Mozambique: The least of these...

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We are now safe and sound back in Sydney but needed to finish off our last 2 countries! We left you in Rwanda last time we blogged. We flew Rwanda Air to Jo'burg in South Africa for a brief night's stay before we left for Maputo, Mozambique. At this point I was extremely grateful for having a dad who preaches and has friends all over the world cos we were met at the airport by 2 very friendly faces...leaders at a local church in Jo'burg who just happen to love my dad. They took us to our hotel (another Formule 1!) and then off to Rivers Church for a worship service. The service was amazing...felt like home cos all the songs were Hillsong and we'd known some of the pastors from back in Oz...Dean and Yanette Ivy. So we were spoilt with dinner and getting driven around everywhere and finally got a short sleep before heading back to the airport. When we got there, we were informed that our flight had been rescheduled back in early March but noone had told us so we had an extra couple of hours wait in the airport. Thankfully Jo'burg has a great departure lounge so the wait was pretty comfortable 😊

We were pretty excited arriving in Mozambique! Having read about the work of Iris Ministries in an amazing book called "There is always enough", I was anxious to see for myself the impact they were having on this country with a seriously troubled past. We had applied to spend a week at one of Iris' first centres, situated in Zimpeto, on the outskirts of Maputo. We weren't quite sure what to expect but after both reading the book on the way there, we were pretty sure it was going to be a challenging and inspiring week. On the way to Zimpeto, we got our first real glimpses of Mozambique. I guess Maputo looks like many other African capital cities...fairly developed infrastructure mixed with extreme poverty. Just near the centre, we noticed a big mental hospital with huge craters in its walls and roof. Apparently, an overlooked pile of ammunition in a nearby military base had spontaneously exploded a few months before and ammunition landed and exploded all around the area. This hospital was one of the victims. Miraculously, none exploded in the Iris centre though lots of the kids had exciting stories about running away from bombs that had landed nearby...what a crazy country! The sandy centre is home to over 400 children as well as pastors in training and short and long term missionaries. We were shown our place in the visitors compound...very glad to have the only 'couples' room...2 single beds stuck together with a double mattress straddling them 😊 The morning was spent orienting ourselves and meeting the other visitors. In the evening, we joined some of the older kids on a trip to a youth service in the city. We waited for our transport with some of the other visitors and up pulled 2 big flat bed trucks. Surely this can't be our transport, I was thinking! But sure enough we piled on top and headed into the city...all the while entertained by our very loud and cheeky teenage companions. Having done a lot of high school ministry back home, being surrounded by rowdy teenagers was a familiar scenario. Just that this time the mode of transport was rather different... as was the setting! The service was great and the kids get so into the singing and dancing...something I love about Africa! And they enjoyed teaching us some more Portugese (brushing up after Brazil 😊...) Kev also taught some Cantonese which they loved! It seems everyone in Africa assumes that Kev knows karate or kung fu because he's Asian...never knew I had such a dangerous husband. Sitting on the truck on the way home, we were chatting to one of the older boys who wants to be a worship leader one day. There we were, with an ex-street kid in Mozambique, singing Hillsong songs! What a small world...

The next day we joined a team doing 'street ministry' in Maputo. It turned out that we were going to preach to people in prison. Well, it was more like cells out the back of a police station. A fairly eclectic bunch of men filed out of their cell and sat on the ground before us. The guards said we didn't have much time there so one of the girls preached a brief gospel message, Kev shared a bit and we sung and prayed for the men before distributing bread and tracts. It certainly wasn't the way we would have liked to tell people about Jesus and they looked a little 'preached at', but time didn't allow for much more unfortunately. On the way back to the centre, we stopped to give out more bread to street kids. Apparently some of them do have families but they get treated so badly at home, that they prefer to live on the streets. It was pretty moving to watch the older kids from the centre reaching out to others who were living the life they used to live. I wanted to take them all back with us and give them a home, but for now, bread was all we could give.

One of the highlights of Mozambique for Kev and I were the times that we spent in the visitors compound. We were there to do ministry and hang out with the kids but when school was on in the mornings and we weren't on outreach, we got to hang out with Jesus in our room. I could probably talk for hours on all that God was doing in our hearts that week but I won't elaborate too much now. I'll just say that it was really significant for us, especially since we'd really been praying for God to speak to us and stir us about stuff while we were away. I guess in Mozambique, we stopped long enough to really listen! It was also really cool to hang out with some of the other short term visitors who inspired us with their own stories and convictions.

On the Wednesday, we took a little trip to one of the other Iris centres near Maputo. It was smaller and much more peaceful than Zimpeto and we had a little service there with some of the kids and pastors. One of the visitors with us preached on 10 minutes notice (they seemed to like throwing you in the deep end there!) and had me in tears. Pretty amazing watching the kids so passionate in worship too!

That evening Kev and I joined a 'home group'...a group of teenage boys meeting in their bedroom to worship, pray and share testimonies etc. They didn't have a leader so in one sense, it was inspiring to see these kids so motivated to know God, but it was also a little chaotic 😊

On Thursday we hung out with the kids at the centre...playing hopscotch and soccer and whatever else was on offer. The kids are pretty cute but some of them haven't been there long enough to forget their old ways on the street. ie they know how to get what they want! But they're learning... That night we had church...Zimpeto style! It was probably the most fun I've had in 'praise and worship' cos the kids go crazy dancing and jumping and spinning and pulling all of us along with them. Pretty memorable 😊

Friday was quite anticipated cos we were heading off to the Bocaria...Maputo's garbage dump. Heidi and Rolland Baker, the founders of Iris had written about how special ministering in this awful place was, so we were keen to see what it was like. The dump is what you'd expect...smoky and smelly and horrible. The poverty is so bad in Maputo that people live in permanent homes surrounding the dump and work collecting and selling bits and pieces they find there. They'll even eat food scraps they find. Our team split up and some of us went around the homes, praying for people and leading a crowd of children to the church service while others went and did the same on top of the dump. When we met in the simple little church building, we found it full of children and older women. I think the kids here were about as desparate for affection as the ones we'd come across in Kigali. At any point, I'd have one in my arms, others clinging to my skirt and others holding my hand. They'd literally fight each other over a hand! Once I had 4 little ones each claiming one finger of one of my hands. And I would tell them in very limited Portugese that they were beautiful and loved by our Jesus! All of our team were also prayed for by the kids...some looking as young as 18 months old! Pretty moving! We also gave out bread after the service which was fairly chaotic and tragic at times...the need is just so great!

We had some more spare time on Saturday morning and used it to get a little prepared for an overnight outreach that we were going on that afternoon. It was with a lovely Mozambican pastor called Raphael, who started a church in a little rural village about an hour out of Maputo. Just after he planted the church, his wife gave birth to their first child before dying 3 weeks later. So this is one courageous man! The team going with him to his village was made up of a few girls from the Bible college, 3 girls from Vanguard uni in the OC and Kev and I. We set off from Zimpeto with our bags and tents etc and experienced our first local bus ride. To the dismay of some of our team and the amusement of others, the bus operators were greedy for customers and filled the bus until we couldn't move. We couldn't believe they would just keep piling more people on when it was obvious the vehicle was holding probably twice as many passengers as it was designed to. Our bags were riding on the lap of the front passenger and we were relieved to be reunited with them when we got off 10 minutes later. Getting off was another challenge, since we were all at the back of the bus and had to squeeze through tightly packed bodies before emerging onto the sidewalk. On our next bus, we managed to secure seats. Others were not so lucky and were half bent over other passengers and half hanging out the door. Our dilapidated bus needed a push-start and the driver kept the engine running while he filled up with petrol, much to the horror of one of the Vanguard chicks. But we arrived and made our way to Raphael's home where we put up our tents in the front yard. Our first mission was to wander through the village and invite people to the church service held on the following morning, while praying for them and telling them about Jesus. In the market place, we attracted quite a crowd, especially when the Vanguard girls performed a stirring rendition of their favourite local worship song. Meanwhile, Kev was busy witnessing to a girl selling bread. It was dark by the time we returned to the house and the college students had been busy preparing a delicious meal for us. We gratefully partook and then joined a few of the church members for a brief but very inspiring prayer meeting. With no electricity, we gathered around a single candle and worshipped Jesus and prayed for the church. It was pretty special watching these simple people pray so passionately and express their deep need of Jesus...God was so attracted to that place!

There were a few laughs as we negotiated the pit latrine in the dark and settled into our not-so-comfy tents for the night. With the cold and the hard ground and the chorus of roosters throughout half the night, it was probably the worst night's sleep I've had in my life. But morning came and we got ready for church. The church is a very simple, small room made out of sticks and it slowly filled up with mostly children and a few adults. We sang and prayed and shared and gave and Kev brought a really great message! It doesn't get much simpler than that little church in Mozambique and yet God was there, just like He is with us in Sydney and with you, wherever you are in the world. It was another reminder for us of the body of Christ working in its many parts all over the world...what a revelation we've had of that on our travels!!!

After lunch, it was time to head back to Zimpeto and we crammed into another bus and were back without much hassle. Before long, Kev and I were on another bus with the 'Hospital Ministry' team, headed by another lovely young Mozambican called Domingas. He has such a passion for sick people that he visits the hospital about 5 or 6 times a week and prays for the patients and tells them about the love of Jesus and gives whatever he can. This time it was bananas 😊 We visited the children's ward, where there is a little boy called Alfred. He was abandoned in the hospital soon after he was born because he has hydrocephalus and his parents couldn't cope. He was discovered and 'adopted' (not literally) by Domingas soon after and he's been visiting him nearly every day since then. Alfred is now 6 years old, has a head the size of a basketball and a tiny body and is still in hospital. His only family is Domingas, who comes to play with him and feed him and make sure he's being looked after. I don't know if I've ever seen a better example of the love of Jesus in someone. And it reminds me so poignantly of the words of Jesus..."Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for Me." Walking around the wards was pretty heart-wrenching...seeing some of the tiniest babies I've ever seen and way too many children lying helplessly beside their devoted mums. But we were able to bring some hope, which was great!

That night we packed and said goodbye to the children and all our new friends and I had my last cold shower. Early in the morning, one of kev's new little friends, Morgan, met us at our car to say a sad farewell. Our time in Mozambique had been so rich and unforgettable. We were definitely going away changed...

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Comments

[Bethany]

Radical Love of God!
Reading this entry on Mozambique just puts me right back there, walking through each paragraph [because I was with you guys for most of those events :)] God bless you guys! I know that God is calling us all to great and impossible things, and His Love is just soooo soooo GREAT and ENORMOUS and RADICAL! May those precious and beautiful children of Mozambique know that kind of Love from their Father!!