Christmas cookie party!

We have started a little tradition: A Christmas cookie decorating party! We did it last year and now again this year. We invited the neighbor children over to join the fun. I bake the cookies the day before. This year we had 9 children, including our 3! I make popcorn to fill the tummies if they are hungry. The cookies are not for eating at my house. They are to take home! I didn't want sugar high kids in our house!

We had the party on Saturday. On Friday, almost of the children were at our house playing, so we took the opportunity to do the Christmas story as a drama. The children really enjoyed that, playing angels, shepherds, wise men. The point of the cookie party is to use the cookie shapes to explain the Christmas story to the children and remind them when they go home. The children who had done the party with us last year remembered the story quite well. The other neighbor children who had not done it last year were wide eyed and I'm not sure how much they caught. They come from a Muslim home and they also do not understand Portuguese that well. But it is a start!

Well, I wrote this almost a month ago, and didn't get it posted due to internet problems. I guess I'll post it now. Better late than never.

Raising Multi-Lingual Children

"Mo MO mo!" Joshua's worried voice carries from out of their bedroom. Upon arriving, I see the reason for his distress. A little gecko has managed to get on the inside of his mosquito net, thus almost becoming Joshua's bed partner! (Sorry, I didn't run grab the camera. If I would have, you could have seen Joshua's mo mo mo). Well, we shoo the little gecko outside and Joshua settles down to sleep.

Momomo (pronounced with all long vowel sounds for the O and the stress on the second sylable) is the baby word here for bug. I can't really say "momomo" is Portuguese or Yao, it is local baby language and Joshua has picked it up. Thus any bug is a moMOmo..... and the word is also used to scare a small child or warn him from going somewhere. All you need to say is "MoMOmo" and the child stops in his tracks (or runs to see if you are pointing at something and curiosity beats out fear!)

Joshua is speaking more words these days and it is fun to hear his little commentaries. He also takes his turn to pray at meal times. His prayers are mostly unintelligeable, but the AMEN is clear!

Our children are growing up multi-lingual. It is intentional. We had wanted them to know English and Swahili (one of Victor's languages.) And of course they have picked up Portuguese here as well as some ChiYao.Most of Joshua's words are English, but he prefers using "agua" for water and "aviao" for airplane (we live in the landing path to the airport so the airplanes fly over regularly!)

Victoria just ran in to tell me that the neighbor children who are here playing, who generally speak Yao are speaking Portuguese with them, so they are getting along together just fine. Although, I'm sure they would have figured out how to understand each other anyways.

I was reminded how much the children have learned Portuguese when we had a visitor for lunch last Friday who spoke primarily Chiyao. Victor and I managed to follow the conversation in Yao, but Clara kept asking "What did she say, Mom?" "What did she say?" That reminded me that a year ago, the girls were doing the same thing when I talked with Maria, the lady helping in our home, in Portuguese. They wanted a translation of EVERYTHING we said. But now they rarely ask for translation as they generally follow the conversation.

I insist that when the children start a sentence in one language, that they finish in the same language. But then I find myself slipping in a nice Portuguese word into an English sentence. Oops! I need to practice what I preach!

Anyways, sorry for the long delay in adding a new blog post. Our life went from the rigorous pace of DTS to a daily routine, but somehow that daily routine keeps me busy too. I'll try to steal minutes here and there to continue to give you glimpes into our life here.

DTS Graduation

The big day came. The DTS graduation took place at our training center here in Lichinga on October 22, 2011. We graduated 20 students. With gratefulness in our hearts to the Lord we sang praises and celebrated the great work He had done in and through our students.

The couple pictured above receiving their certificates are just one testimony of God's grace. The husband shared his testimony during the graduation service, explaining how before he loved women and lived in unfaithfulness to his wife. He viewed his wife as just someone at home to serve him. But he has now repented and they are planning to go back home to legalize their marriage. They came up hand in hand to receive their certificates. Just watching them makes you smile as they are obviously enjoying a new found friendship and intimacy that came from 5 months of growing in the Lord together and serving Him.
This couple has 4 children and gave testimony to God's work: The husband now understands and has stepped into his responsibilities as husband, father, and leader of the home. The wife understands how she needs to invest more in her children. Before their children would occasionally be sent off to live with different relatives but now the parents want all their children under their roof, recognizing their responsibility not only to care for them physically but also to teach them God's ways. They still have a long ways to go. but they have a good start down the right path. This family and the other family returned to a village on the lake and immediately were involved in teaching in a seminar that their pastor had organized! Their time of outreach is not finished! It has only begun as they return home to serve! Pray for strength and protection for them!


The students were so excited to receive their certificates! This is a happy picture and a sad picture as this group will probably never again be together this side of heaven. Good byes are hard after having invested so much time and energy and heart in living, learning, and serving together!

Family Time

The 3 months of the lecture phase of the DTS (Discipleship Training School) was intense for our family as we moved out to the training center and immersed ourselves in the school. The last couple weeks have been stretching, with Victor gone transporting the DTS teams to their outreach locations and spending some time with them in the different villages.

So it was high time for some family time. What do we do for family time? Well, one favorite activity has become riding bicycles at the airport. Why the airport?

Our yard looks like this:
The grass and dirt are uneven, not conducive to learning to ride a bicycle.

However, the airport has long stretches of pavement as well as a nice park section with hard packed dirt trails. Most days, only one airplane comes and goes, creating activity at the airport only a couple hours of the day. In the afternoons, it is a deserted place, a nice quiet place for family time!So we enjoyed a nice time there together.
Happy faces! All agreed that it was a good time together as a family. Well, I guess Joshua agreed too. These days, any question you ask him, you get a "Yah" as a response. What an agreeable little fellow!

So there you had a peak into one of our family times!

Going Forward

Well, time marches on. The last blog entry was about our grief over the loss of the new baby. But like I said, time marches on. The days pass. Thank you for your prayers for the parents of this baby! Not only have they lost a baby, but they are facing some stiff opposition from family members (a father!) over their recent baptism and decision to follow Christ. Their families follow traditional Islam. But this couple's faith is growing and maturing, in the midst of these trials! Thank you for your many prayers!

I would like to show some pictures of the outreach time....but we currently don't have any! When I get some, I'll post some. I'm home with the children and Victor is out with the team in a village with the camera. Maybe when he comes home, I'll have some pictures.

But here are a few verbal snapshots of highlights so far from the outreach time of our Discipleship Training School:

Hearing their voices over the air waves: One team spent 2 weeks in a Yao village where there is a Yao community Christian radio station. Our students were able to share testimonies and Bible stories on the air! One student also gathered a group of children to sing songs for the radio station. We hear from the missionaries there that the team was a blessing there!

Now that team moved on to a village far north. Victor drove them there. While there, he saw some elephants! Cool, right? Well, not for the locals whose garden the elephants were trying to invade. The elephants are protected because that land is a game reserve. But do the locals ever have a nightmare trying to shoo the big beasts out of their gardens! You thought bunnies were bothersome!

Another team stayed a couple weeks with a Christian family in a village of about 800 with only about 6 known believers! The team was a great encouragement to the few believers. Even the way the 9 of the team members lived together peaceably was a testimony!

They faced some opposition from community members who didn't want more Christians around! But overall, they had a good time. They had a "Nicodemos" friend, a young man who would come at night to learn more about God. He came in the dark because he was afraid of his father.

The team that stayed here in Lichinga is finding openness among the neighborhoods that surround the YWAM base. It is good to have their efforts focused here.

The neatest part is watching (or for me hearing second hand) the students blossom in their spiritual gifts! They began their outreach time enthusiastically but also hesitantly! Would they be able to teach, preach, evangelize, and share their testimonies? For most of them, these are new big steps they are taking! And they are finding that God is enabling them to do what He has called them to do! They are beginning to find out what their giftings are and that is exciting.

Please continue to pray for the outreach teams, and their leaders.

Grief!

We have passed through the valley of the shadow of death. The Lord has been with us, but the loss still tears us up inside. The little baby whose birth we celebrated last week, little Leonel, entered the local hospital at 2am Wednesday morning because he was having a hard time breathing. At one point, his breathing even stopped. He was diagnosed with pneumonia. We all prayed fervently. But the Lord took him home Thursday morning at 2am. How the young parents are grieving! Last year they lost their first son just after he had learned to walk. He died from malaria. Now, once again, they are childless. We are all heartbroken. The mother sing songs her grief, telling the story of what happened, recounting every detail that reminds her of her lost son and the grief she feels. Our face grow wet with tears too.

Yesterday was the funeral. We face death directly here. Our Ywam leader arranged for a local carpenter to build the tiny casket, a wooden box with a black cloth nailed to it, with a white cross on top. Our Ywam leader's wife helped dress the body in the morgue. Then as the father and relatives watch, they placed the body in the coffin.

I drove our car the 2 hours down the mountains to the village on the lake where the burial was held. For the most part, it was a silent ride. The father and mother and close family were in my car, as was the tiny casket holding the little body.

Once we arrived at the village, we had to wait 2 hours while the men dug the hole. We women, probably around 20 of us, sat outside of the grandparents' home and sang....for 2 hours. We would run out of songs, but then others would prod us on: "Sing! It is your job."

Then we had to wait another 1/2 hour as an uncle had gone to the local mosque for the 1pm prayers. Finally, all was ready. They opened the casket in the grandparents' home and people could file by to say goodbye. Then the casket was carried outside, and the family and friends gathered around. It was a mixed group of Christians and Muslims. One of our YWAM friends gave a powerful message, challenging everyone to be ready for their day of meeting the Lord. To be ready, is to be covered by the blood of Jesus.

Then I drove the car with the family members inside slowly down the road, the 1/2 mile to the cemetery. Behind me followed the crowd of villagers and friends, children running alongside the car. Then there was another message and prayers at the grave site and then the family threw clods of dirt into the hole. Then the men line up to take turns filling the hole while we all watch. The last job is to push the wooden cross into the fresh mound and put little flowers on the grace. I dissolved into tears when I went to place the wilted pink wild rose on the dirt pile on the grave. How can a mother watch her beloved child be buried? As our YWAM leader's wife led out in song, "Hallelujah, there will be a New Jerusalem." And then we could go home.

Some of the heaviness was gone now. We ate some food prepared for us.....fresh little fish the size of your fingers....you eat it head and all.....and rice. We met the family of both the father and mother of the deceased. Then by 4:15, we had to head to the car to make the climb back up to Lichinga before dark. The family stayed behind to complete the three days of mourning with their family. Traditionally, there would be more ceremonies to do, but since this young family are new Christians, they have announced that these ceremonies will not be necessary.

My children were well cared for during the day by special friends in Lichinga.

Well, I didn't plan to write so much, but maybe it is therapeutic for me to process in this way. We appreciate you prayers.

FESTA! PARTY!

Friday, August 19, was declared by our DTS leader (my husband :-) to be a day of feasting and rejoicing in the faithfulness of God during the last three months of the lecture phase of the DTS. Our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had commanded his people in the Bible to have feasts and celebrations throughout the year to commemorate different things.

We had many reasons to celebrate. While finances are always a big challenge here, this DTS we had not gone hungry one day. In fact, due to God's abundant provision and the careful frugal planning of our staff, Rachel, in charge of the kitchen, we had left over finances. (She was feeding us, a team of 42 people, on just over a dollar a day per person.) We had enjoyed good health! Our hearts were made glad by the baptism and testimonies of 5 of our friends who had been baptized last week! Lives had been changed. Marriages and families had been strengthened. All of our guest speakers had been able to come and had blessed us with godly teaching. We had every reason to celebrate!

So while the students cooked almost all day, we staff decorated the lecture hall. Using tablecloths, fresh flowers, balloons, sea shells, and candles we prepared the room for the feast.
Happy faces lit up the room as staff and students gathered for the meal. The couple pictured is our YWAM leader and his wife who also staffed the school with us, pouring out their time and energy to disciple the students.

Ready for more details? The menu: Grilled chicken (the 10 chickens were purchased alive....so they had to be slaughtered, plucked, and then grilled), French fries (again...all the work of peeling, cutting and frying done by hand), rice cooked in coconut milk (coconuts bought, then cracked and the meat/pulp manually scraped out and soaked in hot water to capture the flavor), one or two prawns per plate, cooked greens (leaves of the mandioca plant), and orange Fanta (the city was out of Coca Cola or other flavors).

We ate by candlelight with classical piano music playing (that may have been a first for students from the villages!). After the meal, we put on African praise music and the students danced wholeheartedly! During the meal, we had rolling a power point of 500 photos taken during the school, reminding us of the events of the last 3 months. We had also invited the 3 volunteers who had watched the children during the classes so that the mothers could also participate in the classes. We thanked them for their labor of love. The picture below, I was handing them a thank you card.
And it was just like our God to put the icing on the cake. One of our students was expecting a baby any day and had been with labor pains for the past 24 hours. She had been having contractions on and off for the past week. We had prayed often with her for the baby to come at the right time! Friday morning around 8:30am I took her to the local clinic/birthing center. The clinic was being renovated so we were told to go to another clinic further down the road. We waited a bit more at home first and around 11:30am she wanted to go as the pain was increasing. So I went with her and stayed with her for the next three hours as she labored painfully. Meanwhile another woman arrived breathless at the clinic, having walked the whole way to the clinic (between 1 to 2 miles), and half an hour later gave birth to a little girl....right there in the bed next to where Rosa lay. The newborn struggled as it had inhaled some fluid and for several minutes I was scared that she was going to die right there. She stopped breathing a couple times and the nurse midwife was bagging it and tapping its chest. I was praying! Anyways, the baby lived.

Another staff, Rachel, came around 2:30pm to relieve me and stay with Rosa. Rachel is a midwife so I was more comfortable to have her there, although I didn't want to leave my friend. But I had my own children I needed to look after as well as decorate for the party. I went throughout the rest of the afternoon with Rosa heavy on my heart. The nurse/midwives here often verbally abuse the women, showing no compassion and shouting such things as "You stopping screaming or your baby will die!" Any Christian midwives reading this.....there is a huge mission field here for training Christian compassionate midwives! The workload here is heavy!

Anyways, like I said....the icing on the cake. At 5:40pm, about 1/2 an hour before we were ready to sit down and eat, we got the message: A little baby boy had been born! Mom and baby were well! A huge sigh of relief...... running to give the message to the father..... happy shouts, hugs of congratulations, impromptu dancing, hearts beating! Let the party begin!!! Only our God could have orchestrated the birth of this special baby to be right before our "festa" to multiply our joy!
The next day we brought Rosa and her little one home to the YWAM base. Thank you Lord that all is well!

This morning Victor left with a car load of students, bringing them to the village first on their list for their 2 months of practical outreach time. Pray with us for them as they transition into serving and ministering to the people in the villages. Pray with the DTS staff who are leading these outreach teams.