Still in Beira

Dear Saints,

 

The time here in Beira has been very refreshing spiritually for me, but tiring physically because of the long days but this is the last day of the Women's Conference.  The topic of the conference has been "The Cry of a Woman".  The men have been welcome for some of the sessions and it has been a blessing, as they have been speaking on what it truly means to cry out as this is a main theme all the way through scripture.  There have also been good sessions on prayer that I am seeking to apply to my life.

 

These weeks have been a nice change from the construction work and a bit of change of pace but I am just about ready to be back at it.  We have got Albert's flight plans all finalized and looking forward to him coming.  Please keep his parents in your prayers as they are both dealing with medical issues at this time, the whole family would appreciate your prayers.

 

I misunderstood the price for the Internet when I had sent my last email out to all of you.  It is much cheaper then I had originally thought so I have been able to be on more then I thought I might.

 

We have been enjoy the convinces of running water and electricity while being here in Beira.  We feel very blessed especially because we often don't get back to the house and start making supper till 9:30 or 10 in the evening and this is much easier with light.  We do not have a stove so if we want to heat anything up we do it over a little charcoal burner.  I cooked over charcoal for my first time here.  A couple of mornings I have made French Toast.  It works quite well, but it takes sometime to get warmed up and you can't adjust the temperature other than that it is good.

 

I am also getting my exercise here.  I go for about a 3km walk each morning to get bread for all ten of us.  There are quite a few Portuguese Bakeries around.  We have to get fresh bread everyday because they don't put preservatives in it and it goes hard in one day or so.  I have been making French Toast to use some of the bread that is not so fresh anymore, but it makes great French toast.  When I am walking do the road I get to with in 100 meters of the bakery and I can smell the fresh bread.  I get it while it is still warm, there is nothing quite like fresh bread.  It is nice to get out first thing in the morning and there are lots of people out and some see me each day when I go and call out Mzungu, which means white person.  One day I bought some bananas from a lady that was selling them by the road.  I don't really understand much Portuguese but I could tell that she was excited and that she was telling here friends that a mzungu bought her bananas I think it made her day.

 

A few days ago I tried to change my flights by calling my airline back in the states on the Internet but the Internet wasn't fast enough.  I had to call with my cell phone which isn't all that cheap to call internationally, but I thought well I gotta do what I gotta do, so i called.  After being on the phone for over half an hour and using up all of the credit on my phone and being on hold for at least 15 minutes of that even though I told them i was calling from Mozambique and it wasn't cheap, I still do not have my flights changed.  It doesn't do any good for me to get upset, but it has made me realize that I need to have a travel agent to work through so in the future I don't have to deal with this.  I have found a travel agent in the states and they work specifically with people doing missionary work and get discount flights for them, so this is one good thing that has come out of my not so nice experience.  I am also wondering if the dates that I wanted to change my flights to are maybe not the ones that the Lord wants them changed to, so I am going to wait till I get back to Lichinga before I do anymore with that.  I am hoping that the Internet there will be good enough for me to call over the internet which is a lot cheaper.  Please continue to pray for me in this that I would know how long I am supposed to be here.

 

I received some wonderful news this week that my brother Tim and his wife Stephanie had their fourth daughter Vivian Estelle Woodford weighing 8lbs 9ozs, she was born last Saturday and now I am a proud uncle of five nieces and one nephew. Thanks be to God.

 

I pray you all have a blessed week till you here from me next time.  Thanks so much to those of you who keep me updated on what you are doing, for those of you who haven't written in a while let me know what you are up to I would like to hear from you.

 

In Christ,

 

Andrew