NATIONAL PASTORAL TEAM WITH NEW READING GLASSES GIVEN BY U S A DONORS.

Bish­op Chisale was appoint­ed by our Inter­na­tion­al lead­ers who are based in Blan­tyre, Malawi (Liv­ing Waters of Blan­tyre has church­es in 4 countries).

He took office in Jan­u­ary, due to the death of our pre­vi­ous leader, who died of a heart attack last year.  HE SPEAKS ENGLISH, so this is a great plus for Dawn and I, as we now have some­one we can eas­i­ly com­mu­ni­cate with on the nation­al lev­el, (and he has email!)

Since the Bishop’s Por­tuguese and knowl­edge of Moz. is very lim­it­ed, 2 exec­u­tive mem­bers of the nation­al office came with to show him the bus route that leads to Bala­ma.  Takes 3 looong days on pub­lic trans­porta­tion to get from TETE CITY, our nation­al head­quar­ters, to Bala­ma, so it is no easy ride.

Got a call from the Bish­op after he arrived home on Wednes­day.    Said he felt like he had FLU!  After a few ques­tions, I quick­ly diag­nosed it wasn’t flu but MALARIA, which he had nev­er expe­ri­enced.  PTL he was able to get the treat­ment need­ed to kill it out, and is now on the road to recovery.

MUSIC MINISTRY MAKES BIG IMPACT ON BALAMA CHURCH

MUSIC TEAM: YOUTH PASTORS BERTINO, KEYBOARD, AND DAUDE, DRUMS.

The YOUTH GROUP spent 5 months work­ing hard at clean­ing farm­ing fields for our neigh­bors and for me.  (hoe­ing by hand)

The GOAL:  buy a key­board for the church.

The church orga­nized a bat­tery set up to pro­vide elec­tric­i­ty for the key­board, and Youth Pas­tors Berti­no and Daude BUILT THE DRUMS from local materials.

Sort of fun­ny to see 3 solar pan­els out­side the front door of the church on Sun­days, but what­ev­er it takes, is our mot­to around here.

Elec­tric­i­ty in this area exists, but the church is not hooked too it yet, as it is more OFF than ON.

I PTL for our YOUTH who are show­ing great matu­ri­ty in doing this on their own, and not expect­ing the church to pro­vide the funds

DAWN HORGER, HEADED TO SOUTH AFRICA ON MONDAY TO ORGANIZE RESIDENCY !!!

DAWN has worked in the south­ern part of Mozam­bique for a total of 18 months in the last 2 years.  When the min­istry lead­ers had to leave due to their children’s health prob­lems, DAWN began look­ing for anoth­er group with­in Moz. to work with.  Her heart is CHILDREN, so she con­tact­ed me, and the doors opened from their for her to join us.

I tru­ly appre­ci­ate her lead­er­ship skills, fun per­son­al­i­ty, matu­ri­ty, and deep under­stand­ing of this cul­ture and how things work in this coun­try.  She has stepped in and tak­en many jobs from my shoul­ders in the last 3 weeks.  Present­ly, she is study­ing Por­tuguese to increase her vocabulary.

An accoun­tant with a Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion Degree, makes her super valu­able, as she has “busi­ness savvy”  that is of great val­ue around here.

So pray for her as she trav­els on Mon­day, May 7th, to get the spe­cial “res­i­den­cy visa” need­ed to stay in this country.

Eric Dry will host her while in RSA.

She is learn­ing our pro­grams at a rapid pace, and will return just in time for the bean sack­ing that will begin May 11th.

It is GREAT hav­ing a per­son here who tru­ly feels “called” to Moz., and who’s heart’s desire is to stay long term.

She real­ly miss­es the cool spring days that her home state Michi­gan is hav­ing right now.  But the cold is com­ing ear­ly to Moz., as our morn­ing temps are down to 59F, (19 C).  We usu­al­ly do not feel these kinds of temps till end of May, so God is chang­ing the sea­son to cool and dry a bit ear­li­er than usual.

RSA is already quite cold, so “Polar Bear” Dawn is ready to go cool off for a few days!

BUSH BEANS A FLOWING!

THE HARVEST MAY BE SMALL, BUT PTL, JESUS IS SENDING IT ALL OUR WAY!

We received our buyer’s license this week, prayed for 100 TONS OF BEANS, and the flood gates opened!

The Mecu­ti area that I told you about last week, sup­plied us with over 40 TONS this week.  (and are now tapped out)

THIS IS A GOD THING, as this area NEVER has beans in any great quantity.

We didn’t got fetch 1 bean!

The vil­lage farm­ers orga­nized local trucks that can car­ry up to 2 tons and brought the beans to us!  Quite a site to see on Wednes­day, as we had 5 small trucks lined up at our gate by 5a.m. wait­ing to unload.  Good thing too, for our larg­er 6 and 7 ton trucks couldn’t get into the areas where the beans were located.

GOD HAS MADE A WAY, WHERE NONE SEEMED POSSIBLE.

Cape­na, our vil­lage food coor­di­na­tor, dis­trib­uted 500 feed sacks this week to sev­er­al vil­lages that have some beans.

Those beans are being sacked as I write this, and we plan to fetch them some­time this week, hop­ing to com­plete the 100 tons.

SUPER THURSDAY ON APRIL 30TH

I was super proud of all our staff and bean team yes­ter­day, as they accom­plished the fol­low­ing simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with only min­i­mal help from Dawn and I.

1.       Dis­trib­uted 2 tons of food to 300+ wid­ows and orphans at our nor­mal Thurs­day food give out.

2.       Weighed, sacked, and stacked 20 TONS OF BEANS (400 sacks that each weigh 120 lbs. or 60Kg).

3.       Cape­na and Fred got all the staff salaries paid by NOON, as the 30th was April pay day.

We have nev­er attempt­ed such a mas­sive pro­gram in 1 day, and I take my hat off to them for mak­ing it happen.

LOVE AND HUGS TO ALL OF YOU FOR MAKING OUR ORPHAN RESCUE PROGRAM POSSIBLE.

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE

DAWN HORGER, soon to be Assis­tant Manager