Hey everyone!
So I have left Zimpeto and headed for Nelspruit, South Africa. I spent a day in South Africa and then headed back to Mozambique to the new center in Machava. It so good to be back here. A bit unexplainable, but I feel its like I've never left.
Today, me and my team went to my friend Carol and Otello's house and cooked lunch. I learned how to shave a coconut down, ate sugar cane, and learned how to make a traditional Mozambican dish-- Chicken!
Pictures soon!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Week 3
On Friday we went to the Boccaria in the city. The boccaria is the city’s dumpsite that people spend all day sorting through to find things that they can sell or keep. There’s also a small community at the bottom of the giant hills of trash where Iris Ministries has built a church. The plan when we arrived was half of us would go up to the top of the dump and the other half would walk around the community praying for people, and then we would meet at the church to have a small service.
The smell was so incredibly strong and there was smoke from the burning trash everywhere. Its one thing to see large piles of trash everywhere, and to smell years of rotting trash, but it really broke my heart once I saw people sorting through all of it. I decided to go with the group that went to the top to pray for people and invite them to the church service. About ten minutes after reaching the top, the people were getting upset that we were there. They said they didn’t want prayer and they didn’t want us there if we weren’t going to give them money or food. They started to make violent threats, so we decided to leave. We met the other group at the church and passed out food after the service.
This is one of the most difficult outreach I’ve done. We couldn’t give them money because that isn’t going to change their situation. We couldn’t bring food up there because it would start a riot. The whole thing is really hard to process and I really don’t know what else to say about it, but I’ll never forget that smell.
You can see more pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/cksoundgirl/bocaria
This weekend, I had an opportunity to stay out in the bush and see how people in Mozambique really live. We stayed at Pastor Pedro’s house with his wife and two girls. The whole thing was a bit awkward because Pedro was the only one who spoke English, but it was interesting nonetheless. We watched the England V. USA game and totally sung along to the national anthem out in the Mozambican bush!
That night Pedro’s daughter got really sick and at 2 a.m. him and his wife left to go the hospital. The next day it was just us four Americans and an 8 year old Mozambican who didn’t speak any English. A woman we had met the day before came by and helped us with breakfast and took us to church. Because Pedro wasn’t there, they asked us to start by leading worship. Thankfully my friend Michael has had a bit of experience in that, so he picked up the guitar. I think you all will be happy to know that I picked up the Jimbe and helped lead Mozambican worship! (Adam Chavez—you should be proud!)
Pastor Pedro and his family.
Ill post again next week! hopfully with a viedo this time!
The smell was so incredibly strong and there was smoke from the burning trash everywhere. Its one thing to see large piles of trash everywhere, and to smell years of rotting trash, but it really broke my heart once I saw people sorting through all of it. I decided to go with the group that went to the top to pray for people and invite them to the church service. About ten minutes after reaching the top, the people were getting upset that we were there. They said they didn’t want prayer and they didn’t want us there if we weren’t going to give them money or food. They started to make violent threats, so we decided to leave. We met the other group at the church and passed out food after the service.
This is one of the most difficult outreach I’ve done. We couldn’t give them money because that isn’t going to change their situation. We couldn’t bring food up there because it would start a riot. The whole thing is really hard to process and I really don’t know what else to say about it, but I’ll never forget that smell.
You can see more pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/cksoundgirl/bocaria
This weekend, I had an opportunity to stay out in the bush and see how people in Mozambique really live. We stayed at Pastor Pedro’s house with his wife and two girls. The whole thing was a bit awkward because Pedro was the only one who spoke English, but it was interesting nonetheless. We watched the England V. USA game and totally sung along to the national anthem out in the Mozambican bush!
That night Pedro’s daughter got really sick and at 2 a.m. him and his wife left to go the hospital. The next day it was just us four Americans and an 8 year old Mozambican who didn’t speak any English. A woman we had met the day before came by and helped us with breakfast and took us to church. Because Pedro wasn’t there, they asked us to start by leading worship. Thankfully my friend Michael has had a bit of experience in that, so he picked up the guitar. I think you all will be happy to know that I picked up the Jimbe and helped lead Mozambican worship! (Adam Chavez—you should be proud!)
Pastor Pedro and his family.
Ill post again next week! hopfully with a viedo this time!
Friday, June 11, 2010
Boccaria
Google "Boccaria Maputo, Mozambique" for pictures of the city dump I visited. Ill post a new blog about that next week.
Week One
Week one is finished and its been quite an experience. The first couple of days were spent relaxing and recovering from jet lag, but the rest of the week was pretty great. The Internet is pretty limited here, so it will probably be a couple of days before I can post any pictures or videos at an internet café. So I’m just going to post what I have now and follow up with pictures later!
Saturday was children’s day in Mozambique. Children’s day is a pretty huge celebration where kids get presents and candies and what not. And because I’m living at an orphanage, Children’s Day was that much more important. During the day, we went into the city and did some outreach for Children’s Day. We met a family at a park who live on the streets with four children. We had some time of worship and prayed for them and also gave them food. We had to be really careful when we were giving out food because people can start to riot and steal food. I guess last year, there was so many people at the park that they started throwing rocks at the people giving out food. Thankfully the whole thing went smoothly.
One distinct thing I remember about that day was talking with one of the mothers while we were waiting for the food truck to come. I was sitting next her talking about her baby and having a pretty good conversation (especially considering the very little Portuguese I know). Once the food came she kind of just stopped talking to me, stopped making eye contact, and just watched the cart of food as it passed by in front of her. I tried to ask her another question, but I don’t think she heard me. She was just so focused on the food; it really hit me how hungry she must had been. She wasn’t trying to be rude or anything, in fact I don’t even know if she realized she was doing it—it just had been that long since she had a meal. We gave out about nine meals, hugged them, said goodbye, and got ready to move on to the next group of people we would hand out food to. But the small interaction was just a glimpse of the hunger and the need of Mozambique.
One person I’ve met that has seen that hunger and that need is a missionary named Laura. She has been so kind to my team and I by inviting us over for dinner and taking us into the city. She used to work at Vanguard as an RD has sort of taken us under her wing and shown us a side of Zimpeto that not a lot of visitors see. She tells us stories of how some kids got to the center and the different things that the center does with abandoned or abused children that come through. Anyways, I’ll post some pictures as soon as possible! Have a great day everyone!
Saturday was children’s day in Mozambique. Children’s day is a pretty huge celebration where kids get presents and candies and what not. And because I’m living at an orphanage, Children’s Day was that much more important. During the day, we went into the city and did some outreach for Children’s Day. We met a family at a park who live on the streets with four children. We had some time of worship and prayed for them and also gave them food. We had to be really careful when we were giving out food because people can start to riot and steal food. I guess last year, there was so many people at the park that they started throwing rocks at the people giving out food. Thankfully the whole thing went smoothly.
One distinct thing I remember about that day was talking with one of the mothers while we were waiting for the food truck to come. I was sitting next her talking about her baby and having a pretty good conversation (especially considering the very little Portuguese I know). Once the food came she kind of just stopped talking to me, stopped making eye contact, and just watched the cart of food as it passed by in front of her. I tried to ask her another question, but I don’t think she heard me. She was just so focused on the food; it really hit me how hungry she must had been. She wasn’t trying to be rude or anything, in fact I don’t even know if she realized she was doing it—it just had been that long since she had a meal. We gave out about nine meals, hugged them, said goodbye, and got ready to move on to the next group of people we would hand out food to. But the small interaction was just a glimpse of the hunger and the need of Mozambique.
One person I’ve met that has seen that hunger and that need is a missionary named Laura. She has been so kind to my team and I by inviting us over for dinner and taking us into the city. She used to work at Vanguard as an RD has sort of taken us under her wing and shown us a side of Zimpeto that not a lot of visitors see. She tells us stories of how some kids got to the center and the different things that the center does with abandoned or abused children that come through. Anyways, I’ll post some pictures as soon as possible! Have a great day everyone!
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