Dondo Bible School

This past week Steve and I traveled to Dondo in the center of Mozambique. Tanneken Fros, a friend from our home church in Indiana had invited us to teach at their Bible school. They started with 28 students (mostly bush pastors) but then because of political unrest in the area and some violence, 18 of them went home. Members from the local church were invited to the 4-day seminar that we did and we had around 45 people most days.

 

                                                                     Tanneken

We taught material from the Ancient Paths seminar. Because it needed to be translated to Sena and contextualized we did not use the video seminar. It was a lot of work but it was well worth it. We felt that God took the concepts and planted His Word in hearts. We taught on the importance of honoring  others, the power of the tongue to bless and not curse each other, choosing life by going God's way, the importance of building our lives on a strong foundation, iniquities and how to be freed from them, transparency in our lives, breaking free from shame and more.

 

 

At the end we demonstrated how to pray a blessing over a person and then they prayed for each other.

 

 

It seemed they enjoyed this part and it was a good way to close.

 

The tradition is to give capulanas to guests.

 

Lots of singing, dancing, hugs and kisses.

They were excited to receive the outlines of the lessons.

 

It was a great week and we pray that God will use the teachings to transform lives and make a tangible difference in their homes, church and community.  It was also great to spend time with Tanneken and another guest, Charleeda who had taught previously.  Tanneken is the one who introduced us to Mozambique and encouraged us to come. When we visited her in 2002 we stopped in Maputo and that is when we learned about World Relief. God moves in mysterious ways!

Running the Race

I had the privilege of joining a group of six people from Akron, Ohio who traveled to the villages of Chaimite, Koka Misava and Macalawane the end of May. We were joined by a group of six from Young Life.  They were a wonderful asset to the team as they are experts in working with youth. Their skits, games, and stories with the kids and youth were excellent and they kept us moving in the evenings as well. No board games were needed to entertain us this time!

We were also joined by the people who are always working on the ground - trainers of discipleship groups, agriculture managers, cooks, a construction guy, drivers, interpreters, kids' clubs leaders coordinators. They are wonderful people and we had a good time getting to know them better - they are the unsung heroes.

The group's theme for the week was "running the race" from Hebrews 11 and 12. For one of their skits they acted out a race. Four volunteers came forward. Three of them were "hindered" as it talks about in Heb 12:1-2. One had a blindfold, one had hands and feet tied, one had to carry a bucket of water on her head. The last one had no weights or hindrances.

Here they are at the lineup.

The "unhindered" woman won but the lady

with the water came in a close second! She was
wet and laughing.

 Mozambique - where the
women are strong ...

I was very excited to see the multiplication of the discipleship groups. That has been the goal since they started three years ago and it is happening now.  I spoke to Rabeca (below) and asked her why she wanted to start a group. She said she is like the Samaritan woman at the well who went to tell her neighbors and family about Jesus. She wants them to learn the truths she has learned.

 

Isabel, the leader of the original groups for the last three years is on the right. She now leads new groups and is supervising 26 people who are starting their own groups. Please pray for these people as some are new in the faith.

I also met another Isabel. She is so excited about what God has done in her life. She has started a discipleship group in the agriculture field that is supported by The Chapel and World Relief plus another group at her home. Isabel spends a lot of time in the fields and is one of the top five producers. Even though they lost a lot of their crop with the floods in January, they are very hopeful about the beautiful crop of tomatoes that are ready for harvest. She used to sell tomatoes by the road with other women and now she produces the tomatoes and sells to her friends as well as to the wholesale market in Maputo.

I met Regina in the neighboring village of Mukhotwene. She shared with me that being in the discipleship group has saved her money because she no longer pays the witchdoctor to find out who put a curse on her. Now when something bad happens, she prays and leaves it in God's hands.

These are just a few of the stories we heard and I was very encouraged. There is still a lot of work to do, but it is wonderful to see how God has been working in people's lives. You can read more about the discipleship groups here.

When I returned home I found out the riot police had been to the Central Hospital just across the way from our house to arrest the leader of the medical association. The doctors, nurses, and other workers have been on strike for the last three weeks, wanting 100% increase in their wages.  Now there are rumors that the teachers will strike. Everyone wants a piece of the pie from the big new industries that are producing gas and coal in the center of the country. Unfortunately it is not trickling down and you can read more about that here if you are interested.  There is plenty to pray about - intercessions and thanksgivings.


Photo credits - Julie Davis (I forgot to take my camera!)

Kenya Training and Anniversary Celebration

In April Steve and I had the privilege to travel to Kenya to do a microenterprise training of trainers. We also celebrated our 35th Anniversary by traveling for the weekend to Nakuru in the Rift Valley.

We had fun checking out the market and found some different grains and things that we don't see in Mozambique.

 

This is a huge volcanic crater that has many geothermal sites.

 

 

We heard a lot about the flamingoes at Lake Nakuru, but when we arrived we found out most of them had left because of the flooding in the area. This is rainy season and it has been raining more than usual.  On the way back to Nairobi we passed Lake Elementaita and found a community that grants access to the lake. Here we are starting out on our walk with our guide who said it was about 1 km to the lake. Actually, it was about 3 km one way and a good workout.

 

 

We did see some flamingoes, pelicans, terns, etc. They say sometimes there are a million!

 

 

To get to the retreat center where the training was held we had to travel this "road" for awhile. Apparently the road people removed the asphalt to re-do the road and then it started raining. Poor timing. It was a real challenge for many of the participants to arrive. Thankfully most stayed for the week so we didn't have to do this every day.

 

 

Here are some shots from the training. The participants caught on fast as they are well educated and they will be great trainers.

 

 

This group liked to laugh and have a good time.

 

Here's a sampling of the beautiful flowers and landscaping in Nairobi.
 

   

And you think SHE talks a lot?

In my culture, it is generally agreed that women have a stronger gift of gab than men (of course with many exceptions).  It is also debated that men are said to use an average of 7,000-14,000 words per day and women use from 15,000 to 25,000.  Perhaps you know someone who talks virtually non-stop, well here is my story about a guy (yep, a guy) who can probably out talk them all.

I was in an African country (and I won’t name names or tribes either) in a fairly remote location with two people from our national team.  Someone asked for a ride to the town where we were going about 4.5 hours away and the team agreed.  Personally, I don’t mind providing this type of assistance to someone, especially if we know him, which we did.

However, we were about 20 minutes into the drive when I realized that this guy had not stopped talking since he got into the vehicle.  Now I was in a meeting with him earlier that day and he was the one who complained that he felt excluded as the meeting was being held in English for my benefit.  Not only did he complain, but went on and on to the extent that I thought it was probably a mercy that the meeting was in English or the talk would be never ending.

No kidding, this guy talked 2.5 hours non-stop, until he ran out of water.  When he slowed down enough to ask for some, our team obliged.  (Big mistake.)  This did lead to about a 1 hour interlude where some questions went back and forth, with the other two team members involved.  Maybe he was just building another head of steam. 

Sure enough, finding ourselves still about 1 hour from our destination, he seemed to take note that he would soon be losing his captive audience and launched into another half hour interlude, where he not only asked and answered his own question, like du, du, du, 2008. Eh? Uhu, 2008,  blah, blah, blah.  He laughed at his own jokes and the rest of the team sat generally mute with the occasional grunt to indicate they were not comatose.  One finally asked for the radio to be turned on which temporarily quieted the output, but alas, we were still too far out of range to get a good station. 

When we parted he said, “Good travels, it was nice traveling with you.”  What can you say to that?  The phrase that had earlier come to mind was, “Thank you for coming and thank you for leaving.”  Of course that went unsaid.  :-)

Vision Trip

When we started working with World Relief eight years ago in the area of microenterprise development (MED), we were pretty well aware that we were doing something that almost no one else in WR was doing. When we focused our efforts on the chicken project and then agriculture, the people within microfinance were not sure at all about working with us.  Thus began the story that has an exciting new beginning today. 

 After reasonable and moderate success in Mozambique, I was asked to oversee an agricultural program in Western Province, Zambia, now called ZambiaWorks.  Since 2007, we have been trying (and at times erring) to find innovative ways for small farmers to use what they know plus new ways of doing things, to earn income, where before their hard work only fed the family part of the time.  Today, that  organization works with more than 1,000 farmers and 4,000 borrowers, with plans for expansion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Treadle pump. One pumps and another waters.

 

 

 

 

 

One group of farmers is giving back to the community by constructing this school.

 

As some of my work load reduced in Mozambique, I was asked to start working with other WR countries in Africa.  After two years of visiting potential program sites, sitting on microfinance boards, and telling people about Zambia, five of the countries were ready to move from where they were to something new.  But still when I only told them about a new way of doing things, I got a lot of questions or puzzled looks.  Time for a vision trip.

 Going through the process of getting a trip like this approved, we identified 20 people or more people who might attend.  Potentially overwhelming.  In the end we had 12, plus myself and that nearly did in the restaurants and hotels we frequented.  More than once, it took in excess of two hours to prepare a meal for this crowd.  And what a lively crowd it was.

 We looked at more than 12 different projects in three days, drove more than 1,500 kilometers, with some individuals spending two overnights on an airplane.  In the end, we sat and talked first as small groups, then as a whole on what we had learned and how we might apply it in the various countries represented. 

Now for the first dividends.  One of my first E. Africa assignments was to visit an agriculture project that had loaned $30,000 in a pilot for agriculture.  More than 1/3 was eventually written off and much more expense was incurred managing the process.  Needless to say, there were a lot of  “lessons learned.”

 After the vision trip, I sat down with three of the trip participants, plus one more and asked the country director, “since we want to try and do an agriculture loan pilot again, what did you learn on the trip and let’s see how that can help us build a successful agriculture loan product.”  The result was amazing. 

 Suddenly I began to hear what I had been trying to communicate for two years coming out of the mouths of others.  In 2.5 hours of discussion, we had a guideline, a schedule of activities, a timeline of events and retroactive resolution from the board to run a pilot agriculture project as soon as possible.  One participant, who had never seen an ag loan product he liked, (to be fair, none of the group had), was nearly running circles around me with practical ideas as to how this could be done.  What a difference a trip and a team make.  There was a clear feeling in the room that this should work, what are we waiting for?

 It is not that the work will be without challenges.  After all, this is Africa.  But being Africa, there are also millions of small farmers who need the opportunity to do more than barely survive doing the only thing they know, agriculture.  They need a chance to feed their families, their communities. the continent and make a profit.  What a vision and what a blessing to be a part of it!

 

               Teaching WR Rwanda volunteers how to do a kitchen garden with the Farming God's Way method.

Kenya February 2013

Our WR agriculture program in Kenya is like a toddler taking its first steps on real earth.  Certainly not the first steps on manicured lawn or a sandy beach, but real, hot, windswept, rocky soil. 

We started in an area stricken by drought and famine, in September of 2012 after the long rains failed to come to Turkana in April and May.  People were truly desperate and malnutrition in children was double the normal rates.  Our goal was to keep people alive until we could begin teaching them to raise food for themselves.  We knew this would prove to be quite a challenge as these peoples have survived off the land as pastoralists, not farmers, for as long as anyone can remember.

When flying from Nairobi to Turkana, the all encompassing fertile fields of the Kenya highlands shift from continuous fields, to green mountains, to brown mountains to grey desert sands with little to no color variation, except for the green tree-lined traces of dry stream beds.  Evidence of people is hard to find except along the one river in the region.  Welcome to Turkana, we are here to do agriculture. 

This trip came about as part of a conservation agriculture conference in Arusha, Tanzania, put on by ECHO, out of Ft. Myers Florida.  They are a great organization, founded to help educate people like me on different options for helping people grow nutritious food in the places where they live.  That part was educational with great networking and new friendships established. 

On arrival back to Nairobi, I spent a day with our director J.P., driving out to Molo-Kurisol, where much of the violence and death occurred following the disputed presidential election in 2007.  WR is planning an agricultural and youth intervention to address the idleness and discontent among young men working on their parent’s farms.  My sense is that they are great young men, but frustrated by a lack of purpose and progress in their lives.  This land is rich and productive where minor improvements can make a big impact.

By the time I got home that night, my stomach was roaring and kept me up half the night, emptying itself with great energy.  No fun indeed and the thought of food was banished for 36 hours.  What a way to lose those extra Christmas pounds.  To top it off, after a series of miscues, I missed my flight to Turkana and was “forced” to rest for the entire 24 hours before catching the next one by the skin of my teeth.  I was literally the last person permitted on the plane.  (Actually, it was pure mercy that I was able to rest.)

Upon arriving in Turkana, we took off on a 5-hour, grueling trip through uncountable riverbeds, up the mountain and over paths that have never once in their existence seen anything you could call a road grader.  After 2.5 hours I called for a stretch break.  The mechanical stress points on my backside were burning, neck and shoulder aching and it felt like my head was on a swivel.   We arrived at 10:30 p.m. after meeting no cars after dark, ate supper and fell into a hot, restless sleep.  When the sun came up, I was not ready to get out of bed!  However, this being the third meal in 2.5 days, I needed to get something in my system for energy.

We spent the day visiting agricultural project locations.  Most were pretty sad and stressed by the lack of water, high heat, high wind and no mulch.  Caretaking of crops is difficult.  There is little natural ground cover, (except for the stones) and most of the greenery is thorn trees with tiny little leaves.  There were a few bright spots.  One was Pastor Peter whom I had met the year before.  He greeted me by first name like a long lost friend and enthusiastically showed me his “kitchen” garden.  The tomatoes were doing so well, they were selling more than $12 of produce per picking and were the talk of the town. 
 

He said, “I remember what you told me last year, that it was possible to grow vegetables here and look, we are doing it.”  (I was glad he reminded me because I didn’t remember saying it myself.)  He went on to say that he was using the money to send a young promising, but vulnerable young man to high school.  This boy was helping to carry water to the garden and helping to earn the money that would send him to school.  Joseph says he wants to become a doctor.  I encouraged him to study his sciences well and he would have many options to use what he will learn. 

In several areas we have put in deep wells or boreholes to provide the communities with water for the household, livestock and gardening.  They are just getting started and do not understand many things.  For example, they wanted another big water tank so the pump would produce more water.  It was a pleasure to meet with them and find them drinking clean water that was no longer available in the deep holes they used to dig in the river bed, due to the lack of the short season rains.  Without this water resource, they would be forced to move out of their community in search of enough water to survive until the next rains come. 

It is a long way to Turkana from anywhere and Turkana has a long way to go, but we have a foothold and intend to use it for the good of its unique people.  Pray for our small team as they work to bring great change and new things to an old culture.  May the ancient paths of agriculture be reestablished in this region. 

Chokwe Visits

WR chaplain John Gichinga, his wife, Noel and an Anglican minister, Elizabeth Kamau, visited WR Mozambique this week. We traveled to Chokwe last Thursday and yesterday. It was good to go see what is happening and also hard to see the conditions that many people still live with.

John Gichinga, Carol Nel of VAB, Elizabeth Kamau, Noel Gichinga, Sybil

The first day we stopped at Volta a Biblia and heard about the Bible school and what it has been like to have many people move onto their grounds for several weeks. Carol Nel told us that 105 people returned home yesterday and they have 40-45 people left. Their staff has done a wonderful job of cooking extra food and serving others. Sybil Baloyi is still there for a few days as she waits for the mud to dry in her house so she can clean it out. She hopes to open her preschool at the beginning of March.

From there we went to visit the WR driver, Sr. Calanga’s brother Eusebio and his family. Calanga had not had any news about them for a long time  and did not know where they were or if they had survived the floods. But he recently got news that they were back home. He purchased some supplies and we visited and shared with them. They ran from the floods in the middle of the night to a small hill not too far from their house. Then they waited at least one week until the waters receded enough to return home. I asked what they ate and Eusebio said they didn’t have regular meals but ate enough to survive. It was good to see someone who is almost back to normal. Their mud house wasn’t damaged too much although some things inside were ruined. They lost some crops and animals and are busy replanting and trying to survive on their small farm.
 

 

Along the road we saw these people trying to scrounge some edible food from bags that had been dumped by the stores because they had been in the flood water. This was very disturbing.
 

 

 

 

We also traveled closer to one of the dams where the roads were impassable and looked like this:



 

The asphalt looked it had been picked up and moved over to the side and the road foundation crumbled. There were some strong currents going through here!

 

Monday we visited the WR staff on their first day back to work. They were busy cleaning the training center and the kitchen. The rest of the office will be cleaned this week.


    John surveying the damage and mess in the office.

 

           

 

 

                      You can see how muddy the first water is!

The WR staff were subdued and discouraged as they have had so many losses. It was good to meet with the Spiritual Transformation leaders. Their prayer requests include to pray for their children and failies who have gone through a very rough time, to pray for the people in their groups so that they do not lose tehir faith, that God will give them the strength and means to return to their villages to begin a new year with their groups and that new people will also join.
 

Still smiling in spite of it all.

 

We had an excellent time of sharing with the larger WR Chokwe staff and prayed for each other. After a good meal for all we distributed some clothing and shoes that the WR Maputo staff and others donated. 

 

On the way home we went past the large accommodation camp that still has around 50,000 people. Some of them do not have homes to go back to, some go back to clean during the day but still spend nights here. Water, food and shelter is still a challenge.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support. There is a long way to go before life gets back to normal for these folks but God is faithful and He is helping them one step at a time. World Relief has given 10,000 water purification bottles for the camp and would now like to provide seeds for farmers to replant while the soil is still wet. Even though it is the rainy season, the rain can be very sporadic and planting now is their best hope. We don't normally ask for funds on this blog, but if you would like to help, see the link in the previous entry or go the www.worldrelief.org and Mozambique floods.  Thank you.

 

Wow

Wow, what a week it has been!  It feels like we have lived a month since Monday and the worst of what is happening, is not even happening to us personally.  However, the flood events in Chokwe and Gaza are greatly impacting our friends and WR family there. 

If Dr. Pieter, our Gaza director feels like Job, he has good reason.  On Monday, the farmer’s association fields where he has cultivated relationships and the agricultural project for over 10 years were destroyed by the flooding.  On Tuesday, he spent the day moving equipment and fertilizer to a safer location and began prepping the office for evacuation.  On Wednesday, the waters overwhelmed Chokwe, flooding first the office and then his home.  As the water came so quickly, the guards he was planning to leave at the office panicked, so he took them with him to high ground.  On Thursday, when he was able to get back to the office, he found everything had been stripped by looters.  Desks, tables, chairs, cabinets, safely stored electronics, kitchen equipment, freezer and fridge were all gone, with only a few pieces of paper remaining on the floor.  How many losses can one person endure?

Perhaps they took the stuff in  boats like this. That's all we can figure out as the water was still too deep to drive a truck in.

Dr. Pieter shared he was so discouraged.  Yes, he knew in his heart it was only stuff, but how devastating to lose everything and face the task of rebuilding.  The good news is that all our staff are safe and well.  Loss of life during the flood event was minimal.  More people have died since the flood waters have started receding.  Some of them are looters, falling through roofs or getting so drunk they have tripped in the street and drowned.  (How would you explain that to St. Peter, if indeed we have to do so?)

This is the first time we have personally been involved in formulating and coordinating an emergency response of this nature.  The most difficult thing is communication with the field.  Cell phone towers are out in Chokwe so if we need to talk to Pieter, it is only early or late when he’s not there.  How do you plan a realistic response without knowing numbers, places, exact needs or have a location to operate out of with staff on the ground?   The disaster response manager left five years ago and things have changed.  As you can imagine, it has been a steep learning curve for all of us. 

About six of the senior staff have banded together as a working group to try and address both ends of the situation.  Rachel is leading communications with the WR home office and the Church Partners.  (Check out her WR Mozambique facebook page creation.)  Jamene is looking at the finance side and signing the checks.  Margarida is attending the government disaster response meetings and bringing back (sometimes two day old) information (not her fault).  Steve is advising and suggesting options, still trying to support Nia, the country director, and the agriculture programs while helping Rachel where he can.  So, by Friday night we went home exhausted, a bit stressed out, waking up still tired on Saturday.  But we have so much to be thankful for – a clean, dry house with stuff we use and wear still in it and food in the cupboards. There are thousands of people in Gaza Province who cannot say that today whose houses look like this or who lived in a mud hut that has washed away.

WR is initially partnering with another Christian NGO to provide small bottles of chlorine to people in the camps and who are returning to Chokwe. This NGO has a system for distribution already in place and clean drinking water has been identified as a pressing need. As time moves on we will help people as they return to their homes and then we will need to rehabilitate the office. We will provide seeds for the villagers who lost their crops and also their food security. If you are interested in helping financially with this relief effort you can click here for more information.

River in the background, former tomato field in the front - Chinhangane village.


We have really appreciated the people who are praying and encouraging us and others here. It is at times like this that support like this makes such a difference. Thank you.

Flooding in Gaza Province

It is really a hopeless feeling, sitting at our office in Maputo and knowing that water has again quickly filled the town of Chokwe and people are sitting on rooftops waiting to be rescued. 

Tuesday of last week there was a large low pressure system that went through southern Mozambique into South Africa and even Zimbabwe.  Here in Maputo, we received 6 inches of rain in less than 5 hours that flooded streets and neighborhoods damaging houses and roads.  The news coverage was all about the local damage and not a whole lot more.  This picture is of a road by our office that has been under construction for the last 9 months. When the rains came it washed large sections away. One of our friends lives at the bottom of the hill and unfortunately a lot of this dirt/mud ended up in her house as well as her neighbors' houses. 

Four days later, the authorities who control the flood gates at Massingir dam, announced they would open three gates to reduce high water levels in the reservoir.  Last year when this happened, it wiped out two tomato fields of WR farmers, caused more than $45,000 in losses and delayed planting in other WR project areas.  If total agricultural losses were ever calculated, I don’t know that they were, but due to the sudden, unannounced opening of the dam, more than 90 irrigation pumps ended up under water, and this represents only the irrigated fields along the river. 

Because the announcement this week indicated only half the flood gates would be opened, there was hope the fields would not flood.  However, all the gates were opened and they resulted in fully flooded fields.

 

Based on news that more water was coming from the main river, Dr. Pieter, a WR director in Chokwe, spent the day yesterday getting supplies and pumps to high ground in and around Chokwe.  He then moved some equipment to higher elevations at the office and was standing guard to see what would happen.  Two of our drivers were assigned to drive to Chokwe and assist with evacuation of equipment, vehicles and people.  Before they could even get out of town, Pieter called to say the water had come in from the back side of the town, not even the river side, and had already reached window level at the office.  That was at 10 AM and the last communication we have heard from the team since. 

Rachel heard the TV news at noon reporting the road was already impassable at the town where the high water mark reached in 2000 and people are already on roof tops waiting for rescue.  Even if you have a vehicle, it will be extremely difficult to drive out to a dry place some 35 km distant as the road is elevated in spots above the flood plain, but now underwater.  One false move and you are underwater and who knows where the road might be undercut or washed away. 

Please pray for all those affected. I can only imagine what is left of a mud hut after a flood. Many people will be left with nothing, and the promise of income from their crops is also gone. Pray for WR as we respond to this crisis. Pray that people will stand firm in their faith in God even in adversity. Thank you.

Return to Maputo

As many of you know, we have returned to Maputo after eight months of scheduled R and R in Indiana on a “working” sabbatical.  We were able to spend a good amount of time with family, friends, local church and new acquaintances revitalizing ourselves and hopefully others for the months and years to come. 

We want to offer a special thank you to our sending church, Harvest Community of Goshen, Indiana for hosting and continuing to support us, to our families for giving so generously of their love, time, garden produce and internet access, to World Relief for allowing us to take the time away and to many other groups like Family Foundations International, Le Rucher and Women of the Harvest who also ministered to us along the way.

As we left Indiana, we were carrying more luggage than we have every carried.  This was partly because we had brought more to the U.S. because we were going to be spending both warm and cold months there and also because of things given to us for others and things we wanted to take back. 

We started praying over our luggage situation at least a week before we arrived at the South Bend airport, asking God to help us get all the bags through without any hassle, loss or theft.  We even shrink-wrapped the soft bags with zippers to help deter opening them while in the Jo’burg airport overnight.  Our first experience of grace was with Delta, whose website said they allowed three free bags per Medallion member and their traveling companion.  This is how we packed, but on arrival were informed that for flights to Southern Africa, only two free bags per person were allowed.  What to do, since the extra bags were to be charged at $200 each and the value of the items was not that amount.  After I turned to discuss with Rachel, the desk agent said, “it is OK, we will allow it this time.  Thus, our bags went all the way through to Maputo without extra charges.

While we were looking for the bags in Maputo, I noted from a distance, that most of our bags were no longer wrapped.  However, all the locks were still on them and upon opening, nothing was taken. 

Our other concern was clearing immigration without our actual residency cards.  We had left Mozambique before they were printed and only had a letter permitting us to be outside of the country for more than 90 days and a receipt.  The immigration guy processing our passports did not know what to make of the letter, but he asked his neighbor who was also busy processing passports and he just said, “It’s OK.”  When the first passport was stamped, I knew the other was through too.

Our last point of grace was with the inspecting officials as we left the Maputo baggage area.  They wanted us to open 3-4 bags for inspection.  Our biggest concern was “hungry” officials, looking for additional cash and with the amount of bags, they certainly could suspect that we were not going to use all of the OTC meds that had been given for the orphanage for ourselves.  Their main interest was to find out about the pressure cooker, whole grains (to assist with Steve’s wheat allergy) and the broken glass from a picture frame (our only real loss).

Our friend and part-time housekeeper, Maria, was at the house to open the gates and give us hugs and squeals of joy and laughter like only she can do.  Another friend had left a basket full of goodies so that we didn't have to go out and buy food immediately. It was a great welcome back.

We spent the afternoon and evening unpacking bags, the storage closet and kitchen so we could at least eat on Sunday.  It will probably take us a week to get back to where the house seems put back together and we are sleeping normally through the night. It's good to be back!