Sunday, February 21, 2010

Rudy and I were just talking and trying to figure out where the last two weeks have gone. It has almost been a month already since our attempt at getting into Malawi which means we have to renew our one month visas this week. Thankfully we can do this right here in Lichinga and we don’t have to leave the country. This renewal will be good enough to do use till we go to Kenya.


Yes an opportunity has opened up for us to do a little bit of traveling at the end of Rudy’s time here. Lord willing on March 9th Peter will drive us six hours down south to the Cumba. We will over night there and catch a train at 3am the following morning. It will be around a 12 hour train ride to Nampula, where we over night once more and then catch a bus from there to Pemba. Iris has a base there in Pemba so we will stay there for a few days. We might have a chance to get to the beach there some as well as getting to know the ministry of Iris a bit better and then on the 16th we will fly from there to Nairobi, Kenya. My sister Joia and her husband Philip and their two children will be in Kenya for three weeks and so we will spend about two weeks with them. Philip is a doctor and will be helping in a hospital there during that time. We are excited about this it will kind of be a mini family reunion on the other side of the world. Lord willing I will fly back to Mozambique on the 30th and Rudy will fly home to Canada from Nairobi.


This means we only have ten days of work left till we start our 1,000km journey across Mozambique to the coast and then on to Kenya. We are very happy to finally have all the little details finished up on the round house. We finished the kitchen and poured small concrete patios outside the doors. Some of the ladies are going to make curtains for it this week. We probably won’t end up living in it before Rudy leaves. There is a man from South Africa coming to Lichinga this week and needs a place to stay for a few weeks so he is probably going to be living in the round house. I am looking forward to calling it home when I return from Kenya, I think it is going to be a nice little place for me for a while and maybe another guy if the Lord were to send someone.


Just a little note if anyone has a love for the Lord and would like to come and work along side us here for any length of time please feel free to send me an email and let me know. There are always plenty of things to do for people with any skill levels. I am not pressuring you but if God has already been speaking to you then maybe consider it.


The work on the admin building has come along quite well. We have had a few good days of block laying and the walls are up quite high. We have all the lintels poured over the doors and mainly we just have to build the walls up the rest of the way to the ceiling. It has been continuing to rain a lot almost every day so we often have to quit outside work for a few hours in the middle of the day while the storms pass.


What it was like when we started.

Where we have gotten so far.



This past Saturday morning we lowered the last five rings down into the well. We are very happy to see that there is over three meters of water in there now. That should be plenty of water as the Wilcox’s will be building a house down there next year, Christian and Christie have have just started building a house on that property as well and Lord willing in a few weeks there is a couple coming from the states who will be build there too. It is so exciting to see the new people that God is calling to come here, some for short term some for longer. We are happy to have them for any length of time.


Last Tuesday Rudy and I went to the prison with Tyren and Victor. I really like the time we can spend with the men in the prison. I am so encouraged when we can spend time with the men who have given their lives to the Lord. To see them worship the Lord as truly free men even though they are still locked behind high walls. God is bring transformation in there as His church in the prison is reaching out as his hands and feet to their fellow prisoners. Two Muslim men accepted the Lord while we were there and it is evident that there is a softening of the hearts of many more of Muslims. Please keep these men in your prayers there are about 20 or 30 out of the 300 or so who have accepted the Lord. Also prayer for the guards that their would be opportunity to speak into their lives and that they would have hearts ready to hear from Jesus.


Peter and Debbie went to Malawi for a few days the week before last because Debbie needed to go to the dentist. They were praying a lot that they wouldn’t have any problem getting across the border into Malawi after the trouble they gave Rudy and I. They went into the immigration office and the officer asked them “Are you Christians?” they reply enthusiastically “Yes we are?” This lead to a lengthy conversation with Him about the Lord and why they believe in God and why they have entrusted their lives into His care. After sometime the officer said “I think today is my time to give my life to the Lord.” It is so encouraging to meet people who’s hearts are open and ready to receive the Lord. Unfortunately it wasn’t the officer that gave Rudy and I a such a hard time but we will keep praying for him.



Here is Howard's roof completed.
A nice grass hopper pic Rudy took.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Roofing and More Roofing

As I said in my last newsletter Rudy and I were planning to go to Malawi last week Monday. We left early that morning and got to the border got stamped out of Mozambique and then we had to ride on the backs of bikes across no mans land to get to the Malawi border. We went into the immigration office and I told the man we wanted o come see his beautiful country and we were going to go to Blantyre to do some shopping for a few days. He Asked f were going to be doing anything else I said we were getting visas as well. He said oh so that is the reason you are coming to get visas, that is not a good reason to enter our country he said and that was it. I tried to negotiate with him for about an hour but there was no way. Now we weren't sure want to do. We went back to the Mozambique side and told them our problem. They said that they would issue us new 30 day visas which they really didn't have to do because really we were supposed to have left the country for a few days before they could issue us new visas. At first they we going to send us back to the Malawi border to try again. We said look they aren't going to let us in I said do you have a tent because we are going to have to camp out here in no mans land. Rudy said are you going to provide us with food and water at this point they started to understand our situation a bit better. We praise the Lord for the favor we found in their eyes. It ended up saving us several days which made t possible to get more work done here because we were back here in Lichinga that night. I unfortunately was not able to get my residence visa so I can't start my permanent residence process yet, but God's got that all in control I am sure.


Rudy and I also got to help putting a new roof on Howard’s (He is a quadriplegic) House, he lives in a small house and when it would ran it would leak on him and he would have no way to move. We spent a day and a helping helping with that.


Please pray I just heard that the Mozambican Government is thinking about letting a private Belgium company do all the issuing of documents for identification of nationals as well as foreigners. The Belgium company is wanting to up a lot of the id prices by sixty percent. They also want to up the DIRE(this is the document that I am wanting to apply for and the one that anyone needs to be able to stay on Mozambique for extended periods of time) price to $1000.00. This would mean that the total income for documents for one year would be around 206 million dollars the Belgium company would be taking 129 million and only leaving 77 million in the country. We would really appreciate your prayers for this that this proposal would not go through.


We can definitely tell it is rainy season now. It is raining for a few hours a day and sometimes all night. It has made it a bit difficult for us to work and we have often only been able to put in half days of work. Thankfully we now have the roof on the round house finished and we can do some work even when it rains. We have the kitchen half finished we just have to pour the concrete counter top and hopefully we can move into that house sometime next week. This is our goal anyways.


Last Thursday and Friday a group of about 20 people went to a village to show the Jesus film and many people came to the Lord as well as a few people being healed. We praise the Lord that several of the village leaders have accepted Jesus as Savior how before we very strong Muslims and some of them were apposed to the group coming at first. Read the full report on Jesse and Tanya's blog here kingsquestministries.blogspot.com.


We are looking forward to moving into our new house for a few reasons but one of which is there will be less places for the rats to hide. A couple of nights ago I walked into the bathroom and I shone my flashlight down and there was rat number five. He or she I'm not sure which ran towards me trying to get out the door but it ended up getting between my foot and the floor and that was it. Thankfully this one didn't get a chance to chew into any bags of flour or take a few bites out of my silicone spatulas which they seems to enjoy for some reason.


Tyren was gone for almost three weeks to Tanzania ministering in several churches there. You can find all the details of that trip on his blog here heartsforharvest.blogspot.com. Well worth the read.


I guess you have noticed I haven’t been doing well at getting newsletters out every week. I think I am going to try doing it bi-monthly and see how that goes. Thanks again for all your emails and prayers they are a great encouragement to us.


I am sorry I wasn't able to get any of these pictures in the post where I talked about them.


Rudy in Howard's Court Yard

My silhouette

Taking the old roof off



This little boy fell asleep while watching us.

The new roof going on.


Waiting for the grass to come.

That is Rachel sitting on the left and she was the one to get the ball rolling to do Howard's roof. She is an occupational therapist and so she has been helping him how ever possible.


A Giant Snail it was probably about 6 inches long.

Peak a boo

The village school

Where's Rudy

The framing was more difficult then we had first thought but it was fun doing it.

Just finishing off the last bit.
Well the roof is done we have yet to see if it is water proof.

We are putting in a bit of a kitchen.


Wall plastered and ready to pour the counter top.

We gave Peter a hand with a well he had dug a few weeks ago. We lowered Rudy down into the well because he wanted to. Then we lowered down a lot of sand and gravel for him to pour around the concrete rings. We lowered down three rings and we have 5 more to go.

Looking up from the bottom of the well.

Rudy is down there somewhere.


We do not always have the best cell phone reception so we have to get up higher sometimes. here Peter is standing up on there old Land Rover to try to hear better.

This is our next project when we are finished on the round house.