Life Glimpses: Finally A Few More Picture

Here are a few pictures of the Iris base in Chimoio that is in the middle of building their orphanage. They have a few orphans already and have a large property to work with there.

This is one of the buildings that was on the property when they bought it. There is a family living in here taking carry of a few orphans.

This is the orphanage that will house forty boys when it is complete. I was quite impressed with the quality of the work the brick layers were doing here.

Last Sunday while I was still visiting with the Pavkov’s in Chimoio, I went to church with their neighbors Jacob and Jayne. They are missionaries from the US as well. Jacob had been invited to speak at a church they had never been to before. They were told the service would start at 9am. Most services here don’t start on time so were we there by 10am and there were very few people there. We sat under a grass shelter with some of the elders for about an hour. Then because things wouldn’t be starting for a while yet we went to someones house and they served us a meal. We had sima, goat meat and cold cokes which are a real treat out there. As we were driving in the car I was telling Jacob and Jayne that I had never had the chance to eat goat before. It was my first and hopefully not my last time to eat it.

Around 12 noon we walked back to the church and waited around for a little while longer then by 12:30 people started sing and things got underway. It was a good reminder that much of the African culture is not under time constraints like I am us to. It was a very different service then Jacob, Jayne or I had ever seen. They sang and danced in the little church that only had very tiny windows for about 45 minutes. After the first 15 minutes or so they took us outside because it was so dust, having a dirt floor and so many people dancing in there it was a little hard to breath. Once they were finished sing we went back in and their was a couple standing there with their baby. They went through quite a ordeal as they sprinkled the baby and both the parents. They throw water all over them and then they lit these piece of paper on fire and moved them all around the heads of the three. They weren’t speaking in Portuguese so we didn’t really understand much of what they were saying so we are not sure what the significance of all they did was. I try not to come to too many conclusions on my own. Jacob never did end up preaching, we are not sure why maybe they forgot they had asked him or what but you just go with the flow.

Many people waiting outside.

A group of the women waiting at someones hut.

This is where we were invited to come have the sima and goat meal.

This is after the service they were taking up a collection for the baby that was baptized

The little drummer girl.

On our way back to Chimoio Jacob and Jayne took me by the house they are building. They are making a cob house. Which means they have built walls out of brick and then they coat the inside and outside with a mixture or clay, cow manure and straw about five inches thick on both sides. The house has no square corners, yes they meant to make it like that. It is stronger with rounded corners and with the walls made out of these materials it is insulated well to keep it cool in summer and warm in the winter. They are at the stage right now where they are making trusses with a 59’ span. If you don’t know that is really big. They are trying to figure out if they can get them up by hand or if they will have to rent a crane. I found it very interesting to see the way they are building. They would have loved it if I could have stayed around for a few days to help them with the trusses but I really felt I should get back to my language studies.

Jacob and Jayne.

This is there cob house. You would never guess there is cow manure in the walls would you?

Here we have one of the very large trusses.

That evening when we got back Andrea Pavkov invited Jacob and Jayne over for supper and we all had excellent Chicken tacos together and Ice Cream for dessert. I enjoyed Andreas cooking so much. It sure beat my Peanut Butter and Jam sandwiches. I mean I can make a pretty wicked PB&J sandwich but they get old after a while. It was very nice to be there in Chimoio with the Pavkovs and maybe I just might get to go and visit them again before I leave Beira.

Marc, Jayne, Jacob, Nate, Micah and Andrea

Monday morning Marc took me to catch the bus at 5am and I was back into Beira by 8:30am in plenty of time to make my 10am Portuguese lesson. This week I have started to feel a little overwhelmed as my brain started to tell me it could not process all that it was taking in. On Thursday my teacher told me that we were about one week ahead in the text book from what is normal, so maybe that is why I felt a little overwhelmed, because we have plenty of time we spent Thursday and Friday just talking and trying to use what I have learned so far. It is helping a lot. On Thursday my teacher had me go around to the different teachers and interview them and find out as much information as I could about them, their family’s and where they live. I am still using very broken Portuguese but I am starting to be able to communicate a little. I don’t have to point so much in the market anymore so that people know what I want.

Monday evening Felix called me up and asked if we could get together sometime. I met him Tuesday evening. He wanted to know more about mac computers. We talked about computers for maybe half and hour then the conversation moved to the Bible for the next two hours. Felix has many questions but also seems to know quite a bit about the Bible and he had brought his Bible with him. He has had a lot of teaching in Malawi. I am concerned about some of the things he has been taught but I see in him a genuine hunger to know the truth. Please continue to pray for both of us as we continue to meet.

My buddy Felix.

I thought I would just include a few pictures of the house here where I live and the area around.

This is the back yard behind the house. Along the left you see chicken coops.

Chissico (he is my teacher) he owns this place and there are several young guys living here as well. They take care of raising the 1,000 chickens for about 3 months then they get a new batch.