Back in Lichinga

Hello from Cuamba,

 

We thank the Lord for the safety He has given us so far, in traveling here to Cuamba.  We left Beira Thursday morning.  We drove 7 or 8 hours.  The Wilcox's minus Annelisa stayed at Africa Wa Jesus again.  Rachel, Annelisa and myself rode with Pastor Mario and one other man in his car.  Mario is the pastor of the church in Beira where we were.  The five of us were supposed to have a place to stay in the small town of Caia.  That fell through and it was a good thing we had brought tents just in case because we needed them. 

 

Before we found out that our accommodations fell through we were filling up at the gas station and I saw really nice grass there at the station which we don't see very often.  I said I hope if we stay in tents we can set our tents up on nice grass like that.  Once we found we had no place to stay we drove back to the gas station because that was the only place around and asked if we could pitch our tents behind the station.  There was a place that was all dirt and quite flat that we were going to use.  Then the Portuguese manager of the station came out and called us over to the little house were some of them stay and there was a chain link fence around it and there was a very nice grass yard all around for us to pitch our tents on.  I was so excited I was thanking the Lord for this blessing, because it made it so much more comfortable sleeping.  They also found us some plastic tables and chairs.  We sat down in our nice little camp site and had supper and then had a good time of share about the things of the Lord for an hour and a half before we went to bed. Just before I went to bed I found I had a little worm in the heel of my foot.  I have taken them out of other people's feet before but this was the first time that I have had one.  They aren't too bad if you get them out before they grow too much.

 

Friday morning we left shortly after 7 and we drove just a short distance and had to wait for the ferry to start running that would take us across a rather large river.  There we about fifty trucks waiting and eight cars.  They normally put two transport trucks and two or three cars.  This time though only one truck with out a trailer went on then they let all the cars go.  We were once again thanking the Lord otherwise we would have been waiting for another hour there and as it was we ended up having a 15 hour journey.  We only covered about 700km in that time.  The last 150km took us almost 5 hours because the roads we so rough.  At one place not too far outside of Cuamba the Wilcox's drove by a group of kids at the side of the road in the dark and one of them throw a rock at their car.  It broke the passenger side window of the car and the glass went all over Debbie.  Praise God no one was hurt.

 

We arrived here in Cuamba at 10:30 in the evening.  They had a wonderful supper waiting for us that had been ready for hours because they had expected us to be there much sooner.  All the SIM missionaries here in Cuamba opened there homes up to us to give us places to sleep for the three nights we will be here.

 

Saturday morning they had a meeting with all the pastors and leaders of the church in Cuamba.  Then Saturday night we had a good meeting with about 50 or 60 people out.  It was a good night. It wasn't really a gospel outreach but getting the Christians from different churches together and teaching them.

 

While in Cuamba I stayed with the Pipers a missionary family with SIM.  The also had another young man staying with them.  His name is Lee he is from England and he has come to help SIM out with construction projects much the same as I do.  We hit t off very well.  We are both excited to see if God would maybe have us serve together somewhere sometime.

 

Sunday morning we were all sitting around the breakfast table at the Piper's and Mrs. Piper asks Lee and I so which one of you wants to preach at church this morning.  It was one hour before the service was supposed to start.  Lee nominated that I would do it.  We went with the Piper's to their Assemblies of God Church.  I spoke for a short time from John 15 on abiding in the mango tree.  Most people here don't know what a grape vine is so I had to use the mango tree so that it was something they could relate to.

 

Sunday evening we had another meeting with all the churches and Pastor Mario spoke on three major issues that the church needs to deal with in this country, polygamy, adultery and divorce. These are big problems and he was talking about how the sins are past down to the third and fourth generation.  These things are common in many peoples families and Pastor Mario was encouraging them to cut these things of in the spirit and not let them continue to be passed on to their children.

 

Most of this email was written in Cuamba but I have just arrived in Lichinga here this morning at about 11:30.  We had enough places for us all coming from Beira to Cuamba because we had Pastor Mario's car but he was heading back to Beira and not coming to Lichinga so I had to catch a mini bus this morning at 5. 

 

Please keep my friend Albert in your prayers as he will be leaving Canada Tuesday evening and Lord willing will arrive in Lichinga on Saturday for about one month.  Others are always welcome if they would like to come and help with the work here. Hint hint.

 

Well the internet has been down in Lichinga for the last few days so that is why I am just getting around to sending this.  I have been in Africa for three since yesterday.  Time has gone by so fast.

 

Your Brother in Christ,

 

Andrew