Bible School

Tomorrow we have Bible school again for the week. And then we have our AIM Mozambique conference after that so we are going to get very busy again. We would appreciate your prayers as Dawn stays at home this next week alone. And then as we go to the conference.

A short break

It has been a great few days time off. We have been in Chipinge with Hendrik and Meryl. It was a much need time off.

How do you eat an elephant?

How do you eat an elephant?

So how do you eat an elephant?  Easy, “Invite the family”. Together you can get through the elephant, one mouthful at a time.

It’s 2002, and AIM has placed two people in Espungabera, a town in rural Mozambique. Their mandate is to work with the local church, tiny at the time, to develop and mentor leadership & to plant Churches. The elephant on their plate was enormous, more like a prehistoric mammoth, but for two South Africans, Jinx and Dawn Reyneke, flinching wasn’t an option. They knew the Lord had called them to the work. After prayerfully settling four growing-up daughters and two sets of parents they ‘put foot’ which is Jinx’s description for getting on with it, quickly.

Anyone who knows Jinx and Dawn will tell you that these two don’t sit around watching flies land on cows and within a few years the gospel was preached mightily, the Church had grown and there were many baptisms. But a handful of people can only eat so much elephant before their tummies start to get sore.

Now, Mozambique seems to have a simple 3-rule road infrastructure; ‘this way’ and ‘that way’ and ‘mind the potholes’. With new Church plants stretching up to one hundred & thirty five kilometres from one end to the other, the work quickly became a mobile ministry. Thousands of hours were spent driving and Jinx was spending hundreds of hours under the hoods of hapless vehicles that the Moz bush roads chewed into pieces, with Dawn patiently serving coffee by starlight. Lots of coffee. South African friends who made short term visits annually didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when the stories came out via newsletter.

Jinx once blogged… “It has got to the stage where the repairs and maintenance are keeping me out of what the Lord has called us to do. Namely planting Churches and training Church leaders as well as heading up the "new" team of missionaries which are coming to enable the work to go forward through discipleship in all the local Churches.

In the early days they only dreamed of heading up a full team of missionaries and for many years they were alone. The work had been growing and the local men whom the Lord had called as village Church leaders needed help. One village pastor walked to Espungabera through the night with his sick child in his arms, only to have the child die a few metres in front of Jinx and Dawn’s home.  The Reyneke’s work under a fabulous leadership team who are always willing to pray, assist and mentor, but the team is based in Beira, hours and hours away on the death chilling roads, each member also in fulltime ministry.

It became clear that help was needed to eat this elephant. What to do?

“But God…”  (Don’t you love these words?) But God had a plan.

As well as providing reliable transport, the Lord had been preparing the hearts of Walter and Rosie McCorkell from Northern Ireland and Cecilia from Brazil to join the Reyneke’s.  Prayer, time and, yes, some tears, brought these three workers to Espungabera. They needed accommodation so basic house building started,  Jinx even falling from the roof one day onto a pile of bricks but the Lord spared him from serious injury.  Many friends from Pretoria drove the 2-day journey to help with the work together with friends from the Church in Ireland

The ‘family’ had been summoned to help eat the elephant.

Thousands of miles away, while this was happening, the Lord was preparing even more family to come to Mozambique, five in all.  The Roloff’s and Jen Jacobs are from USA and the Dyck’s are from Canada. These folks are in Missions preparation and will need housing when they arrive.

AIM International has opened a building project to provide simple, basic housing for the new Missionaries arriving in Espungabera in 2012/13. Will you help Jinx, Dawn and the Moz team eat the elephant?  If you’re hungry and part of the family you’ll be welcome.

For more thrilling instalments on the Moz family go to www.JinxDawn.blogspot.com

Funds may be sent to your nearest AIM office. Please quote the project name and number Mossurize Construction Project; SR-MOZ-152-U

Zimowane, burning of the witchcraft trinkets

The latest

In the last 2 weeks we have negotiated to buy a house from a man in Espungabera. It has the roof on and is plastered inside. But all the rest needs to be done. Namely the floor, ceiling, electrics, plumbing plaster of outside. Window frames need to be put in and glazed. This house is in preparation for the Roloff family coming in February next year. It sounds like it is a long time away but is just around the corner. We have an outreach team coming from the USA to help with the build for about 2 weeks in mid August.
The situation is that we got a loan for the buying of the house but have no finances to finish it at this stage. So please will you pray that the funds will come in. There is a project registered for this with AIM (Africa Inland Mission). Its Mossurize construction project SR-MOZ-152-U Please quote the project number if you feel led to help in this way.

Gospel to the unreached

Holy Trinity Church Pmb Outreach 2012

A bit of the forest cleared out for the new Church

LIFT team 2012

Preperation visit

Dawn and I have just had Pam & Geoff visit with us for a few days. They help co-ordinate and get prepared for new medical missionary doctors coming out to the field. We were able to go and visit 3 rural clinics and as well had a grand tour of them all. Then lastly we were able to visit the main district hospital in Espungabera. And the leadership of the hospital are all very eager to get the new doctor. So Pam & Geoff helped me a lot in thinking through what needs to be done in preperation of Russell, Nicole and family. We are not wanting to have them overloaded/committed and they get discouraged. Please pray for the wisdom in dealing with govenment officials so we don't creaate expectations which can't be met.

Middle of April

Again we have been overwhealmed by God's goodness to us. As we recieved a team from Northern Ireland, LIFT (labour in faith and trust) they came to help us get Walter & Rosie's house completed. What a blessing as they brought fellowship, friendship and a hole bunch of fun with them. Thanks you so much. We all enjoyed being with you and the way you guys got stuck in. It is a massive step for us to get all done what you did in a few days.

End March & beginning April

We were blessed, we were blessed, la,la,le,la. Our home Church, Holy Trinity Church Pietermaritzburg sent their first outreach to us. This has been a long time prayer & hope for us that we would get a team come. It was just so great having a really mixed team, some quite young and the older folks. Anotheer blessing on the team was Rob. Although he mentioned that he is older but never the less we appreciated his input. The youngsters, local people are still commenting on how they got involved and for the most part willingly. Thanks guys. Just our daily lives out here is a wonderful testimony.

With the HTC outreach team we were able to plant a new Church at Zimowane. This is a area where Mateus from Makumba has been visiting over the last year from time to time. It is quite a trip to get there and the reception was fantastic. Such friendly people. We were able to show the Jesus film a few times with upto 300 folks at the one showing. And would you know it or we should have expected something, as Satan would not be happy us making in-roads.

The ageing DVD machine let out a bit of a smell and one of the parts which is factory filled with smoke let the smoke out! KAPOT! So what now? It is just amazing how God provides for the Gosple to go out. There was a young man in the crowd who in the middle of the bush had a DVD machine and loaned it to us, So the rest of the film was seen by all.

Another cool thing was seeing Craig get down a boogie with the local folks as they sang choruses and danced. It's true white folks have no rythum. The next morning we had a man and his family come and were converted. They brought along all their trinkets from the witchdoctors to be burnt and destroyed. The Lord is good

Team building time

March we set aside a week as a team to have opportunity to get together, pray, talk and re-connect. We, being Walter & Rosie, Cecilia, Dawn & myself had not realised how tired some of us actually were. When we got to Xai-Xai, to Nascer do Sol. I got Walter's and my fishing rod all sorted out ready to go and get that big one for our supper. Well we didn't starve but we also had no fish. The whole week we were just too tired to muster the energy to go down and enjoy some fishing.

Never the less, we had a good time and came back relaxed and ready to face things again. It was just such a reminder that we are on call 24/7 in our ministry places, Espungabera and Siyabuzana. That to find time off or time to rest is just so very difficult. Not like in the city where you simply close the door of your house and nobody bothers you.

Feedback on Nairobi trip

The week's conference was a great time to meet with other folks who are all passionate about planting Churches. We had a number of presentations on a completely "new" or different approach to Church planting. Starting with a different way of thinking of; what is a Church. In this presentation it is 2 believer's/families who meet regularly. That is very broadly stated. And their whole approach to how and who does the Church planting. This to the western way of thinking is almost unheard of. Where traditionally we get ourselves prepared and then go out. Wow! some challenging ideas for sure.