Following are the details of our first full day of work during our mission trip to Mozambique, Africa.
Monday morning breakfast was served at 7am. Zef came to pick us up and took us to a currency exchange facility where we exchanged $3000 US Dollars for 73,500 New Meticals. We then headed off to the headquarters of the Methodist Church of Mozambique where we were able to meet with the new Bishop, Joaquina Filipe Nhanala. She is the first female Bishop in Africa and a truly amazing woman. She had just recently returned from a Bishops’ training conference at the North Georgia United Methodist Church Retreat Center at Simpsonwood.
Bishop Joaquina had just been appointed and this was her first week on the job. We spent the morning talking with her and found that her priorities are very much in line with what we hope to accomplish in Mozambique. She feels that the key to helping her fellow countrymen is to introduce them to Jesus Christ. One of the best ways to attract the people is to first provide an easily accessible supply of clean drinking water, her people’s greatest need. At the well site they can then build a parsonage to house a pastor who would offer church services at the home until such a time that a church can be built and finally a school.
We learned from the Bishop that there are 90 churches in the southern conference of Mozambique and 135 in the northern conference, plus an additional 52 sites for future church planting. 90% of the people at these locations get their drinking water from rivers, streams, ponds and marshes. This means that over 200 of the churches in Mozambique could use wells to provide fresh clean drinking water along with their message of hope. We are beginning to see the scope of our task.
After our meeting with the Bishop, we returned to the guest house for lunch and to plan the balance of the week’s activities. That evening before leaving the guest house we had another great dinner.
After dinner, we were invited by Zef to the English class he teaches at the local university. We were able to participate in the class by conversing with the students in order to let them practice their English and to see if they could understand us with the different accents we each have. Not that Melody and I have accents, but it seemed to the class that Eric did have a bit of a Southern accent. They were extremely warm and friendly with lots of questions. Everyone wished there had been more time to interact. It was a great opportunity to meet these students who are soon be the new leaders of their communities, in both business and government.
After class we returned to the guest house and had the opportunity to meet Claire Cunningham. She is a missionary that was born in Zimbabwe and is now living in the Northern part of Mozambique. The guest house we stay in is used by many people affiliated with the church. It is a place of comfort where you can have a hot shower (most of the time), get a good meal, have a clean comfortable bed and wake to a great breakfast.
We finally turned in around 11pm for our night’s rest.
Labels: africa, mission trip, mozambique
