Veggie garden

We have really been blessed this year. A faithful friend arranged a roll of shade cloth for our veggie garden, so that birds, chickens, ducks & other animals would not be able to hop through the fence and destroy our garden. We have been enjoying wonderful fresh lettuce and spinach so far and the rest are soon going to be ready. Wow! fresh veggies. The local folks here seldom eat anything beyond tomatoes, onions & rape or cabbage.

A successful day

Well yesterday was very frustrating, all the usual perks of Espungabera, 16 hour power cuts etc. But I did manage to get the radiator pulled apart a 2nd time and got it back together and re-soldered by the time it got too dark to carry on. This morning I tested for leaks and Praise the Lord none. So it's now back in it's proper place in the car waiting for a test drive.

Also I managed to get diff oil to refill the back diff-axle after re-welding the 3 inch crack. That also is now going to need to be put to the test. These roads really chew up and spit out cars.

Please pray that I won't need to take the radiator out again. It's a lousy job! And even more so that my soldering will hold good.

Investing in the future

Dawn has begun to teach 2 high school students to read, write and to speak English. Why in Mozambique we speak Portuguese? Well these two young guys played volley ball with the outreach team and became very embarrassed when they couldn't understand what the rest were talking about. So they have asked to be taught so that next year when the outreach group arrives they will not be embarrassed again. It's so good to see how the people are just so eager to learn. Who knows we may even be able to to use Armando & Fransisco as translators next year.

My second best past time

Praise the Lord for the Jesus film generator. Having it here allowed me to be able to realise my 2nd best past time, repairing our leaking radiator again. (again would indicate why it is my second best. I'm not very good at it). But this time I took the tank off completely to get to the root of the problem. The generator helped so much because we are having such long power cuts every day now for 12 hours or more. It is now 9.05 pm and I'm waiting for the electricity to come back on so I can go and do my 3rd most favorite past time, Welding the back axle of our car which has sprung a leak on the factory welding so I will soon go and make a valiant attempt to repair the silly thing.

By now you are wondering what is my 1st most exciting past time; CHANGING TYRES! What else?

Praise & Thanks

As we have been away in the bush quite a lot lately with the outreach team, we have not had the opportunity to to say thank you to everyone who has been so faithful to the Lord Our vehicle replacement fund is slowly creeping up. THANK YOU

HECTIC BUT BLESSED

Wow what a time we have just had with the outreach group. It's been run, run & run. The group arrived on Monday 30th June after a 3 day drive from South Africa. We also had Walter & Rosie from Northern Ireland who arrived a few days before the group so that they could be part of the bigger group. There were 14 folks from SA, 2 from Northern Ireland, Dawn & I, Alberto and his wife Virginia and 4 translators.
On the 3 day drive up in three cars 5 tyres were ruined. We were able to organise that 2 new tyres be bought and brought from Beira. And we had some second hand tyres here which we were able to fit so the team had full complement for the return trip.

What did we do?
1) We went to a place called Mupengo (which means "crazy") and we planted a new church. The local believers from a few churches came to help. Soon we were demoted to being the helpers but blessed as we saw the local folks take ownership and build their church. We were able to show the Jesus film 2 nights and at first we estimated there to be over 700 people. But the second night there were easily double that number, about 40 people gave their lives to the Lord. God is sooo GOOD!

The ladies of the outreach were just blown away by the hunger to learn and the huge need there is for ministry to the women. The local women are for the most part illiterate and are under a massive bondage of "culture & tradition". They just do not have any say in what happens in their lives.

2) We returned to Espungabera to get washing done & also to help out at the Espungabera Church and the building of the pastors house at the church property. Again we showed the Jesus film & had good attendance with 7 young folks giving their lives to the Lord.

On Sunday morning we split up so we could get to more than one Church to preach. Roger, Alberto and a few folks went to encourage the folks at the Makumba Church we planted last year. When they got there they found only a little boy with a letter telling folks that the whole church had gone to visit in an area which is far away and there was a sick member there. No prizes for guessing where the next likely church plant is going to be. So on their way back they stopped at one of the first church plants at Mukuyana and had a wonderful service there.

3) We went to Bunga to help with the expansion of the church building. But when we arrived the biggest part of the work had been done. They did ask our help to go and fetch some of the roofing poles. So off a few of the men went. Shoe! These people are so on fire for the Lord. The distance that these men walk to get building material from the forest is to be experienced to be believed. Again were showed the Jesus film which we have done before here and 5 more people were converted.

BUT the Lord had us teach on some very urgent matters relating to multiple wives. In this area tradition runs very deep and especially the young men are wanting to force tradition into the church. And are putting the leaders into a lot of conflict with the headmen as well as the witchdoctors. Please pray for the leaders, they are the ones who are really at the work face chiseling away.

The group left on Friday 11th July. We were able to take a short break to catch our breath with Walter & Rosie.