequing melted into the fire leaving a few shards of charcoaled bone! Anyone who knows me and my propensity for conversation rather than attention to the barbeque knows that well done meat is not unusual for me. But I have to admit, this was a first. Lynn’s comment was, “Well I hope God appreciated the burnt offering!”

This past week visited us with a few much harder experiences. The first was when we heard that the very very sick baby that was brought to us last weekend, although she survived a few days in hospital, passed away on Wednesday. Although the family, very committed to their African traditional religion, would not let me pray for the child, I silently prayed God would have mercy on them and the child. And maybe He did, but the family sure grieved. What is hard to come to grips with in this climate is the cruelty at times, even to those in grief. We had provided funds for the grand-father to transport the baby home for burial, but I guess because the taxi’s often charge more for the transport of a corpse, he did not tell them the baby was dead. Somehow, however, by the time they arrived at the destination, the taxi driver or collector of money had figured it out. Well the result was not only the higher (10 times) cost for the dead baby, but a fine of that much again on top of it all. All one can do in these situations is do as much as possible to show grace and care for those grieving.

The second tough one was that we found out on Friday that one of our graduates, Pastor Pedro Rede, who had become the national leader of a local denomination of churches, suddenly passed away. Just prior to my departure for Canada, he had visited and invited me to participate in one of their conferences since he wanted us to see “the fruit of the seed we had planted in him” (were his words). Pastor Pedro was a young man in his thirties. Apparently he came down with a sore stomach at 17:00 Wednesday evening and by Thursday evening had passed away. We still do not know what caused it and likely never will because the diagnostic abilities of the hospital in the city are as bad as its treatment capabilities. Pastor Pedro will be sorely missed because he had made a significant impact in many areas where he enabled the planting of churches, and the encouragement of their leadership.

Tying the tragedy and humor together is a verse of Scripture in the book of Romans that Paul wrote, “Therefore I urge you…in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices…” The idea here is that God never really ever wanted “burnt sacrifices” (cf. Isaiah 1:10-19), He only wanted people who willingly responded to Him (in obedience); people who were willing to lay down what they wanted, so that God could give them what they and others really needed. Living for what we want, does not really get us what we want. Giving ourselves to God and to others however, brings fulfillment and joy like nothing else can and ensures that regardless of how long or short we live, we make a difference.

Pastor Paulo (not Paul who wrote Romans) lives in Honde and is living the “living sacrifice” thing. His service to the other pastors in his community and to the orphans there has been very inspiring. A pastor from Canada who visited recently and had the privilege to attend Paulo’s church cried as he shared the amazing generosity he had experienced at this church of poor people who had nothing but were willing to give so much.

It is because of this kind of leadership and example that the mission launched on the purchase and rehabilitation of a building for food storage (a food bank) and to accommodate the leadership training and orphan feeding program in Paulo's community. We anticipate this is going to bring much critical help.

Our ability to live and work in Mozambique where we have so many opportunities to laugh and cry, is because of people back home who are willing to give of themselves. We received two emails this week that are such examples of this. One from a couple who have offered to serve the mission in Canada to achieve some of the strategic initiatives we as a mission have identified, and another email from a couple who single handedly have financed (this past week) the construction of a new health post.

The harsh realities of life humble and challenge us, but beauty and joy can still result as we give of ourselves and laugh amidst the ashes!

When the battery goes dead

2010-07-17T04:25:00.000-07:00

This past week was a full one indeed! Monday – Fly to South Africa and drop off plane for maintenance. Tuesday – drive to Johannesburg and meet with our good friends Dr. Jason and Judy Fawcett and pick up books for the training program. Wednesday – have my flight medical done by a Canadian Aviation medical approved doctor in Pretoria and then drive back to Nelspruit, South Africa. Meet our friends for a birthday supper the same evening before their departure to the U.S.A. the next morning. Thursday - finish off all the business and pick up supplies needed for the mission, pick up the plane and make sure it was operating well and meet with some good friends at Mercy Air to plan a short-term visit scheduled for early August. Finally early morning Friday – finish packing the plane and fly back to Chimoio, central Mozambique (home)!

Francois (on the right) and I in the Cessna before the power went out

This kind of a crazy week can only happen because we have the privilege of flying; above the bad roads and crazy drivers, straight through the sky as the eagle flies rather than winding down roads that at times seem to double back on themselves to get around a bad spot, quickly through a small airport immigration post with no one in the line! I could go on, but I think you get the picture. A five hour (easy) trip instead of more than 20 hours (of difficult and dangerous driving) over two days!
But just as we got settled down in cruise at 9000 feet in smooth air with blue sky all around and the auto-pilot keeping us on perfect course and perfect altitude. All of a sudden, with no warning (other than the one I should have seen if I had been carefully monitoring the ammeter…rate of charge on the battery), the aircraft pulled into a steep climb momentarily, then dropped the nose into a steep dive and in a flashing of lights, everything on the panel went dead including the radios!

The problem started much further back, but when we had tried to start the plane to depart Chimoio, it would not turn over. We were giving Francois and Marisha (our friend's children who feel like our second set of children), a ride back to South Africa for school. So I put Francois in the pilot seat and gave specific instructions as to how he should turn the ignition on at the same time as I swung the propellor. The aircraft started with the first attempt, but since the throttle was set a little high, the engine revved up fairly good after starting. Francois' dad by this time was watching his son at the controls and with the noise and wind of the revving engine his eyes were the size of saucers as he grabbed the plane in an attempt to keep it from taking off with his kids. Although it was entirely unnecessary since the park brake was on and his son was holding the breaks, but I completely understood his feelings :).
Back to the cruise power out...mmmm! If I was not such an old pilot with a few similar experiences I would have likely been more freaked out. But a pilot is taught to 1. Fly the plane 2. Communicate if you can and 3. Systematically identify the problem. So we did and I discovered the alternator fuse popped. After re-setting it, I realized that at the rate of charge the alternator was being required to put out, we would likely have another popped fuse. So after turning off all but just the most important electrics, we flew on to our destination and the battery had a chance to re-charge slowly. As we climbed out from Vilanculos (the airport we cleared immigration and customs at), I slowly started turning on all the radios and navigation aids and everything worked just fine.
The reality is that after returning to Mozambique a little over a month ago, I have had one of those power out experiences as well. Our time in Canada, although soooo good and blessed, was hectic to say the least…a little like this past week. And since arriving back the pace has been overwhelming. When this happens too long, and the battery has had to put out more than it takes in, we gotto know a bump is coming. When it happens, there is nothing else one can do except to 1. Keep flying the plane…keep breathing, eating, sleeping and reading and meditating on God’s Word…keep doing the important things. 2. Communicate… I have shared much with Lynn and others who have so kindly taken the time to just stop, listen, pray and encourage me and 3. You do have to turn some things off as well because without times to recharge physically, emotionally and spiritually, the battery simply cannot charge up.

Ready to depart White river behind Mercy Air's 310

But in life it is hard to shut off anything. Today is the Saturday after the crazy week I described above and it is a chance to re-charge. But a couple of minutes ago the bell rang, and one of our staff was here with a grand-child baby that was almost dead. For many reasons he and the family never brought the child sooner, and so suddenly another crisis. So for a few moments we had to switch on the electrics again and Lynn in her gracious way provided the emergency nursing care she could and we provided the child and mother transport to hospital. The family refused to allow us to pray with the child, but since leaving them I have committed the child and family to God’s mercy and care.
Blaise Pascal, the 17th century philosopher and mathematician wrote, “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace. This he in vain tries to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can only be filled with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”
I recently read that “America is the unhappiest nation on earth, with more mental disorders per capita than any other country. Nigeria is considered the happiest.” If this is true or even close to true, it may be that our hectic pursuit for more things and more entertainment in life is killing our battery. Maybe we have to learn to shut off the electrics for a while and allow the batteries to recharge from the right source. I know I need this…have a great week.

Refueling at dawn with the electrics off!

Dangerous or just big

2010-07-10T05:52:00.000-07:00

“Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” It’s not often one is asked this kind of question…and by someone so wealthy and so powerful they can actually give you whatever you ask for! But almost more amazing than the question was the answer…”give me wisdom and knowledge.” These words come from God’s interaction with Solomon in 2 Chronicles and the first time I read this I decided that, although there were many things I could ask for, I would strive to ask for wisdom.
Kevin who led our Monday morning devotion this week shared how that his father encouraged him to read Proverbs on a regular basis (much of it written by Solomon) and seek the wisdom to live the kind of disciplined life that results in a productive and joy-filled life. He went on to read James 3:13-18 which contrasts the wisdom we need as opposed to the wisdom of this world. The primary difference is the humility that comes from the right kind of wisdom results in good relationships, good deeds and a good life.
As I took a few minutes out of the hectic week to drive over to visit the Halo Trust camp site with Jeff, an ex-military man with 18 years of service and three tours of duty under his belt, I had an experience that left me with a life lesson. Halo Trust is de-mining in our area and according to the man we talked with; they have lifted over a hundred mines (mostly anti-personnel mines) in this immediate area. An area I should say I have spent a fair amount of time walking around in oblivious to the potential danger. One of the things Jeff did during his military service was de-mining, so he was interested to see what was happening in our area, and so the reason for the visit.
As we visited and the man got to know Jeff a little and his history, he wanted to get Jeff’s email so he could keep in contact. As Jeff squatted to write his email address on the paper provided, one of the chickens (kept for supper since there was no refrigeration in the camp), ran to where Jeff was and promptly lay down under his leg. Now Jeff is a big man and could be intimidating to someone who doesn’t know him. To this little chicken he must have looked like a giant.
It occurred to me that maybe this little chicken could sense the gentle and compassionate heart of this big man and as a result felt no fear. If you could have witnessed, as I and the rest of the team did, the way Jeff reached out to a little crippled boy in the community and fabricated a crutch out of the scraps around the farm, you would have seen the wisdom James speaks of.

The wisdom to know when something is dangerous or just big is a good thing. And so often when we mix these up we shrink back from the big challenges in life. Here on the mission we are facing some of these big things; with Rick and Heather trying to overcome the challenge of Tendai’s paperwork so they can make final furlough plans, and with us facing the unknown with Mozambique’s civil aviation authority being in confusion after terrible corruption and a complete personnel change over. There are many big things that threaten…but with God we can rest in the shadow of the giant :). We just gotta ask for wisdom and know He will give it.

A Father

2010-07-03T04:15:00.000-07:00

Each morning at 7 AM we meet with our entire mission staff to start the day with a scripture, a thought and a time for interaction. This leads into a time of corporate prayer, followed by a time to coordinate our day’s work and address any issues or needs the different departments have.

As a Christian mission it is likely pretty natural to start our day out with a time of devotion and prayer, but since many of our staff are engaged in projects to assist with the longer term sustainability of the mission through income generation, and others are engaged in producing food for our orphan and child feeding programs, while others are trying to get building projects finished, there is the pressure to get everyone to work and to be productive. But because we believe, as the psalmist wrote, that “unless the Lord builds the house, its laborers labor in vain,” we sense a desperate need for God’s hand to help in the many and overwhelming challenges we are constantly faced with. And we set aside this early morning time to live out this reality.

Interestingly, as I read a book on the Leadership secrets of Rudy Giuliani, the mayor of New York on 9/11, he made the point that regardless of all the pressures his key people faced, he required that they all meet with him every morning for a briefing. This meeting each morning, he said, set the tone for the kind of communication, coordination and cooperation that would ensure success. This reinforced for me yet another important reason for our morning times together, even though it feels like it takes away from our “productive” work time.

This past week I was encouraged to hear the thoughts each morning as a visiting nursing team from the Prairie College of Arts and Technology shared with us. Each is graduating from a two year LPN program and their time with us is a part of their final practicum requirement.
As one young lady shared, she told about a time in her younger life when she ran away from home, and although she did not go into detail about her life at that time, she simply shared that she had been away for quite awhile with no contact with her parents at all. One night as she walked down the street, she recalls, “at the end of my rope”, “I stopped at a pay phone and called home.” It was the middle of the night, but the phone only rang once and her father was on the other end. Within ten minutes he was there to pick her up. She shared how much she felt this was like God… just waiting for us to take the time to call on him.

As this young lady finished sharing her story, I could not help but reflect on the overwhelming love and often desperate desire I as a father (so far from my kids) have to help my two children. I am sure many parents can identify with that. So the encouragement for me is this…if I am that passionate and that concerned and that desirous to intervene and help my own children, how much more must God share in these feelings. But, as a father, I am slowly learning something... I have to wait for them to invite me in, or I am just an interfering meddler who would not be helping at all. And although there are such limitations for me as an earthly father (even if I had lots of money), the only limitation for God is the invitation, because He really does have all the power in the world to “build the house”.

Moves and the Moon

2010-06-26T03:05:00.000-07:00

Although we have been back in Africa for almost three weeks already, it still feels like we arrived yesterday. In fact, it took until yesterday for Lynn and I to get our suitcases unpacked here in Mozambique.
Our trip back was interrupted in South Africa due to the aircraft not being ready. A number one radio/gps/vor/glideslope was installed in the form of a Garmin 430, and an Stec Auto-pilot was also installed to make single pilot IFR flying safer. Although there have been some glitches, part of the system is already working wonderfully and our flight back was certainly a lot less effort than ever before!
I was glad for the ease of the flight back, because I had to recover from the engine start earlier that morning! Due to the battery being low, John, an aircraft mechanic helped hand start the engine. I knew the battery was low, so I primed the engine to make sure it had the earliest chance of starting. The combination of the priming which caused extra fuel in the carb area, along with a back-fire, resulted in an engine fire. Smoke started billowing out from the engine cowling. I desperately tried to get the fuel turned off and the mixture set to idle-cut –off while still cranking the engine to suck the fire out. Only problem was the battery was almost dead and I had John at the front that I did not want to kill if the battery should suddenly come to life. Well, we got coordinated and pulled the engine through a few strokes and that must have put out the fire…but not the smoke. We scrambled for fire extinguishers and it must have looked rather funny with me trying to get out of the plane with my seat-belt still holding me down. I can only imagine what my face must have looked like.
Fire out, cowling off and thank the Lord everything was still okay…no damage at all. So like I mentioned, the peaceful, uneventful flight to Mozambique was sure appreciated helped along by an autopilot that tracked the GPS and held the 9000 ft altitude perfectly.

We landed in Vilanculos to clear customs and promptly found out there was no Avgas. This is a problem that has grown each year and the reason we have been researching the possibility of purchasing an SMA (Jet A or diesel -powered) 182. We had enough fuel to get back to Chimoio, so we left immediately and arrived safely “home”. I found out that there has not been Avgas in Vilanculos or Beira, our central part of Mozambique anyway, for almost a month and it has shut down many operations.
After a restful sleep, I woke at around 5 AM last Sunday morning (the impact of jetlag). I wandered around the dark house, since it is winter here and even the sun is smart enough to not get up when it is so cold, and could not figure out what to do with myself other than make coffee and pray. So wrapped up in a blanket I enjoyed coffee and the presence of the Lord until the doorbell rang at 7AM. It was Celestino with the news that Enia, an elderly lady who we have been caring for with leprosy, passed away in the night. She has been suffering for some time and failing badly, so we were grateful for her. Only challenge is that this now means there is a funeral to arrange and a coffin to make or buy and I hardly feel like my feet have touched the ground.
After a visit to the home with the nursing team, Francois (bless his heart) accompanied me to town where he had found a coffin on another Sunday. Bodies here have to be buried pretty much the same day due to a lack of cold storage, so this is a huge challenge. We found a beautiful coffin and as we prayed with the family, our confidence was that God was working to make his grace and truth known through the many here at the mission who have shown so much love. Keren Massey spent hours with Mae Enia just caring for her and ministering to her, as have others in the past. We are so grateful for the team of people here who live out Christ’s life.

Much more has transpired this past week and I am slowly recovering the energy to face so much important work ahead. We miss our family terribly as always and always feel it more when we have just returned. But as I looked up at the night sky with Lynn last night from our varanda, the almost full moon came out from behind a cloud and I remembered my father, Arthur’s words. As he (Arthur) was leaving for Africa, his father, Peter Lagore, had told him to remember that when he looked at the moon it was the same one his dad would stand under each night, and home would not seem so far away. He also said to him, “Son and don’t forget we can meet each day at the throne of grace.” And so we do, and we daily thank God for so many friends and family who also meet with us there as well.

"You Gave Me Something"

2010-03-20T04:38:00.000-07:00

“I was hungry and you gave me something to eat” said Jesus (Matt 25:35). "You gave something" is why we have been able to feed. Literally hundreds of families will be fed due to your generosity through the army of pastor servants in each area who will volunteer their time and efforts to ensure the food gets to those who need it.

Pastor Ricardo, Rick Nuefeld and I departed Chimoio Friday morning March the 13th 2010 in the SAM Ministries' Cessna 182 again and headed for Caia where we were to meet the helicopter on the Zambezi. This time Ron Wayner of Mercy Air was the pilot who we anticipated would drop us off and then transport a film crew who were doing a special on the borders of God’s Kingdom...focusing on remote areas that are being reached by the gospel. It turned out that they already had caught another ride out, so Ron was able to return to Chimoio after leaving us in the capable hands of Matthias and Michael, the two Mercy Air helicopter pilots.

Since our evaluation visit a little over two weeks previous (see my previous blog), things had become more difficult due to rains in the Zambezi river catchment areas in Zambia and Zimbabwe and further west. This resulted in the Zambezi flooding it’s banks leaving homes and people stranded and fields under water. Due to the extreme drought the people were forced to attempt crops in the low areas near the river, but inevitably this is futile due to the danger of flooding. As a result of this flooding any food they were growing is further delayed making our assistance in these areas even more important.

The real need is to help these communities find a longer term solution to growing food on higher ground with the abundant water supply the Zambezi brings and to help them store food in the community to protect against these regular food crisis. And this is what we are hoping can be achieved as we work with the pastors associations being formed in each area.

We visited 7 areas in two days again: Mutarara, Chemba, Sinjal, Tambara, Chueza, Chiriza, and Mandie. In each place we met with a representatives of 16 of our extension schools in the worst affected areas. (There remain two areas we still would like to assist, but are trying to determine how this can be done). Each group of pastors have formed themselves into an association of pastors who will manage the work-for-food programs in each area. This is to ensure those who most need the food receive it, but that they assist to work on projects that have the hope to bring at least some change for the future.

We took the time to encourage each group that Jesus took what was made available...the few fish and loaves...and fed many thousands. We also took time to challenge them that change in our communities is like moving a very heavy rock. The rock has settled, so moving it takes many people on the same side working extremely hard. And when it starts to move it requires faithful effort to keep it moving and slowly change comes. As we work, God works and transformation begins to be seen.

Our strategy is being implemented with pastors associations formed, food located and plans made to purchase it, store it and get it to those in need. Projects in each area have been identified, challenges discussed, money counted and contracts signed.

In the meantime, Andy Kuret, a short term pilot/farmer who is evaluating a longer term commitment to SAM Ministries and Mozambique, after seeing the needs, has identified an opportunity to help. He is working on developing a pilot project using a solar pump for a small scale irrigation project to produce food that could be multiplied many times over. It is exciting to see what God does when we expose ourselves to needs. (And I just got an email a few minutes ago to say he and Ron Wayner found a supplier of solar pumps who will get them one at cost price!)

The only area completely cut off with no food anywhere near was Chiriza. Within the two weeks since our evaluation, we were able to identify where we could purchase food and had made a tentative plan for a few emergency loads by helicopter into this community.

After our visit to the community again to ensure the pastors were ready and able to help unloading and to take responsibility for the food, we left Pastor Ricardo and Rick Nuefeld on location and flew back to Tambara across the river where food was available. What would have taken the better part of two days by canoe and huge effort over 10km of bush trail, the helicopter was able to do in just under an hour including turn around and loading! The actual flight to the community was only 7 minutes!

The helicopter landed in Chiriza loaded with about 600 kg of maize (corn). It is quite amazing to appreciate the ingenuity and creativity God has given to people. A 120 kg jet engine can lift the entire airframe and rotors with pilot, fuel and a further 550 kg straight up into the air and provide the kind of rapid transport that is quite frankly amazing. As Mercy Air says, “Providing help from above to meet the needs down below.”

The tools God has given us are truly incredible and this includes the potential for each of us to "give something" in so many different and unique ways. And when we give together God makes his amazing grace visible which results in life-changing transformation in others.

As we returned directly from our last spot via helicopter to the mission farm (an hour and a half flight instead of a 6 to 8 hour drive), our approach path took us directly over the airstrip we are constructing on the mission property (the cleared spot just over the helicopters right shoulder). (If you are interested to participate in this see click here to go to our projects page). Once this is in place our ongoing work along the Zambezi training pastors and working with their associations to bring improved conditions and food security will be greatly enhanced. Follow up will continue with these groups and you will hear reports in the year to come.
For those of you who partner with us...Thank you yet again for your compassion, concern and prompt action to help us meet such critical needs!

"Don't be afraid, remember the Lord, and fight for your brothers"

2010-02-27T04:16:00.000-08:00

These were Nehamiah's words (Nehemiah 4:14) when the people were facing discouragement and threat in the face of an overwhelming task (rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem with the rubble of the old walls in the way making it a daunting task...remember it was all hand labor!), and a threatening enemy! These were the words I felt impressed to communicate as we flew from community to community along the Zambezi river meeting with the pastors in our extension training schools this past week who are hungry and facing the threat of starvation the drought threatens to bring.

Our quest started immediately following the visit of two of our supervisors who brought word of the extreme impact the drought was having on the communities to the North of us. Although a little rain had come in early December, it was very little and any crops planted had long since dried and died in Mozambique's intense sun and heat. As we started to communicate the challenge with Mercy Air and a few of our key partners, we were spurred on by a significant donation of money to enable us to respond quickly to the situation. In God's wonderful timing it just so happened that the Mercy Air helicopter was in the Zambeze delta assisting another outreach, so it meant Matthias could position the helicopter in Tambara to meet up with us in pretty quick time.

As Andy (a Swiss pilot with a Canadian license and grad from Prairie Aviation school) and I climbed through the clouds we were trusting that Matthias could make it through the isolated storms brewing to the West of his location. Matthias had the same question as he awaited word from us, but by the time we landed on the grass strip in Tambara, we got word that the helicopter was 20 minutes out. So started a successful but very rushed visit to 7 communities on either side of the Zambezi. We achieved in less than two full days, what would have taken a week or more to accomplish and we visited communities that at this time of the year are simply cut off even with limited rainfall.

Each community and its leadership had the same story to tell...no rain, we have planted (in some cases) up to 5 times and everything has died, although a few who have money are buying in grain at very high prices, the rest of us are surviving on wild roots and wild seeds, but the elderly and children are suffering the worst and we are not sure about how we will survive the coming months. It is always so difficult facing overwhelming human need and feeling so helpless to be able to meet it all. To us and to these pastors and leaders the message is the same... "Do not fear". And the message that follows right on the heels of this is "remember the Lord your God who is great and awesome" In the midst of huge need, we must be courageous to do the little things we can do and trust our God who is great and awesome to multiply their effect.

This is the emphasis of the last part of the verse, "fight for your brothers". There is a call on the lives of every one of us to not be overwhelmed by overwhelming odds, but respond by joining the fight even though we feel rather weak and limited. It is only as we stand up and fight that we make a difference and give God the chance to work with us!

A strategy in each location was laid out to: 1. engage the pastors and leaders in being part of the solution and assisting to identify the closest locations we can source food and or other supplies, 2. Have them identify the projects we can implement as work-for-food opportunities in order to provide the food and yet ensure there is a longer term impact of the help in ways that will help to address food security in the communities we help, and 3. Assist to get storage locations and the right people who will assist in ensuring the food gets to those in need.

As a mission we have been working slowly in these communities to address the impact of this kind of crisis for some time and this year is the exclamation mark on that effort. Along with our pastor training and the orphan care programs in these communities, is the need to have the infrastructure that will enable us and the churches to 1. Better produce food in the community, 2. Provide storage for food and the ability to buy it in from the community when available to ensure it is not sold to outside buyers who truck it out never to be seen again and 3. Provide where necessary food processing and or other income generation projects that can help to make the local projects sustainable. There are many things the pastors can do in this regard, and every one of them is more productive than having them travel for days and days looking for food for them and their families only to come home with an empty bag! I have witnessed this first hand and it is not something I as a citizen of the Kingdom can live with.

This week has reminded me of the power of relationships and the synergy that results from people with Kingdom vision. Mercy Air has long been a partner of ours and so have so many of you who support and pray for SAM Ministries monthly. Put those relationships together with the Godly men and women on the ground in rural Mozambique who are studying God's word and the importance of effective leadership, and you have an explosion of good things just waiting to happen!

Thank you to everyone who participated this week to bring hope into a hopeless situation. And it is not over yet...some help should arrive on the ground by mid-March. The one administrator was very moved by our presence and shared with our pastor/monitor from Nhakolo (close to Tambara), that "the Church is a powerful organization...to have two aircraft come here and work with you to see the needs in the community is amazing." What more can one say.

(Thank you Andy for your help and all the pictures and to Matthias and the entire Mercy Air clan)

"Endure hardship"

2009-09-06T03:12:00.000-07:00

Although I am certain any hardship I have had to endure does not equate with that suffered by the Apostle Paul or Timothy to whom these words were written, our tours to visit our extension schools and orphan programs certainly take us away from the “comforts” of home. And as we spend time again with these men and women studying with us who provide leadership to the churches and communities they serve, it is clear that they certainly do endure much hardship as they seek to survive and work in difficult conditions.

Our hardship at the start of our 9 day tour was somewhat less this time around as we had the privilege of driving across the brand spanking new bridge over the Zambezi river.

Although the cost is the same, in the past we would have had to drive a dirt track to the river’s edge and wait (for at times up to two hours) for the ferry to take us across. This time we paid our money and just drove across a bridge that for most of us westerners would not look like anything too dramatic except that this bridge is in the middle of Mozambique, and for the first time joins Northern Mozambique with Southern Mozambique in a very “concrete” way saving travelers and transporters many hours of delay. It took the goodwill and many millions of dollars of donor help (about 80 million to be exact) but what a blessing.

Our tour in the Zambezia province took us to our most northern school in a place called Posto Shiri. Here I remembered again why I should have asked to have BF Goodrich All Terrain tires put on when purchasing this vehicle. Here is another tire destroyed with side-wall damage from a stump. And out here, this now means we have another 7 days of the trip with no spare tire unless I can have it “fixed” as a backup.

Thankfully I found a side road tire place in Mutarara that was able to do a makeshift fix which gave us at least the peace of mind of a back up tire.

As we arrived in Sinjal, another very remote school, we felt like we had just had a dust bath. The terrible condition of the road from Mutarara meant that our 50 km drive took us almost two hours! Although the ride certainly was not comfortable, I think it was the vehicle that had to endure the most hardship! People had been gathering for a few hours already and as soon as the food and gowns were unloaded we started the very first ever graduation ceremony in one of our extension schools. Although there are now almost 30 leaders studying here with us, these first four have been at it for 6 years and have completed our program. What a joy to celebrate with them and the government leaders who attended and be challenged again by the duty we have to “study to show ourselves approved…” as those who “correctly handle (teach) the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15).

A very special day for these pastors and community leaders graduating after 6 years

These leaders do not merely have the responsibility to teach, they have the responsibility to live out the good news of the gospel. In this context that means motivating and organizing and providing care for orphans. Each place we stopped at was another chance to see yet another group of orphan children being cared for by pastors who have learned the importance of the church as the presence of Christ in the community. So many of you involved with us in SAM Ministries are partners with these pastors in the care of these children. Besides providing some of the desperate needs of these children, they are hearing the good news of Jesus Christ and the hope and help He brings into life. Thank you to all of you who help us with orphan and feeding support.
Pastor Elias with the Baue Orphan program
One of our last stops was in a place called Malemia where Pastor Cassecusa (Cassecusa means to shake :) ), but in the case of this elderly man, shake means to move! He is an amazing man and I close this blog entry with his story. We made it back safely to the mission and thankfully to a recovering Rick Nuefeld who had been duped by symptoms that did not present themselves clearly as malaria and as a result went untreated for far too long. When I arrived he was white as a sheet and very weak, but thankfully has improved greatly…just another hardship many Mozambicans endure with very little or no health care.

Manuel Cassecusa Nsito…
is an amazing man committed to serving God, his fellow pastors and his community. Manuel was born 7 Abril, 1939, in Malemia, Doa, Tete, Mozambique, on the North side of the Zambezi River. There was no school for him to attend. In fact his father was pretty much one of the only people settled in the area, with Lion, Hippo, Buffalo along with other wild animals his only neighbours.

Pastor Cassecussa handing a certificate to one of his pastor students
He grew up helping his father cultivate the land to grow food for the family. He had two brothers and one sister, but his sister and one brother passed away within the first few years of life. He suspects his little brother died of measles.

The first memory he has of white people were the Portuguese railway workers who came through their area to lay the railway. When he and his brother saw the white people he remembers them running home crying in fear. His parents put him and his brother in the hut and closed the door to try to settle them.

They grew up wearing a thong made of rope made from the bark of a tree tied around the waist with pieces of cloth hanging on the front to cover themselves. Manuel says the “back-end was just left open to the air!”

One of his memories is of the lion that periodically would attack neighboring homesteads and often took people. This was a constant fear and topic of conversation.

While young he never heard of God or the church and the family primarily practiced ancestral worship (African Traditional Religion).

When Manuel was about 26 years old, he heard that the first school had come to his area. A local Mozambican teacher by the name of Salvador started teaching school under the tree in Doa, about 7 Km away. After attending school for two months, the Chief of the area from the Portuguese administration called the teacher to bring all the children to the administrative offices for inspection. By this time in his life he was wearing a shirt and shorts, and the Chief demanded that all the boys/men take off their shirts to check their under-arms. Those who had hair under their arms or had hair appearing on their chin were taken immediately and put under guard. They were informed that they would not be able to return home, because they were required to pay tax and since they could not, they had to be “contracted”.

Manuel along with other young men (no girls were allowed to come to the first schools) were taken under guard directly to the train and shipped off to Beira where they were put on a small boat which took them across the bay to Buzi where they were required to work in the sugar cane fields. After working for eight months, they were allowed to return home, where they received 20 escudos and told the rest of their pay was taken in payment of taxes (One can buy 20 escudos in coin for around $5.00 on ebay). They were allowed to remain home for 3 month and then required to return at which time they were shipped off to work in the coal mines in Moatise for a full year before being allowed home.

Following this year he was allowed to return to his home, where he married and built his home. He and his wife had 12 children but only 6 survived. Five of the six who passed away also died within the first few years of life. Although life was hard, they produced enough food and survived reasonably well.

Due to loosing so many children and the fear that local tradition would result in much conflict with his family (in many cases family are blamed by the witchdoctor for the death of other family members), in 1977 he moved to Zobwe. When he arrived in Zobwe, a Christian pastor Armando Gave welcomed him to stay with him in his home until he could settle. At this time Manuel was both a witch doctor who “beat the drums,” and was also very committed to plying his trade in the manufacture and sale of local liquor (the equivalent of moonshine). While in the home of this pastor he started to hear about God and the pastor taught him the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Manuel accepted Christ and upon salvation he burned all of his moonshine manufacturing equipment along with his witch doctor drums.

Since that time he never lost any more children (which he gives God praise for) and has served God faithfully. Although he never had a chance to study the Bible in any formal way, he was selected to be a pastor. Due to his close relationship with Pastor Pires who was selected in his community to be a monitor of our Bible and Leadership training program, he came to find out about our Bible school. He started studying in 2007 and became the monitor of his area shortly thereafter. He is now almost half way through the training program and is teaching 29 other pastors in two separate communities.

Here is a man who not only serves others faithfully, but at 70 years old rode his bicycle over 200km to attend one of our training seminars focused on equipping pastors in personal evangelism! He has started an orphan care program in his area with a few other pastors and regularly provides care for

After receiving Christ the big miracle he witnessed in his life was both the fact that God enabled him to have children that lived, rather than died. He also experienced a dramatic deliverance from alcohol. The other major difference he started to witness in his life was in his ability to grow his personal wealth and ability to care for his family. Prior to accepting Christ he never could save any money, but after his life-changing experience, he has been able to save money, grow a herd of goats, and grow crops that have earned him a living.

“My hunger to study God’s Word and know His will for my life” is what Manuel says resulted in his commitment to study and to working with the mission voluntarily to help others also learn. Manuel witnesses to the growth in his understanding of God and His word and His ability to teach others. He has also experienced a wonderful growth in his ability to work with others and see his church grow in unity.

Manuel says that his one desire is to see his eighteen year old son continue his studies beyond Grade 8 where he is studying now. Also so that others have an opportunity to come to know Christ. This is something he is seeing on a weekly basis as he witnesses to the goodness and power of God in His life.

My dream being realized

2009-07-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

This week was the start of another intensive training time for the monitors (pastor trainers) of our Bible and Leadership training program we call SBF or Faith Bible Seminary Mozambique. Although I have titled this blog entry “My dream”, I am fully aware that this has really been my Heavenly Father’s dream and that he put this very same dream and calling in the hearts of numerous others who He has brought together to help realize the dream. If I start mentioning names here, I will never complete this blog!

As we gathered for prayer on Monday morning at 6:30AM with our monitors, it was freezing cold (around 8 degrees C with no heating at all!) but it was also both exciting and incredibly fulfilling to participate in the prayer and hear the 3 minute challenge by Pastor Pires on Psalm 42:1 “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.” He shared on the strength that only God can give for each day and each challenge in ministry.

This morning as we gathered again, and following a time of corporate prayer, Pastor Chico Inacio from Tete shared on Jesus words, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays his life down for the sheep.” As he contrasted the good shepherd to the hired hand, his challenge was that we all continue to remember we are called to lay down our lives for His sheep, as He laid down His life for us.” Following this Pastor Eliah led us in a time of prayer and then silent waiting on the Lord and invited anyone to share what they felt the Holy Spirit was laying on their heart. Shortly Pastor Ricardo, our coordinator, shared that he felt God was saying that as pastors and leaders we needed to make sure we place value on the women and children God had entrusted to our care. This was followed again by a time of passionate prayer as each pastor asked God to soften his heart for the needs of the women and children. I was so moved to watch as God spoke to His under-shepherds!

When we launched out and started our first extension schools along the Zambezi river (early 2000) in the Tete province of Mozambique, I was concerned about the distance and the lack of consistent direct input we would have in the lives of those we were going to take responsibility to train. God reminded me in His own clear way, that His Holy Spirit and His Word were a powerful combination and I could rely on Him to do more than we ever could, but reminded me that He had called us to partner. That was when we decided to launch out and now God is doing more than we could have ever asked or imagined and the impact is growing each year.

The impact is growing not only due to the numbers of those being trained, it is growing due to the maturity, confidence and Holy Spirit empowered efforts of leaders who have walked with us for 9 years. Pastor Pires Williamo gave an amazing report today of how each aspect of this effort has impacted the government officials in Sinjal (his village) as they have witnessed not only leaders being trained, but the orphan program started, and now more recently a women’s ministry focusing on Bible, health and literacy taking off.

I can only say how honored I am to be here in Mozambique, and after 16 years of slugging, to see God working in such awesome ways in lives. Not only so, but He has blessed us with a team of awesome people committed to serving one another and the people of Mozambique as we love God and love them so they have the chance to experience the Father’s love and come to participate with him in loving their world.

If you read this entry this week, please pray for us as we share our hearts and God’s Word and do our best to encourage these amazing servants. Also pray for their families and their communities and the overwhelming number of challenges they face as they return and in turn teach, lead, train and encourage their fellow pastors and communities.

Email Hacked

2009-07-29T11:18:00.000-07:00

A quick note to all my friends, family and supporters.
Please note my hotmail address has been hacked and you may be receiving emails requesting money. Please disregard these emails. You can continue to email me at dwight@samministries.org

Thank you so kindly

"To hug or not to hug," that is the question!

2009-06-14T20:37:00.000-07:00

Yeah yeah, I know, but “to be” for some people means “to hug” and for others, “to be” means definitely, most definitely, absolutely, unequivocally, and most assuredly “Do NOT hug under any occasion!” Boy have I ever blown it…time and time and time again while travelling back in North America I have hugged when I should NOT have hugged. (And if you were the poor person on the other end of that un-wanted, un-deserved and most definitely un-desireable hug, I am soooo sorry :). You see, you can “be” all alone, but you can’t “hug” all alone, and if for you “to be” is “to hug” then your life has to be filled with warm, un-self-conscious, over-the-top and out-of-control huggers! And the problem is that when you work in different cultures and places the state of “being” changes.

Now I need to say to all you poor people who don’t hug…it’s okay…I guess. Because I know you were just not brought up that way, and it feels too close and generally just un-comfortable. I understand this and I want you to know you can likely live out a very full and happy life without hugging a bunch of other people. So please understand me, as I share the rest of my thoughts, because I really don’t mean to offend anyone. We huggers are too nice to want to offend.

But a couple things that relate to this topic of hugging may be worth mentioning, from my humble point of view:

The first is that sometimes hugging is perceived as some dirty old man (or needy woman) trying to get a little too close. And you know what, maybe that happens sometimes. Kind of like when some crazy religious types hijack a few planes and fly them into the twin towers. Yes it happens and it is terrible and sad and many other things I don’t have time to go on about, but it is NOT the norm. As we went through security to fly out of the Edmonton airport this last week, I waited as Lynn, yet again, had her bag ripped apart to find a small blunt pair of foldable scissors that one would have a hard time using to kill a mouse, never mind hijacking a plane. While her bag was being disassembled and re-assembled, I watched a little old lady being “strip” searched and the longer I watched the lady security agent patting her down in every place imaginable in the middle of a busy security area and in plain view of everyone else, the angrier I became. A few crazies have hijacked our way of life and now we see little old ladies and foldable scissors as serious threats to our world. What have we become?! Someone once said, “to the pure everything is pure, but to the impure, even pure things are impure.” Likely not everyone who reads this will agree with me, and I understand we live in a messed up world, but what I am actually talking about here is HUGGING!

Lynn and I have had the privilege of visiting Brazil annually over the past three years as part of our mission responsibilities. And it never ceases to amaze me at how quickly the hugging starts. And they don’t care who you are or whether you want to be hugged. You get hugged, and kissed and touched and warmly welcomed into their world. Amazing…even as I write the word, “touched,” I realize many will recoil at that word. For those who may have had a horrible experience growing up, I am so sorry, but there is such a thing as healthy normal touching. And hugging is one of those forms of healthy touching. Shaking one’s hand is also touching, and sometimes just touching another person’s hand, arm, shoulder or patting someone on the back can be another form of healthy touching. I am not writing a manual here on “healthy touching”, so let me move on. The reality is that after being in Brazil for a short while, the social warmth is something that just envelops me…the physical contact somehow just flows into a sense of well-being. I can’t really explain it in words. I just know that I feel accepted and appreciated and it is pretty easy to get used to.

But the stark contrast of leaving the warm embrace of Brazil and hitting the cold social blast of North America is quite sobering. Please know I love all of you gracious, generous, loving North Americans, but understand that sometimes it is hard to know, in our cultural diversity, how to say hi and bye. And it is never my intention to be cold to you or to offend you, I honestly just don’t know WHAT to do, so IF you want a hug, please feel free to hug me and if you would rather NOT be hugged, when you see me coming, just stick out your hand well in advance and I will do my best to give it the warmest shake I know how to, and beyond that I will let you “be”.

The Pleasure in Needing and Being Needed

2009-01-04T11:32:00.000-08:00

We are away from the mission for about ten days. We drove the two days over bad roads and slept about half way in a bed that left a little to be desired. Now in Nelspruit, South Africa, we are enjoying the weekend with our Mercy Air family.

Besides the vehicle maintenance that will happen tomorrow, and the flight medical that will happen up in Pretoria on Wednesday morning, and all the shopping and sourcing of supplies for the mission in between, we have the chance to experience once again the humbling reality that we are interdependent creatures; and oh the richness there is in that!

Today I had the wonderful privilege of talking to a dear friend over Skype. He in British Columbia, Canada, me in Mpumalanga, but we are connected by the history we revel in. Bob was the one who called me when the mission had purchased the aircraft and it needed to get to Africa. I did not have the time, the budget, or even the faith to think it was possible to get the aircraft out here within the next few years. But Bob did. Without his bold act of faith and courage it would not have happened, but it did and we now savor the memories and the awareness that neither of us could have done it alone.

(Dad Trekofski and Pastor Ed, two men I have needed again and again, pose by the Cessna.)

Bob is not only needed in Africa, he is needed by the love of his life. Sharon has been debilitated by horrific pain and Bob has been there. Day in and day out Bob cares and gives and gives some more and his faithfulness and courage has been an example to many, and the kind of comfort to his wife many can only dream of.
(Bob and Sharon, Dad and Mom Trekofski and Lynn)

I am needed as well! Lynn is doing a course in “Control Management for Non-profit Organizations” and my little accounting background has made it possible for me to actually help her. Today we worked together on assignments she was just not making headway on. It was hard work and took lots of time, but we worked through it and together enjoyed the sense of mutual accomplishment we could never enjoy had we done it alone.

With satellite internet on the mission we have been able to keep in touch with our fellow missionaries Rick and Heather. Rick likely loves the peace and quiet of no one else around, but Heather is missing Lynn’s company. Lynn is needed by many others, but hearing you are needed helps define your unique place in this world.

Ron and Barb Wayner (below, right) are two of our close friends and confidants. They founded Mercy Air and we share so much in common as we deal with the issues of life and ministry. We need them in so many ways! Prior to making our trip down I talked to Ron. “Be sure to bring the sizes of your kitchen cupboards,” said Ron. “We can buy the material and cut up the cupboard casings together while you are here.” How can you express your appreciation to someone when they take the time to do for you what you cannot do for yourself and what you likely could never afford to pay someone to do for you!

Although I feel such a debt of obligation to so many who do so much for us, I rest and rejoice in that need. I do this because their need and my need provide the opportunity for sacrificial service…and as some wise person once said, “Service is joy”.

"Humankind is our business" (Ghost of Christmas past in The Christmas Carol)

2008-12-27T01:09:00.002-08:00

People are the reason Christmas happened! God wanted to get close so we humans could possibly see Him in all of His beauty and grace and fall hopelessly, or maybe I should say, hopefully, in love. His love lavished on us, without reservation, without pre-condition, without assurance that we would respond to His outlandish gift, is what provides the motivation for me (and for us as a team out here). I believe it was best expressed by Paul, “His love compels me…”

Scrooge Dwight struggles to retain that precious priority: loving people without reservation, pre-condition or any assurance that they will respond the way we hope. This is what Christmas (and our core business) is all about.

For us this past 24th of December we had the awesome privilege to be channels of your love to the communities of this area. We launched a work-for-food program sponsored by a generous donation of maize meal by a Canadian donor and which will now be supplemented by others who have sacrificially given. Loving people and helping them is as difficult as parenting and likely harder (although we certainly are not, and do not want to be paternalistic missionaries). We are committed to not developing unhealthy dependency while still being there to empower people in less than ideal circumstances. Creating work which respects and hopefully retains and/or multiplies the value of help given, while being sensitive to ensure people are able to work (for themselves) to secure a future that will not be dependent on more help, is a challenge.
Line up of people in the "Work for Food" program, ready to receive their ground maize (above). Young mother receives her portion (below).

To do this, we have identified areas of work on the mission that help develop our capacity to further love others (in Word and deed). We have also planned to ensure that there is enough time in the work-day for the people to cultivate their own land and plant their own crops (now that the rain has come).

Finally, we were able to buy in and distribute the seed that so many people were desperate for since their seed had already germinated and died in the sun-baked ground.

It was such an encouragement as the people hooted and cheered while they were given the conditions of the seed contract.

Above: Community leaders organize their people into separate groups.

Below: Beneficiary of seed signing a contract

We were able to help 132 families (or family units often headed up often by a widow) with maize seed. They will return the value of the seed in grain and we have offered to buy whatever they want to sell after the harvest since we annually buy in grain for our orphan, widow and school feeding program.

Besides introducing 10 of the farmers in the area to soya bean this year (a new crop for our people), we hope to make more sorghum seed available in the New Year which is a quick producing grain that does not require high rainfall to be productive. This will at least spread the risk and diversify the crops the people are producing.

At this desperate time of the year where some of us are eating too much (speaking for myself here), the people in many rural areas of Mozambique and much of Zimbabwe are literally starving and only keeping some kind of sustenance by eating mangoes, roots and edible weeds, I know we have been called to do more than preach the gospel in words. Thank you to so many who partner with us to make our core business more than just words.

"Cry bloody murder"

2008-12-08T10:57:00.001-08:00

Cry bloody murder is a recent CNN special that tracks the historically poor response of the international community to crisis situations around the world, and more specifically to “genocide”.

As I watched I realized that regardless of the press reports etc., for the most part the horrible crisis in Zimbabwe has pretty much been neglected by the world! We have watched Zimbabwe decline steadily and then, absolutely collapse, under the leadership of their dictator, Robert Gabriel Mugabe and his henchmen. Under the guise of respect for the sovereignty of independent governments, the African Union, with support of the UN and others have basically allowed another power intoxicated, despot to destroy yet another African country and her people. It is stated that within 5 years he destroyed the agricultural development of 100 years. And we have numerous Zimbabwean friends who have fled Zimbabwe who can tell you the personal story of this destruction, causing the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs as well as a devastation of an entire country and economy.

The Zimbabwe dollar has been worthless for the past few years with inflation in the trillions of percent. One cannot even imagine what this is like…it is incomprehensible, but people have attempted to live within this horror. Recently someone reported seeing million dollar notes pegged on a wire by an outhouse being used for toilet paper!

Well now it has gotten to the point most of us felt it should have (had) arrived at a few years ago already. People are dying of cholera (600 at present count), and millions of others are literally starving to death and fleeing the country to find a way to survive. In our immediate area and up the highway North from us, making a corridor that parallels the Zimbabwe border, the local population have been inundated with very hungry people flowing over the border from Zimbabwe looking for anything to sustain life.

As I met with the pastors and leaders who are the monitors (trainers) in our extension Bible and leadership training schools, they shared the desperate situation they are facing with the food shortages and basic maize (corn) already at 400% the normal price and possibly even doubling over the next two months! Beside the price, food is simply harder and harder to find. Then there are the Zimbabweans; Most showing up on the pastors doorstep, because they know that he is the most likely to try to help. But as much as they would like to try and help, they simply have no way to do this, so they do whatever they can and watch these poor people sleeping in the dirt or on the floor in a church with little they can do to help and little hope they can see for a change.

We as Christ’s ambassadors have been called to bring help and hope in these times, and we do. But the faith and courage it takes to do this when in the natural everything looks impossible, is a challenge that stretches even the best equipped.

As we watch our grain stocks diminishing at a rapid rate to the point where we have to retain the food remaining to keep our feeding program and orphan support alive for the next four months, we are prayerfully determining how we can respond to the current crisis and all the hungry people who arrive daily looking for help. Our commitment is to at least respond to those involved in our programs and web of relationships.

Life and survival is difficult enough without a Robert Mugabe who cares little about anyone else as he desperately clings to power. We need more people crying “bloody murder”, or for my more conservative friends… “ENOUGH!” And taking the action we individually can to stop the injustice and make a difference. It is at times like this that the following verse is so poignant, “so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.” (Ecclesiastes. 9:12)

“You are my father, I have no one else to turn to…”

2008-12-02T08:13:00.000-08:00

We returned to the mission farm on Thursday after being away for a few weeks having the annual inspection done on the mission aircraft. We were blessed by Tim and Barb Heubner who took a week out of their schedule to help us with the annual inspection this year. Tim and Barb were serving MAF in Angola and were on their way back to Canada, so the timing was perfect for them and certainly for us. We praise God for His awesome timing as well as all our friends at Mercy Air who made this another blessed experience. I have made it clear to many of them that if they were not there, it is likely we would not be here. Their presence there has made our presence here in the bush survivable.

After flying to Maputo (about a 50 minute flight) for the Department of Civil Aviation inspection there (which turned out to be a successful inspection), I returned to Nelspruit to load up and pick up Lynn and we flew home. As we climbed out after departure at Vilanculos on the coast, we admired the turquoise sea with boats and islands which quickly faded into the distance.

As we enjoyed a sandwich together, I suddenly felt an overwhelming burning in my throat and began to cough. After landing in Chimoio this continued and since I have struggled with a terrible flue that has really knocked my legs out! Ironically we returned just in time for a week of training with the monitors of our extension training program, and a flu at this point is really something one does not need. But I think we have learned one thing in life and that is that if it is worth doing, it is worth doing regardless of the challenges that WILL be thrown at you! Our resolve will always be challenged, and perseverance is the only thing that brings victory.

(Leaders in one of the sessions.)

As I met with the first group of leaders that arrived, I asked how they were all doing. The first response was that “it is very likely some of us will starve to death this year…and I will be one of the first!” I was somewhat taken back by the forwardness, but after more discussion, it became clear that the desperate situation we have been facing in our area is just the tip of the iceberg.

Enjoying a meal during one of the intensive seminars.

Today as I was doing some final preparation for tomorrow’s classes, the bell rang. Anyone who has visited us knows what this means…the bell is our constant companion calling us to respond to needs almost all hours of the day. Due to the evening hour, I was somewhat surprised, but I set aside the work and went out to see who was calling. It happened to be our guard accompanied by the elderly local chief of our area. Regulo Araujo Mpungo who is the “king” of our area as well as being the traditional local leader had borrowed a bicycle and managed to ride the few kilometers to our home.

His words challenged me, “You are my father, I have no one else to turn to…” as he shared the fact that he was now desperate for food and had no other alternative but to come and see us at the mission. We have helped before, but being the “king” means a certain amount of self-respect. He described his home situation and the fact that besides himself, he was now caring for 4 orphaned family members and he simply had nothing to feed any of them. He went on to share that he has already heard of two women who have died of starvation in our immediate area…and we have a work for food program to help the most desperate!

Although our food stocks are already stretched to breaking point, I assured him we would assess the situation and send what we could in the morning. I then took the time to remind him that we too can only depend on God in life, and even now with the falling Canadian dollar and the local Mozambique currency retaining unusual strength, we are living one day to the next depending on His gracious provision. We then prayed together and the “king” hobbled off pushing his borrowed bicycle!

2008-09-20T10:40:00.001-07:00

Ten days of life and ministry in Mozambique
By Dwight Lagore

3:40 AM came far too quickly! As I did my best to carefully roll out of bed, my wrist watch alarm started beeping for the 3rd time. I hurried to silence it so as not to wake Lynn who certainly did not need to be up at this early hour. It only took a few seconds for the pain in my arm to register. It was swollen and blue, but not nearly as bad as I thought it might me. I breathed a prayer of thanks again because the experience of last afternoon’s fire could have been so much worse.

Kim Lagore, my niece who is visiting thought that it would be fun for the group, which included Lynn, Rick and Heather Neufeld (a young couple who have joined us to serve God and the people of Mozambique), and myself to go for lunch together after church as a farewell meal since I would be gone for 10 days visiting our extension leadership training schools along the Zambezi river. While we waited and waited and waited some more for our food, we reminisced about Rick and Heather’s first experience visiting a rural Mozambican church. The meal had just arrived when my phone rang unexpectedly; it is still hard getting used to having cell phone coverage in our area, although it has already been 3 months since they turned the tower on. It was our guard Horacio, “Pastor there is a fire on the North boundary. Come quickly”.

Rick and I finished up our food and left the girls to catch a ride with some friends on a neighboring farm who had shown up for lunch as well. As we sped toward the mission farm all I could think of was how much I had to still pack up and do before leaving early the next morning and fighting fires is always a long, hot and dirty experience. I breathed a prayer and willfully committed myself to face up to whatever the coming hours would bring.

As we pulled into the mission farm entry I could see the black smoke rising. The fire had clearly crossed our boundary fire break, so stopping it was going to be all but impossible. We quickly changed clothes, picked up an axe and rushed to join our guards. As we pulled up to where they were desperately beating the flames, it was clear they were not making much progress. The fire was being encouraged along by gusts of hot wind. This combined with the long, bone-dry grass created a very determined, very resilient inferno.

Both Rick and I threw ourselves into the fight; beating back the fire with branches cut from the few bushes that seem to stay green regardless of extreme drought at this time of the year. It happened so quickly. One second I thought I was gaining ground, the next there was a “whoosh” and I was engulfed in flames. All I could think was to try to run and then roll if I could get away from the flames. I tripped twisted my arm as I fell on it awkwardly but thankfully the fire around me was out as quickly as it had started. Rick was there ready to assist and seemed as grateful as I was that I was not on fire! Limping, with a hurting arm and a fair amount of singed hair, I made for the boundary and called our guards along with Rick and couple of our other staff, Charles and Gabriel who live near-by and had come to help out. This was far too dangerous; we had to find another way to try to contain the fire.

I remembered that about 20 meters back up our fence line a path had been left for our community to enter the property and walk down to the river for water lifted out of holes dug in the now dry river bed. This was likely the only chance we had to stop this fire. As we ran back toward the path I knew we would need a miracle and I prayed, “Lord if you could, please send us a breeze from the opposite way to help us.” Even while I willed myself to pray I struggled with my weak faith and doubts. Someone I read recently said, “Faith is not so much the absence of doubt as it is the presence of action.” As I stepped into the path, I distinctly felt a cool breeze touch my right cheek. Excitedly I told everyone to help me light the grass along the path so it could burn back against the fire coming toward us. Others ran ahead all the way down to dry river bed 500 odd meters down the hill and helped light the grass all the way. That was it. The breeze that had suddenly changed slowed the other fire and pushed the fire we had lit straight into the oncoming blaze extinguishing the fire as the two fires met!

“You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them and you listen to their cry” (Psalm 10:17). My theme for the seminars we were to hold this coming week as we travelled to seven centrally located extension leadership schools, was the powerful effect of encouragement and the importance of cultivating this critical skill in our lives and ministries. The Lord had heard my cry and sent us an encouraging breeze. Interestingly, the New Testament word for encouragement is “parakaleo” (Romans 12:8), which is very similar in meaning to “parakletos” or “comfortor,” the name Jesus used to designate the Holy Spirit who “would come along-side to help, to comfort, to teach, to encourage”. Wind is also a type of the Holy Spirit who breathes on us and into us bringing life and power for witness and service.

As I write this, we have visited 5 extension schools and almost as many orphan programs. Although my heart has been torn again by the desperate physical need of so many people, especially the children and old people, I have also been so encouraged. In Chueza an elderly pastor who recently lost his wife, and two widowed ladies (one the widow of the community leader in the area), asked me to please stop by their hut for prayer. It was the last group of huts on the right as I left the village and could not miss it. As we pulled up they were waiting. We walked into the dimly lit, dank smelling room and joined hands. The intensity and emotion of their fervent prayers touched me deeply, and they were not praying for themselves, rather for the close to 60 orphan children they have been burdened to serve in whatever ways they can.
As we drove from there South East paralleling the great Zambezi river we came to a community called Zombwe where Pastor Ricardo (the coordinator of our extension leadership training program) asked that I please stop. On his way through here a couple months back he had been stranded due to no vehicles going further, so had to find somewhere to sleep. A local pastor welcomed him and Pastor Pires, one of our monitors, to stay the night. As they entered the home they encountered the mother of the home sadly holding her little girl. They had travelled all the way to Mutarara to the hospital with the child, but she was now worse than ever. The young girl was barely breathing, certainly not talking and most definitely unable to walk. Pires and Ricardo prayed for the young girl at the invitation of the family and then prepared themselves to sleep. That night Ricardo had a dream of the child walking and specifically walking into church the next morning (which was a Sunday). As they rose, the mother had taken the little girl out into the nearby bush to assist her with a bowl movement. Her mother then took her into the grass enclosure to bath her. All at once she looked up at mom and said, “I want to get up and walk mom”. And she did. As she walked back toward the house Ricardo was amazed to see his dream coming true. The little girl then walked into church later that morning and worshipped.

We had hardly pulled up to the home, when the little girl, Brendita, still not walking perfectly, came out to meet the vehicle with a huge smile.
When she saw Pastor Ricardo, tears rolled down her cheeks as she ran to grab his hand. She led us in to the yard of the home where her father the pastor and her mother told us the whole story. Clearly something dramatic had happened and God was getting the praise! As we entered the church to pray with the family I noticed something tied around the little girls’ neck. After prayer I saw that it was an amulet placed there, likely by a local witch doctor. I could not help myself. As I tugged on it I quietly asked the little girl what it was. “Oh this she said”, quite disgustedly, “I think we should pull it off and throw it in the fire” Nervous laughter came from the mother and father who had obviously tried to hedge her bets with the witch-doctor to deal with the remaining deficiency in her daughters leg. If the sun had been down, the light in this little girls face would have been quite enough to light up that little church. I was amazed at how intuitive it had been for her to identify with strength, take the decision her father pastor should have taken weeks ago when the amulet was tied on. But that is not a little girls place in this culture, that is until other pastors and a white guy come along who can help to see the sillyness of a miraculous healing followed up by a fearful doubting parent trusting in some home-made amulet!

I was encouraged again of the critical importance of our presence here in Mozambique and of the desperate need for trained and equipped local pastors to be present and resident in every community boldly proclaiming and demonstrating the truth that sets people free! “And a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6). What a powerful witness to the presence of the Kingdom in the life of this little girl!

Thursday saw us in Sinjal, the community where some of you may remember a few years back had only grass seed and small green bananas to eat. We landed there then assisted by Mercy Air with their helicopter and found a tragic scene. This year the floods were bad as well destroying much of their food production, and as we travelled on to Mutarara with the community leader who requested a ride, he shared how just two months back he had lost is 9 year old son to a crocodile just a few yards from his home fence. The flood waters had come to the edge of the village and the crocodiles with them. Many people had been lost to crocodiles this year. In fact just this week 7 people were in a canoe crossing the Zambezi close to here when a crocodile attacked and turned over the boat. Although 6 made it to safety, a pregnant lady lost her life to the obviously hungry crocodile.

Friday we travelled North toward the Malawi border to a town called Dovo. A group of 30 pastors are studying here and because they represent two different areas, they have started two orphan programs and are doing amazingly.
The newest program, only a few months old, was initiated by a new student of ours. Tiago (James) I found out actually graduated from a 16 book course with the Apostolic church but is excited to be studying again and also participating in caring for orphans along with 7 other churches.

The signs of the Kingdom are everywhere as spontaneous love, compassion, service and persevering faith stand up to and overcome so much harsh difficulty in this world of hunger, limited supplies, and little outside help.

I really felt I could use a good bed and a good sleep after all these nights on the road sleeping in mosquito infested little places with no running water, cold bucket baths and cockroaches crunching under ones feet. We found a spot open in Mutarara at Dona Mina’s place. Well I must admit I woke up this morning not feeling the best. Besides my twisted arm that was now hurting worse than ever, everything else also hurt (or at least it felt like it). The bed I found out had only three support boards meaning I was falling through the mattress in all kinds of weird ways all night while trying to sleep. At 4 AM the entire community, who had obviously had plenty of sleep, were chatting and chittering at the top of their lungs right outside my window where it just so happens the water source for the community was located! If this was not bad enough, I had the maid serving my room knocking on the door incessantly forcing me to drag my damaged and hurting body to the door at 5:30 AM to tell her I really did not need a bucket of water at this unreasonable hour of the morning!

The day brightened substantially when after a cup of coffee we were scheduled to visit the orphan program at Bawe, about 10 or so km away. We arrived to the excited and warm greeting songs of the children. I then shared the story of Samuel as the orphans and other children who joined acted out Samuel sleeping, suddenly awaking when his name was called, running to Eli only to be told to go back to bed. The kids loved it, and I do trust the message stuck that God is looking for young hearts (and older ones too) to speak to if we will only listen and acknowledge His still quiet voice when he calls.
From there we met with a pastors fraternal led by our monitor in the area, Pastor Toca. Pastor Toca bragged how that he could not even read or write when he joined Faith Bible Seminary (our training program), but as he studied with us, God has made him now able to teach others to read and write and teach them His Word as well. We further introduced the training program to them and answered questions. They were excited and asked us to come back and preach for their combined service. I am confident God will give us the words we need to encourage them and motivate them to enroll in studies.

We arrived Sunday morning, back in Baue, to a church building that was filling rapidly, and wondered how they expected everyone to fit in. As the small building filled, two of the leaders untied the bark ropes holding the back of the church together and swung open two makeshift ends to open the church up immediately expanding it. Conservatively we shared with at least 300 people and by 2 PM when the service ended there were people seated all around the outside of the building, even though there was no shade. I am always amazed by the hunger for God’s Word.
Monday we are in Nyangoma, Tuesday in Murrumbala and then it is home to get back to house building before the heavy rains hit this year. I am so grateful for Jesus promise that He is with us and will be until the end of the age. What strength and encouragement we can draw from He, who is the way, the truth and the life.

I am now home working hard with our team on the house that has had to play second fiddle to all the other ministry. Thank you so much for your ongoing prayers and constant faithful support.