Rwanda, Congo, Burundi

The last two weeks I (Steve) have been on my new assignment with WR in East Congo and Burundi. It has been a great experience.

Travel. The planes were normal, but the airport in Nairobi was small and cramped. It is a half circle with lots of shops packed between the relatively narrow hallway and chairs. The transfer desks (if you can call them that) are stuck in a corner with no lights and limited signage. In fact, the first time through, I missed it entirely, but when I went to enter the gate, the agent rejected me saying that check-in had closed and I did not have a boarding pass. I had asked at the information desk and they said, just go to the gate and get your pass. We discussed, I ran back to get a boarding pass and made the flight. Phew! I did not want to spend an unnecessary night in the town some call Ni-rob-u.

Driving in Cars. This was not normal. The first car I got in seemed perfectly normal (steering wheel on the right, normal for Southern Africa). But, when the driver pulled out onto the road, he also drove on the right! (normal for the US). This puts the driver on the shoulder side of the road, not the center line, making it really hard to see around big trucks when you want to pass on a 2-lane road. I can do left side steering wheel on the right side of the road, and right side steering wheel on the left side of the road, but not right on right. I was afraid it would scramble my thinking too much. Needless to say, I let others drive. After the first week, all the cars I rode in drove on the side of the road they were designed for. (If you look in the side mirror you can see the driver on the other side.)

Rwanda. It is a beautiful country. Green and clean. The roads are in good shape, being upgraded and in the capital, there a lots of 4 lane roads, with lots of room. I was there on two weekends, so maybe the traffic was lighter. At the airport, there is a sign, “no non-degradable plastic bags allowed.” If you have shrink wrapped your luggage, it must come off before you leave the airport. Once they checked my suitcase crossing the border back in and someone said they were looking for plastic bags. There is a designated work day (couple of hours Saturday morning) when all citizens must be involved in community help projects. If you are found driving about during that time, the police will stop you and put you to work right along the road. One visiting U.S. church team had that opportunity. Overall the country side was gorgeous.


DRC (East Congo). The town of Goma is right on the border with Rwanda. We stayed in a hotel that was literally built on the water’s edge. There was no beach and if you looked closely enough, you could see where the volcanic lava flow cooled as it hit the water. It was right beside the foundation walls. According to the web, Goma had a volcanic eruption in 2002 that destroyed the city. Apparently several large fissures opened up right in the commercial center and vented towards the lake. It destroyed everything including a large majority of clinics, hospitals and pharmacies. It sounded like a disaster of biblical proportions. That explained why everyone was building, everywhere. Why they are building 3-story, 3-4,000 square feet per floor in this undeveloped town in the middle of nowhere, I don’t know. Just dig down to get your building materials.

It is a stark contrast to Rwanda. Most of the streets are volcanic gravel and ash, with lots of litter. The paved roads are in poor shape, with no traffic lights in evidence. The UN has basically occupied the region as the government does not have enough resources to deal with the rebel fighters who still regularly stop cars to take cell phones and valuables. Go jogging and you meet soldiers carrying machine guns on their morning exercise in sweats. It does give one pause.

We avoided the remote stretches of roads during a visit to the neighboring city of Bukavu by taking a speed boat (2.5 hours) across Lake Kivu. It was a long ride, especially the outbound trip as the lake was rough and it really jarred us hard. Plus you are cramped in small seats with your fellow passengers. Coming back was smoother, but I was ready to get out of the boat.
Lake Kivu is one of the three exploding lakes in Africa. It is extremely deep (18th in the world) and loaded with methane and CO2. Every millennia or so it explodes and causes mass extinctions in the surrounding area. Presently 2 million people live in the area around it. Rwanda has a project that is harvesting the methane and generating electricity. I figured the chances of it not exploding while I was there for 6 days were pretty good.

My primary reason for being in Goma was to participate in two full days of meetings with the WR micro-finance board and review the agricultural loan pilot project. I learned a lot and still have more to learn.

Burundi. Here I never made it out of town, except to go to the airport. Partially because I was in meetings for four days (two days for microfinance called Turame and two days with WR. It did not make a lot of sense to travel with WR when we needed to talk and set some direction first. They were all good meetings even if they were long. I met some great folks and learned lots more.

There is not a lot of adventure when you stay in the same hotel for six nights and just go to meetings, but the people I spent time with said that the rebels still come into town at night and attack the police posts with grenades and machine guns.

One morning I went running and as I headed down the dirt road just beyond the hotel, I heard the guard whistle. Was that for me? I stopped and looked back and sure enough he was running toward me, jabbering in French. So I said, “I don’t speak French.” Then he grabbed his throat and said bandi, bandi, making a choking sound. Even if I didn’t speak French, I sure got the idea that that particular stretch had some potential bandit risks and I should jog on a different set of roads.

Bujumbura is the capital and perhaps the only capital city in the world without a single stop light. The drivers are nearly as crazy as Mozambique and the traffic is worse than Lilongwe in Malawi during rush hour, with long lines of traffic. Most main roads are paved, with some in cobblestone. With all the mountains, there are plenty of resources for that. They say the Chinese are putting these in more residential areas. What is really tough is seeing the cobblestone speed bumps since they blend in to the rest of the road so nicely. For real!

Bujumbura is located on Lake Tanganyika, not exploding, but one of the great lakes in E. Africa. You can read a little more about it in my next blog.

Lots of construction here too, but since labor is cheap, most work is done by hand. Check out the cement pouring crew. Another site had more than what looked like more than 100 men, just on top of the building.

Rainbows all around, Victoria Falls

At the end of our team trip to Zambia, we spent some time at Victoria Falls, debriefing and having meetings in a wonderful and relaxing setting. While I have been to Zambia numerous times, I never really took the time to seriously consider visiting the falls as it is quite out of the way from where I normally travel. First, some interesting facts about the falls. It is considered one of the 7 wonders of the world. It is not the world’s highest waterfall, nor the widest, but claims to be the largest sheet of falling water in the world. It is more than a mile across the face and the water drops 354 feet. The local name for the falls is “the smoke that thunders.” If you see the falls from the back side, and you don’t know it was water, you might think it was just another fire in an African field or bush.


The first morning a group of us set out to visit the falls. As we left the hotel, someone said we should take a rain coat or umbrella as you might get wet. I thought, OK and retrieved an umbrella. As we approached the falls, we saw a place where you could rent rain coats, but we had an umbrella. There is a deep gorge that the water drops into, but the gap across the gorge is not that wide, so we set out on the path to look at the falls from directly across from it. A short way down that path, it began to sprinkle. A little further it began to pour and then blow the water sideways. Lots of good an umbrella did. As we continued, we soon realized that we were going to get soaked no matter what.

Coming to a small bridge, we met a group coming from the other side. As we passed, one woman soaked to the skin and wearing a rain coat shouted above the roaring of the falls, “It is not for the faint of heart.” The stairway itself was a series of small waterfalls, with 2-3 inches of water flowing down the pathway. We continued on across the face of the gorge, only about 200 feet from the falling water. It was amazing. The rain was created by the rising mist (smoke) and the wind was generated by the falling water as it pushed the air out of the gorge. We were in the midst of a tropical rainstorm on a sunny day. The effect around the edges of the falls it that you see rainbows almost everywhere you look, particularly if the sun is behind you.

Fortunately the water and the day were warm, but it still took hours to dry out our clothes. If I had known, I would have worn swimming trunks and a tee shirt with crocs. (Some people did, but not in our group.) Fortunately I had taken a plastic bag to wrap the camera in or it might be in the repair shop by now.

We also climbed down the backside of the gorge to the area called the boiling pot, a half mile long trail that dropped the full 530 feet and was a bit challenging in places. From there we had a good view of the bridge to Zimbabwe where people with money and courage bungee jump into the gorge (not on my bucket list, but fun to watch). This gorge is not very wide, but must be quite deep and the water really moves along. We thought we would be gone maybe an hour, but it ended up being a 3 hour visit overall.

The first part of the trip was a combination of excitement of visitors and boredom of long rides by car. We did take advantage of one day in the car (7 am until 11:30 pm) to have a long and detailed management meeting for the business entity ZambiaWorks. We were mostly done by dark and just watched the brush go by or dozed for five hours. The team was mostly from Chicago, with two WR leaders and a videographer from California thrown into the mix. The videographer missed the first leg of his flight and had to come by himself in a small car the second day. The car had two flats and rolled the last 50 km on the steel rim. He was saying his prayers and telling God to take good care of his family should he not make it back alive. We all got a chuckle out of that, but if it was my first time in the middle of nowhere, I might have felt the same way. He was a great guy and very talented. If you watch CNBC or Fox documentaries, you have probably seen some of his work.

One very unique event that happened on this trip was an audience with a second level chief in Mongu. He hosted us in his “palace” as ZambiaWorks and Hands of Hope, our Chicago partner, had build an 8-classroom school block in one of his villages. We had to follow the traditional customs where men and women used different entrances. The ladies said they had to kneel on a mat before entering. We were allowed to sit in chairs, but the under chiefs sat on reed mats and bowed and clapped to call the chief from his home. He came out with a military guard, a very English hat and some kind of animal tail, wisp, whip or scepter that is his symbol of power. The guard is assigned to protect the tail as if this is stolen by the people, he loses his authority and power.

We had a good conversation with him and talked about the school. He mentioned that he would love to host us in his office and not keep us out in the hot sun, but it was too small and falling down (a subtle hint that we could build him a new one). We also had all our bags with us as we were switching hotels that morning. The guard thought these were gifts and told us we could unload them around back.

The school handover celebration was a big deal and quite political as all the “big” people showed up and had to introduce each other according to seniority/protocol. We had four such introductions to get to the main speaker of the day. There was lots of traditional dancing and some of it quite interesting, but not very edifying. It took the better part of five hours to complete the ceremony. Lesson learned: we won’t do it the same way next time we build a school.
All in all it was a great experience.

Swaziland

A week and a half ago we traveled to Swaziland to help the new Ancient Paths coordinators. AP is just getting started there and it is an exciting time. Barry and Viki have passion and vision and are working hard at getting it going.

Swaziland is quite close to Maputo. It is a small country and it took just three hours to reach the capital city, Mbabane. I love the mountains and the rural feel of Swaziland.

Friday we were free during the day, so we went to visit the farm we've heard so much about. It is very remote. You can either choose to travel 30 kms on a dirt road or 5. We chose 5 although it was the longer way around.

They have homes for orphans with one mother who makes a commitment to raise them to adulthood. It is not a typical orphanage! There are four homes and each is given space for a garden and laying hens. The idea is that each household will raise most of their food. They have a school that is also open to community children. Their website does a good job of describing their program.

Another big side project is moringa. To learn more about moringa, the "miracle tree" click here. They have turned this into a cottage industry by harvesting the leaves, drying and pounding them into a powder and selling it. A small plot of trees planted close together yields enough to buy a ton of corn per month (during the "hotter" weather). Swazi doesn't have much hot weather, at least compared to Moz because of the altitude. They also grow vegetables for sale, have pigs, sell eggs and seedlings. Steve was in his element and our time was too short.

We got back to the seminar where people were touched by God and healed of rejection and abandonment issues, lack of blessing and identity and other woundings. There were some deep, life-changing healings going on that we may not fully understand until eternity, but they are real.

Coming back we were blessed to find fresh produce along the road for half the price that we pay in Maputo - mangos, avocados, garlic, bananas, okra and more. We learned from a neighbor from Mississippi how to cook okra--slice it, dip in cornmeal and fry. Yummy!

Deborah

Today is Deborah's 2nd birthday. Birthdays are always a milestone, but this is a special one for a little girl who suffered severe malnutrition. She was almost 1 when she came to live with Mirtha and Yudel at our house. She did not sit or cry much, her skin was pale and she hardly had hair. The workers at the orphanage did not think she had much of an appetite so she didn't get much more than 2 bottles of milk per day.


Mirtha worked with her and found out she really was hungry. She started adding on kilos and developing and walked at 21 months. Now she is 2 and her personality is coming through. They all live at the orphanage now and she will always be Mirtha and Yudel's special girl.



Trying to figure out these new crocs.


Their new house at the orphanage. As soon as they get enough funds to finish the floors of the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom they will move in.



God is faithful!

Poverty

One thing I've learned well since we moved to Africa--poverty is a very complex issue.

I was thinking of the card game that we call Scum. You start the game with a President and Vice-President and a Scum and Vice-Scum. After dealing the cards, Scum gives his two best cards to the Pres. and Pres. gives his two worst cards to Scum. VP and VS trade one card each. It is possible to move from Scum to Pres. but it usually takes several games and it is a lot of work because the cards have literally been stacked against Scum. It is easier for Pres and VP to win and keep on winning because they have been given an advantage to start with.

This is how it is with poverty. The system of injustice has been stacked against the poor. It is possible to get out, but it takes a lot of work, a lot of encouragement, a lot of changes in the ways of thinking about things, and some breaks in order to get a good education.

Sometimes we can think that the poor just don't know how to handle the money they have. We can say there is a difference between being broke and being poor, and that difference is the way of thinking about money. We can say that poverty is not a lack of money, it is a lifestyle, or a curse. But poverty is also being trapped in a system. What can I do to help break the chains of injustice that keep people enslaved?

It is easy to see how the poor become poorer when they are trapped into low-paying jobs and inflation is rising. In December it is reported that inflation rose 3.48% in Moz. Prices always go up because of the holidays, but this is steeper than usual. We notice the differences almost every week when we go to buy groceries. For a long time a liter of boxed milk cost us between 25-30 MT. Yesterday I paid 60 MT ($1.80). Sugar (which is grown in Moz) has been right around 25 MT for a kilo. Now some shops are asking 38 MT. Apparently Brazil had a bad year so the price goes up worldwide. These are just examples of increases for all the basics such as flour, bread, rice, corn flour, etc. Beef has gone through the roof and a scrawny 1 kg chicken costs $4.80 or more.

So what do people do when they are one of the 10-15% who actually have a job such as a household helper and get paid a little more than 100 MT per day and a chicken costs 160 MT? They eat very little meat, and stick to xima (corn flour porridge) with some greens or tomatoes if they can afford them. They walk more because transportation costs are rising, they keep their kids home from school because they can't afford the uniforms and fees, and sometimes they take to the streets to join the riots because they are so desperate.

Then on the other hand we have mostly foreigners and the Mozambican rich who pay $2,000 for an apartment and up to $5,000 rent per month for a house. The poor get poorer and the rich continue to be funded by their organizations, governments and corporations who are willing to pay whatever it takes to keep up the lifestyle. The spiritual discipline of simple living and doing more with less becomes a challenge in a city like Maputo.

And I'm back to the beginning - poverty is complex and I don't have very many answers. Lord help me know how to make a lasting difference in people's lives. Help me to know what my part is today and to be obedient to You. Help me to care enough to give a hand up out of the sink hole of poverty, to work at long-term solutions and not only short-term fixes.

Our Week in Review

 This week Mozambique is in mourning over the death of artist, Malangatana. To tell the truth, I had not heard of him before, although he is apparently quite famous world over. I probably would still not know much about him except that our housemate fills us in every day on the details of his life, his wake, who was there, where they will bury him, etc. It has been the main topic at suppertime for several days and sometimes we have finished our meal and she has barely taken a bite because she is so busy telling us all about it. Actually, we learn a lot about the culture and what is happening in the news and the neighborhood through her. Now basically the whole town where he lived is camping out at his house to eat well for the next week.

 We are amazed at how much it has been raining this year. We have never experienced a true rainy season in the 6 years we’ve been here. It seems like every day or every other day we have at least one good shower. The crops should be great if it doesn’t flood, which is on everyone’s mind. They are afraid that the flood gates will be opened upstream, even to Zimbabwe and then Mozambique will suffer the consequences as they did in 2000. Today on the news they showed a mother who just gave birth to twins and went home to a flooded house. The only place she had for the babies was the kitchen table!

 We live in community within our house and then we live in greater community with the people in the flats above us. Steve has been getting to know them better as their drains on the outside of the building get clogged and affect us down below. Apparently one of them has a garbage disposal, plus they put a lot of grease down the sink so it’s been getting full really fast. Today, Steve had a show and tell right by the drain so we’ll see if that makes any difference.

 We also live in greater community with the apartment house right next to ours (20 feet away). Our bedrooms face the back side of the building. For a long time they had many little yippy dogs that would start a chorus of barking at all hours of the night and especially in the early morning. We felt bad for our visitors, (and for ourselves) when we couldn’t sleep! Well, wonder of wonders, the yippy dogs are gone. We’re not sure if the owners left as well or just the dogs, but we are very grateful for a good nights’ sleep.

 We’re starting to think Steve might have a wheat allergy so he’s taking a break from all wheat until we figure out what’s going on. Now the experiments begin with cassava flour, lentil and rice flour and who knows what else. Thankfully this house came with a grinder which we are starting to use more diligently.

 This weekend we had visitors - a couple from Swaziland who is starting to work with Ancient Paths Seminars there. We have been asked to mentor them, and will be traveling to Swazi in the next months to do some seminars with them. We had a great time getting to know them a bit. The wife even said she would get me some non-wheat recipes. She owns a health food store/coffee shop.

That's a bit of what's been happening with us on this side of the world this week. Who knows what next week will bring!

Pictures of Christmas and New Year’s

We started out in the Chokwe office with Dr. Pieter and the WR accountant. Love the hat. He really is a farmer at heart.




We drove to Mucatine together and saw the agricultural project.
The papayas are almost done producing. We got 5 nice, juicy red ones.



Leonor, one of the association members, watering tomato seedlings in the nursery.


These guys were in the river when we went to look at the pump.
They’re pretty awesome when they open their mouths!














The view from the porch of the house we stayed in, where I spent a lot of time reading. Since we can’t be with family we take the second best option and enjoy the beach!



The Indian Ocean can be pretty wild, and watch out for the rip tides. Because of the rocks by the shore, we don’t go in too far.



One day there were big, dead jelly fish all over the shore.
A storm brought them in, is our guess.


When the tide goes out there are many different sand designs.





Cool moth and a shot from last year of the hundreds of bats that come out of the attic at dusk. They're still there!















Christmas Dinner. First time to have a turkey in Moz!


New Year’s Eve cookout with the other missionaries who stayed in the downstairs apt. We had fun with them, playing Scrabble and Dutch Blitz, watching movies and talking.


Here's a last shot after we walked on the windy beach. Our friend thought it was a "cool Harley look"! I like it because we look so relaxed and happy.


That’s our last two weeks in a picture or two. We hope you have all had good
end of the year times as well. We are blessed and have so much to be thankful for.

Happy New Year!

Water Wells in Zambia (if you are not interested in the details, just look at the pictures!)

When I first heard that it cost $5,000 to put in a well in Zambia I was an unbeliever. This seemed impossible and tremendously expensive. Someone even suggested we buy a well drilling rig and drill our own wells. After looking into it, we decided not to buy and paid the $5,000 per well. After all, the water was 60 meters down and it was professionally done.

Then I found out, that some of these well were drilled 60 meters deep in areas where the water table was 1 meter below the surface during the dry season. Why drill 60 meters? Well (no pun intended) that was the standard.

I don’t know about you, but I was raised in a house where the well was 30 ft (10 meters) deep and we have always had plenty of water. I still own a house were the well is 50 feet deep and the original owner drove that well himself in 1949. So, why not something like this in Zambia?

After investigating the options and prices, I bought and packed up a well point - $30, a pitcher pump - $40, some drive couplings - $6 each and a driving cap - $5. When I looked at pipe and considered the challenge of transport to Africa by suitcase, I punted and said, let me buy it there. However, in consultations I was warned that the pipe from Asia was too soft or brittle to take the driving. Point noted for the future.


So, after a small hassle from Mozambique customs agents who wanted a “tax” to take the pump and point out of the country, I arrived in Lusaka, Zambia to buy pipe. Fortunately, I had a contact who knew the businesses to buy from. We went together and bought a 20 ft piece of pipe that then needed to be cut and threaded on the newly cut ends. When in conversation with the shopkeeper where I bought the pipe, I asked him why he did not offer a cutting and threading service. He said, so he can sell more machines. As we discussed the project, he said he had never had a big enough order to run out of pipe and if he could supply me the projected number of pipe he could retire. Fat chance, I thought.

Then we went off to find another business to cut and thread the pipe. We found one in the market. Yes, the same market that sells hot food, soap, cell time, shoes, nuts and bolts, etc. So, right there between the hot sausage vendor (grill and all) and the used nuts and bolts seller, we squatted in the shade for more than an hour while two guys wrestled with my now three pieces to thread 4 ends, twice because the first cut didn’t take enough metal off to fit the couplings.

There was a steady flow of people and ambulatory vendors walking by. Cold drinks, snacks, bread and sliced watermelon wrapped in plastic in a basket carried on the head were part of the view.

After the pipes were threaded, (for about $1 each thread) I wrapped the newly cut ends in whatever plastic and paper I could find and took them to the bus station. "Mongu," I said and into the belly of the bus they went, along with the pump and point. During my 8 hour trip, I had time to reflect on the shopkeeper’s offer. Maybe I should help the local economy a little more.

After arrival in Mongu, I began the task of collecting the tools we needed to put in a well. One 10 pound sledge hammer, two large pipe wrenches, a level, one shovel, an elevated stand (previously used for spraying tall cashew trees), bleach and a camera. Wiggan (the Zambian director) found me a helper and off we went to our irrigation project site in Mawawa to install the well and pump. We had visited the previous Saturday and found people dipping water for personal use out of a 2 foot deep hole/ground well. This way we reasoned, there would be clean water for drinking, washing and mixing any spray materials. (Just don’t dump the chemicals on the ground around the pump!)


After attaching the well point to an 8 foot piece of pipe, we drove the first section easily. Some of the individual blows sent the pipe down 1 inch. When we went to attach the second piece of pipe, we took off the factory installed plastic cover and found a seriously dented pipe end. Those Asians! What to do? We decided to put on a lot of sealing tape and thread it in past the dented part and give it a try. This would be fine as long as it stayed intact, right?

After driving it down about 2 feet, I noticed a wobble coming from the coupling area. We tightened the pipe a little more. Just a few more blows and it happened again. The coupling was already below ground level in the hole. We retightened with the same loosening/heart sinking result. Something was desperately wrong down there!! Three of us pulled it up to where we could access the coupling and took the pipe off, and sure enough the pipe had broken at in the middle of the threaded area. You can’t say I wasn’t warned about cheap pipe! The only option to even consider, was return to Mongu and find someone to rethread it.

So, we found Norad a local well drilling company. They rethreaded the damaged end, and I rechecked the other factory end. It looked ok. The thread die produced a pretty flat thread, so we had to cut it pretty deep to accept our coupling. No matter, as long as we had new threads to work with, I could try again. Back to the field we went.

One end of the 8 foot pipe didn’t want to thread into the coupling at the well site. No problem, the solution would be to turn the pipe over and put the drive cap on that end. So we started driving the well again. After putting it down about 4 feet, the pipe was no longer tight below ground. I didn’t even want to risk it, so we pulled it up and sure enough the threads were damaged, plus the driving cap had slipped its threads and was now crossed threaded on the other end. There were two threads to repair now. Back to town we went.

The shop manager looked at the broken parts and said, “They did not do a good enough job last time, let me call them and have them do it over.” They did, and I made sure we had some taper this time. When I left, I promised not to trouble them again because if these threads did not hold up, I did not want to try their device again. Back to the field we went.

To spare you the details, we tried to drive both an 8 foot and 4 foot piece of pipe with the same result, broken or damaged threads on both ends of the pipes. We left the well point and 8 foot piece of pipe in the ground and retreated to fight another day. What to do now? Is there even another pipe threader in town?

That same afternoon, someone appeared in the office who has been contracted to put in some more $5,000 wells. Was this help from above? He said that he could help me and called for a pipe threading tool to be put on the truck from Lusaka. It arrived the next day, but after three hours work, they only had fixed two of the three bad threads properly. What kind of help is this? They promised, “We will bring it back in the morning after one hour.” The morning came and went with no pipe. Then I started wondering, will I be able to complete the project? We tried calling, no answer. About 12:30 there is a knock on the door and there is the guy. Wiggan asks him, "Where is Steve’s pipe?" "Oh, my guys were to bring it. Hasn’t it come yet?" It arrives in 15 minutes. Maybe it will happen yet before I leave town at 11 p.m. (He was kind enough not to charge me.)

We went back to the field at 4 p.m. and I told Wiggan, "No matter what happens, this won’t take long. Either we will be successful or we won’t." Ha. When we arrived, we collected a crowd pretty quickly. The pipe threaded in to the coupling in the ground ok, but the drive cap did not thread on well. Hmm? I did not want to take the chance of damaging the top threads again. The solution was to find a chunk of wood that we could use to replace the cap. A board was located and we bashed it up pretty bad, but it did the trick. Hurray!


Attaching the pump was a little tricky as the threaded opening seemed slightly smaller than our pipe end, but we got it done. Priming the pump was the next step. It would not pull a vacuum. Ouch! What was going on? Upon examination, it looked like the factory installed gasket was bulging on one side and even leaking water. Now for an open end wrench, which of course I did not bring. But somebody had one! Wow. We repositioned the gasket and started pumping. It drew a vacuum, but once the air bubbles stopped coming that was it. No flowing water. We had skipped one important step because I did not have the wherewithal to do it. That was surging and cleaning the screen, now twenty feet down. You are supposed to put down a plunger or a running hose to flush the system. I had neither.

I guess it is time to call Iowa for tech support. I left the pump in place with some brief instructions for the technical guy and went back to the office.


Later that night I called the WaterSource company in Iowa using Skype. Yes, they confirmed, we need to flush it. After reviewing the options, we both had some new ideas and I realized we could use the canal water and a couple of hoses to link to the big irrigation pump for our pressure water source this time. Once we get it flushed, we will have to bleach it to kill all the bacteria and then pump it awhile to flush the bleach. I left some clear instructions for the staff in Zamia to complete the task and got on the bus for Lusaka. I hope to hear someday soon.

Two Groups Came to Visit

Two groups came to visit Mozambique recently. One was from our home church and we were happy to connect with old (and some new) friends. The first week in Moz they visited another missionary from our church who lives in Dondo, working with orphans and planting churches.

When they came to Maputo we took them to visit some orphanages and other ministries as well as to the village of Mukhotwene.


There were lots of kids to love and hug at Iris Ministries.


We visited a school in the village. We also did kid's clubs and a training for church leaders.


Here are some of them singing and dancing.


Mirtha made capulana bags for all the ladies on the team.

We visited Kruger Park a couple of days.


Two groups of rhinos traveled toward each other until there were about nine of them in one place. I think it was a family reunion!


We saw some rare sightings - this is one of the wild dogs. We also saw black-back jackals on our night drive.


It was our first time to see Cheetah! There were three of them finishing off a kill and about 50 vultures standing around waiting for the leftovers.


In between teams, Mirtha, Yudel and Deborah moved to the orphanage. Funds were donated for land and enough to start building a house for them. They are excited and are a great help to the ministry. We miss them!

Two days later a group from The Chapel in Ohio came and Steve went to Zambia. The Chapel has adopted two villages in Gaza. They do ministry in one village one day and then repeat it in the other village the next day. They taught women, leaders and children on the Sermon on the Mount.


Usually they meet under a tree but this day there were some sprinkles.


Maria is an amazing cook using a charcoal fire and she never burns the rice or the xima!


The wise and foolish "men" - Tom and Caleb, our friends.


On Sunday the team attended the wedding of Reginaldo and Olga. We have known Reginaldo for five years as he was one of our microenterprise trainers and then built many chicken houses for the project. He has been saving up for his wedding for about three years. The village leader told us it was the first wedding in the village for 15 years as most people don't go through the formalities. The village was 17 km off the main road - way out in the boonies. We did not see many smiles from them - it is a somber occasion and a sad time for the bride as she leaves her family and joins her husband's family. One of the songs from her family was "bye, bye, ciao ..." which made her cry. It's one of those cultural differences that are hard to understand.

Thankful

We've been back in Mozambique for about a week. Here's a list of things we're thankful for:

1. Blue skies. I love the deep blue skies here and they are rarely covered up by clouds.


2. Cool breezes - It's spring, meaning it is starting to get hot, but it's still very bearable - 80's by day, 60's at night. Nice.

3. Co-workers, friends and church members who seemed happy to have us back.

4. Housemates who were very happy to see us (one reason is that the water pump tank needed fixing!).

5. A sweet 19-mo old at home who is warming up to us again. She's learning so much. Learning to walk, learning three languages, learning what is acceptable and what is not.


6. A sense of newness and refreshment after a nice break.

7. We're thankful the riots from the beginning of the month are over. The government conceded and lowered prices. The question is, how long will this band-aid last and what will happen when prices of bread, utilities, and fuel go up again? The measures they have taken are not economically sustainable. We can also understand the people's frustrations with inflation and not having enough to eat or live well.

8. We had a wonderful time with our kids just before we left. We're thankful they are all doing well. We spent some time on a lake and the last morning before we left it stopped raining. We still had fun and some even went sailing!

















We celebrated all these birthdays at once!









We could also make a list of things that frustrate us, and the challenge is for us to be thankful for those as well.