Hello from Mozambique!
Sorry for our delay to get an email out. We struggled to get a WIFI that would work for us being that we could not unlock our phones for a sim card here.
Cool things we've experienced so far:
1) There was a 4 day time span in which everyone arrived to the mission base. We arrived the 1st day so it allowed us time to get settled in and explore. We went out for a bite to eat one of the 1st days while others were still arriving. At lunch we noticed our Mozambican waiter had a huge limp. We prayed with him and he was healed on the spot.
2) We've been getting up around 5:30am each morning to either run, sprint or get a workout in with bands before the day begins. A girl joined us for a run and she told us she had deep neck and back pain bothering her on the run. We prayed with her and the pain left. This was on Monday. Today she came up to us thanking us again and she confessed it had been a chronic pain she had lived with for as long as she could remember and she was feeling so blessed to have been healed of all the pain. Praise God!
3) On the mission base is the largest clinic in all of Pemba, Mozambique. There are missionary Dr's that work with people from 7am to 7pm daily. People walk hours to get to this clinic and some sleep outside of it the night before in hopes to get a good place in the line and get help in the morning. The clinic is able to see 80 people a day, and so sometimes there are people that wait in line that aren't able to get seen. We got up at 4:30am one day and went with some of the couples we live with to pray with sick people in the line. At least 7 people got completely healed. There may have been more, but these were the only ones we were able to communicate enough with for them to let us know the pain was gone. God is so good!
4) Going into the village has been amazing. We love ministering to the widows and children. We will be building a home for a widow while we are hear and there are SO many other involvements! They have a children's program where we will be helping in the village to disciple and feed 400 kids. On the mission base itself they have a school where they provide free education to 3,500 kids and teens a day from the community! There are over 50 FULL time missionaries that live on this mission base apart from the 190 of us who have arrived. They have been splitting us up into groups to help with the many needs. The days are very busy and jam packed; however we do get 1 day of rest/recovery.
5) the African worship is so beautiful! Lots of dancing. We love it.
We found out they only chose 190 short-term missionaries for this trip, and our house leaders said that there are usually about 2,000 - 2,500 applicants. They can house up to a maximum of 300 of us. They said they pray about each applicant as to whether or not they should be accepted, so for us to have been accepted here was a really big deal. We actually had quit our jobs BEFORE we even knew if we were accepted. God is SO faithful, huh?
The children are SO happy and free even though they have only 1 outfit to wear and very little food or water; however father-less-ness is a HUGE issue here just like everywhere else in the world. Be praying that we can really release the love of the father to these kids so that they know they have a poppa who is very loving and involved in their lives, even if their earthly father is not.
What is it like?
It is quite hot here! In the 90's daily- so we have a constant sweat going and it will get hotter as we move into their summer season soon. Being that we are living among many Mozambicans we are eating what they are eating- so we've had rice and beans for most every meal. Protein here is not common as it is expensive. There have been moments where we've felt very weak and faint, but we've had the grace to push through and we've also begun supplementing with snacks we bought at the local market. The ocean is across from the mission base. The trees are tropical. The people are incredibly kind, humble and smiley. Apparently Mozambique is the most friendly African nation (we were told).
Others here with us:
There are 33 nations represented in our group of 190 short-term missionaries. In our part of the mission base we are living among 10 other married couples. Some as young as 20 and a couple in their 60's. Germans, Irish, British and Australians as well as a couple Americans. We've already made lifelong friendships with these couples. They are some of the most kind and generous people we've ever met. Two of the sets of couples are doctors. Hearing the stories of how others quit their jobs, sold their homes and cars to come here is amazing.
The people here speak Portuguese and Makua. Rachel can understand some of the Portuguese as it's similar to Spanish, but also very different.
We cannot wait to share more amazing updates soon. We will be going into the bush in a few weeks and cannot wait to see what that will be like!
PS we haven't taken many photos here as we want to be respectful of the people and culture. We don't want to exploit them. Attached you will find just one.
Be blessed,
Jake & Rach