From: Lin­da Fer­gu­son, Orphans Unlim­it­ed, Inc.

Octo­ber 30, 2013

Hel­lo Friends, I am post­ing a let­ter writ­ten by Lar­ry Friend, a pow­er­ful ser­vant of God, who just returned from an eye open­ing vis­it to Mozambique.

Thanks Lar­ry, for shar­ing your thoughts with our sup­port­ers and friends.

Hard­Court Mis­sion Octo­ber 2013 Update 1 E Bode Rd., Stream­wood, IL 60107, 316–841-8003, l.friend@awana.org

Mozam­bique WOW, what a trip to the dis­trict of Bala­ma in Mozam­bique. Over all it was a God Blessed time. We trained 13 pas­tors and about 10 young men. Every­thing went smooth­ly oth­er than some attempts by our adver­sary to sti­fle progress – more lat­er. There is no need to go look­ing for chil­dren here in Bala­ma. They are just there. Aquas Vivas (Orphans Unlim­it­ed) runs the biggest Orphan relief pro­gram in these dis­tricts (prob­a­bly in Mozam­bique). State offi­cials have vis­it­ed and seen what is going on here and are impressed even though they try to imple­ment ridicu­lous rules that do noth­ing but ham­per progress. OH WELL that’s anoth­er sto­ry. Bren­da Lang’s (Direc­tor of Orphans Unlim­it­ed) long range goal is to reach 60000 chil­dren in this area. She has 6 full time Bush Bik­ers for Christ (BBC) pas­tors (trav­el from vil­lage to vil­lage on bicy­cles) who have now been Awana trained. They have been scream­ing for a way to present more than just Bible Sto­ries to the chil­dren – they now have it. They will be tak­ing Awana out to the bush in the very near future, pos­si­bly in Novem­ber. There are some mate­r­i­al things that have to be com­plet­ed. I, for one, do NOT want to let these 60000 chil­dren go with­out a fight. I know we can­not reach the whole world, but we are to do what­ev­er we can and espe­cial­ly those that God puts in our path. We trained a group of 13 per­sons. Some of these will stay here at OU, the oth­er will be going out into the bush as BBC pas­tors. Hope is that in the near future more pas­tors can be trained to be BBC pas­tors and motor scoot­ers will replace the bicy­cles for a more effi­cient way to get the Gospel out to the chil­dren in this area. The lead­ers (stu­dents) in Bala­ma are ded­i­cat­ed work­ers doing what­ev­er it takes to get the Gospel out. Most of them are con­vinced that the return of Christ is SO close. They will not put a time on it, but most expect it with­in 2 years. This “knowl­edge of immi­nence” is dri­ving them hard to reach the chil­dren and as many adults as pos­si­ble. I am hum­bled; do I real­ly oper­ate in the immi­nence mode? These lead­ers are FOCUSED church planters. Just as a quick note: OU already had a con­crete Awana court paint­ed and ready for our Game train­ing. Nice court too!!! Our first chal­lenge was the lack of need­ed Awana mate­ri­als in Por­tuguese. The rea­son the Por­tuguese mate­ri­als became so impor­tant is that most of the chil­dren can­not read or write any lan­guage. The school sys­tem is “teach­ing” Por­tuguese but there are few if any text books. What “text books” that are there have been sup­plied by OU and Aguas Vivas (not all) Learn­ing is slow. The “SPOKEN” lan­guage here is Makua. Any­way we go, the lead­ers will present Christ in Makua.… It is pos­si­ble to use Por­tuguese as a guide to help with Makua, but no one can use Eng­lish. Hard­Court Mis­sion Octo­ber 2013 Update 1 E Bode Rd., Stream­wood, IL 60107, 316–841-8003, l.friend@awana.org Just to put some things here in per­spec­tive, Mon­day an emer­gency pre­sent­ed itself with a new moth­er. She became very ill. Bren­da and the staff jumped into action because every time they lose a moth­er, guess what they get = anoth­er orphan. Ergo: Orphans Unlim­it­ed. This moth­er died lat­er in the day. Sep­sis = Total­ly pre­ventable if found in time, in this case it was not in time. They lose a lot of moth­ers to this = too many. Cur­rent­ly, Mozam­bique is being trou­bled with some civ­il unrest. While I was nev­er in phys­i­cal dan­ger, the pos­si­bil­i­ty exist­ed for shut­ting down of roads and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Since the train­ing was com­plet­ed, I jumped at the oppor­tu­ni­ty to come home ear­ly. I don’t know what to think of this, but I am going to write it any­way. As we passed through Mon­tepuez, a city between Bala­ma and Pem­ba, God touched my heart. I know noth­ing more than He touched my heart. There are 3 Amer­i­can mis­sion­ary fam­i­lies there. Please be in prayer with me for what this means. A fun­ny thing: We start­ed work­ing the 5 count on the first day. On the first evening, Car­l­i­tos, one of the youth lead­ers, took the 5 count to the youth group and used it there. He was VERY hap­py with the 5 count. I advised him to make sure that he does not OVERUSE it to the point where it becomes inef­fec­tive. Last week they had 5 young ladies ask to know more about Christ in their youth group. Just a quick war­fare sto­ry, On Mon­day, the entire staff of OU came down with malar­ia. Some­thing that had NEVER HAPPENED before. The teach­ing on Mon­day was to be the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how to present it to chil­dren. Guess we hit a trig­ger with our adver­sary:)) Bren­da was so upset, but I told her “Count it all Joy!!:))” As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have hap­pened. But we expect that don’t we? Our God turns all things to His advan­tage. The hard­er satan fights, the more we know we are doing what our God wants us to do. I could go on and on, but I think you all can see that God is work­ing over­time in Bala­ma. I have been told that they will keep me up to date on what tran­spires. As I get the infor­ma­tion, I will pass it on. Thank you so much for sup­port­ing and pray­ing for this vis­it to Mozam­bique. God taught me so much dur­ing this trip. Not only cul­tur­al stuff that I love, but also how to be a field mis­sion­ary. See­ing OU in action was a real eye open­er for me. It is NOT just about get­ting the Gospel out; it is also about show­ing the Love of Christ via a holis­tic min­istry. We MUST be involved with peo­ple — the way that our Lord was and is. Hard­Court Mis­sion Octo­ber 2013 Update 1 E Bode Rd., Stream­wood, IL 60107, 316–841-8003, l.friend@awana.org Some gen­er­al notes for future trips to Mozam­bique: 1. Teams of evan­ge­lists are need­ed but NOT con­struc­tion teams. 2. Mis­sion­ar­ies are need­ed, espe­cial­ly ones that can work with chil­dren — obvi­ous­ly. If you or some­one you know is pray­ing about a mis­sion oppor­tu­ni­ty, please get in touch with me.

PRAYER Eph­esians 5:15–17 See then that ye walk cir­cum­spect­ly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeem­ing the time, because the days are evil. Where­fore be ye not unwise, but under­stand­ing what the will of the Lord is.

I men­tioned ear­li­er about being hum­bled by the BBC pas­tors in Mozam­bique. It is going to be my prayer for this month that God instill in me a greater desire to see more chil­dren and adults come to Know, Love and Serve our Lord Jesus Christ. —-Sin­cere­ly, Lar­ry and Sue Friend Latin America/Caribbean Mis­sion­ary 1136 N Ami­don Wichi­ta, Ks 67203 l.friend@awana.org (316) 841‑8003