Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving Day with your families.
Since this is only an American Holiday, our staff spent the day blessing others with a food give out to the orphans that totaled 2.5 TONS of food.
Layla and I took the afternoon off to eat a simple meal from local foods and played a Rummikub tournament. (She won 3 games to 2.)
Fellowship, food, and fun. Keeping Jesus and His Love at the forefront all the time.
For Jesus is LOVE and in HISEYES, all that matters if that we show it daily to all those around us.
This week flew by as we spent each morning loading our Land Cruiser pick-up (the work horse of Africa) with small loads that totaled 9.2 TONS total, and sent it out to our 12 remote village Pastors and their families
Our Pastors received this food offering as part of their “benefits”, to help supplement what they grow in their own fields.
Our goal is to make sure that their families have enough to eat during the tough times of the year.
Preventing “distracted Pastors”, keeps God’s Word going forth all year round.
Hungry Tummies have no ears (listen to no one), and in this case, no strength to teach!
We also distributed 3 tons of rice to our staff’s families as December to March is the severest time of hunger for many in Mozambique.
The harvest was poor this year, and many families are now out of food, including our workers.
Yes, they get a salary and do buy what they can, BUT food prices have sky rocketed with the unstable worldwide economy.
Rice, the only bulk food available this time of year, hasDOUBLED in price in the last 30 days.
A 20kg (55lb.) bag of rice now equals a week’s pay for most of our staff, so our rice offering was a big help.
We can’t help everyone, butTHANKSTOYOURLOVEGIFTS, we are doing what we can to help those in our “extended family”
MANUELANDCREW made 2 round trips this week to Meluco with our 7 ton truck. This filled the Meluco warehouse with enough food to feed the 400+ orphans through May, 2016.
Each trip is 9 hours one way, so it is always an overnight journey. They also did a major water well repair with all new piping while there this week, bringing clean water to a village of over 5,000 people.
On Tuesday, this coming week, this same crew will take the final load of food, machetes, and corn seed to the 115 ELEPHANTVILLAGEORPHANS.
Warehouse Team sewing up corn sacks that have just been sifted and cleaned for milling. Our hammer mill turns the whole corn into corn flour for the orphans. The corn flour is boiled until it is stiff, forming the popular food, “Sheema” as it is locally called. The bland Sheema is rolling into a ball, as they eat it with their hands, and then dipped into whatever sauce (meat or veggie) they have for that meal.
Carpenters cutting 4x4’s into 2 x 4’s to repair termite damage in one of our warehouses. The termites, better known as the “underground mafia” are a constant challenge in all of Balama. The two young men on the right are orphans who grew up in our program and are now training to be master carpenters.
Our week’s work is better told in photos than in words, so I bid you goodbye till next week!
