Motorcycles and Mocuba

Driving in Nampula is… well… an experience.  Or rather riding is.  I think I’d be petrified if I had to drive here.  Forget all clearly delineated lanes, rules and speed limits.  To me, it is the transportation equivalent of relativistic truth- “Drive however it is right for you.”

To be fair, people generally stay on the left side of the road, that is, assuming zero potholes (which is rare; these potholes are also extremely large).  However, if it is convenient, feel free to swerve into oncoming traffic to avoid them.

You may also pass anyone on either side whenever there is available space.  “Available space” is defined not in terms of feet but literal inches.  I lost track of how many times I was absolutely sure we would hit someone or something on the first day alone.

A nice thing about driving here is that there are actually relatively few cars or trucks.  Most people cannot afford one, so there are as many bicycles and motorcycles as cars on the streets.  However, many people cannot even afford these, so by far the greatest number of people on the street is pedestrians.  And this is what really unnerves me- most seem to have a certain disregard for the motorized traffic.  One missionary told me that you absolutely need to have a 360 degree awareness of your surroundings when you drive; pedestrians only look both ways before running out into the road about half of the time.

Unfortunately, accidents are not uncommon.  And regrettably, Hillary and I have already witnessed one right outside of the vehicle we were in.  A motorcyclist was coming towards us on the street and a pedestrian was preparing to cross.  However, there was a bus parked on the right side, so the pedestrian couldn’t see further up the road.  The pedestrian looked our way, but didn’t try and peek around the bus before he literally ran right out in front of the cyclist.  The motorcycle fortunately only seemed to clip his heel, but still the man was flipped in the air, and the motorcycle spun and skidded to a stop right outside my window.   Immediately swarms of people surrounded them helping them up and assessing the situation.  It seems both men were okay, a little bruised and bloodied, but still our heart rates were boosted a little higher than normal.

In other news, I will officially be going on a trip to Mocuba, a town about 245 miles from Nampula, to do some recording work.  Edgar and I will be working with a translation team to record audio of the Gospel of Mark into one of languages of Mozambique that is without a written scripture yet.  I am very excited for this opportunity, and I know I will learn and experience some really cool things!  I will be gone about five days starting this Thursday, so Hillary and I could really use your prayers during that time:

-First, that travel would go well and we would arrive in Mocuba and back home safely

-That God would protect us and bless our work so that His Word would be made available to those who don’t have any access to it

-For both Hillary and I as we are apart from each other

-That this could be used as a learning experience, and we would be open to whatever God has in store for us.

Thank you all very much!  We really appreciate all your prayers and support!

~Mark

A Lunch without 'Cassava Food'

Mark is gone this afternoon to worship team practice. He’ll be playing piano on a worship team at a local church tomorrow. Apparently, the previous keyboardist died suddenly from malaria about two weeks ago. Death seems so much closer here sometimes, which is a little unsettling.

Anyway, for lunch today we were invited to a local pastor’s house. Pastor Carmona stopped us on Thursday and said he wanted to have us to his house on Saturday for lunch to meet his family. He said we would eat ‘cassava food,’ which is real Nampula food. Today he showed up at our door around noon to walk us over to his home, about a five or ten minute walk from the compound we’re living in.

Pastor Carmona’s property is surrounded by a 6-foot high grass (or bamboo?) fence. He pulled the grass gate aside for us, and let us into his yard. We were ushered under a pavilion with a woven grass roof and an underlay of plastic. We sat in the two blue plastic chairs and Pastor Carmona sat on a sunken couch. I noticed that most of the property was sandy ground, dotted with trees. A big cement house with a grass roof was in the center of the property (later we learned this is his home), and a red brick house was next to the shelter we were sitting under (his other house, apparently; two of his four children sleep there currently and when guests come, they stay in that house).

Pastor Carmona really wants to learn English. And his English is really very good. However, conversation was still a little slow. His wife doesn’t speak English other than greetings, and our Portuguese is at this point limited to, “Where’s the bathroom?” “How much does it cost?” “I don’t speak much Portuguese but I want to learn.” I didn’t really want to use those first two phrases, and the last could only get a conversation so far.

We had a really nice lunch, though. We got to meet all their kids: Luisa, Jemima, Kezia, and Elias. There was no cassava food, Pastor Carmona said apologetically. There was, however, coconut rice, a bean-rice dish, and a bean and cabbage stew to ladle over the rice. There was also a little fried chicken and Coca-cola or Fanta to drink.

Before we ate, Lucia, Carmona’s wife brought around two basins. One had water in it, and she poured the water from this basin over our hands into the other basin. Then she handed us a towel to dry our hands off. This ritual was enacted between each course of the meal.

Lucia is a beautiful lady. She’s tall, and though she’s not overweight, she waddles, like her back hurts her a great deal. Her head was wrapped in a scarf, and she had a beautiful capulana wrapped around her waist. (Sometime I’ll write more about capulanas. They’re all the rage among women in Nampula. Pretty much 85% of the women I see outside are wearing these lovely colorful cloths wrapped around their waists, wrapped around bundles on their heads, or slung over their shoulders to carry infants.)

Kezia and Elias unrolled a bamboo mat under the shade of a tree. Elias came to borrow his dad’s phone, so our whole time there was accompanied by the electronic jingle of a cell phone game being played. I kept shaking my head over the mix of modern and traditional elements in the lives of this family.

The food was delicious, so delicious that when Pastor Carmona urged us to take seconds, I did. I was a little sorry that I took seconds when one of the daughters brought out a papaya. Lucia cut the papaya into four sections, after scraping out the seeds, and gave us each a fourth of a papaya in a bowl with a spoon. The papaya was delicious, but I thought I was going to burst!

While we were eating papaya, one of the daughters brought out a prickly looking fruit that I have never seen before. When cut open, the fruit was milky white with big smooth black seeds. Honestly, it put me in mind of a giant eyeball. We got to try this fruit too, which Carmona called corazon de---, or ‘heart of cow.’ Yes, I agree—that is an odd name for a fruit. The juice of this fruit was kind of a milky white, and it felt a little slimy in my mouth… it tasted mildly sweet but a little sour, and definitely like fake tropical fruit flavoring, like a tropical Starburst. All in all, very weird, but I want to try it again!

I really want to find a picture to show you this odd-looking fruit, but right now I can't even find it online. The inside looks a lot like the cherymoya (pictured below) but the outside is very different.

After all of this food, Luisa, the oldest daughter, brought out ‘cassava food.’ Apparently there was cassava, but Lucia was afraid to serve it to us. She ate a big portion of it while Carmona tried to encourage her to let us try it. He finally said, “You see, we are afraid to serve you cassava food. We think you won’t like.” Then Lucia said she was afraid it wouldn’t agree with our stomachs. Finally, she did let us try it. Or rather, she didn’t stop Carmona when he got up and brought the serving plate over to us.

I carved off a small portion (because, remember, I was absolutely full of fruit at that point). It was hot, like it had just come out of the oven and had a texture like a heavy dumpling. By itself it tasted like Cream of Wheat. After we had both popped a chunk in our mouths and were chewing, Lucia suddenly seemed embarrassed and said something to Carmona. I think she was embarrassed that he hadn’t served us the sauce with the cassava. She was eating her cassava by pulling off a small chunk and dipping it into a sauce.

After we had eaten and sat in a somewhat awkward silence for a while, Pastor Carmona walked us back to his house. As we stood up, we thanked him and Lucia for inviting us. They thanked us for accepting the invitation.

I had the sudden impulse to invite them over for a meal sometime. I would just love to cook macaroni and cheese for them. Or spaghetti. But I didn’t because I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to. Or if it would be polite. And then I started wondering, were we rude to leave right after the meal? Was there something else we should have done to show our appreciation? Should we have brought a gift to their family for inviting us over? And I really did enjoy the cassava, even though Lucia was afraid to serve it to us. I wanted to ask her if she would show me how to make it sometime. But is that polite?

I’ve been trying to tamp down all of these anxious questions as I write. All in all, we had a lovely lunch and observed and learned a great deal. And hopefully Pastor Carmona is glad that we did get to try ‘cassava food.’ 

What Mark Has Been Up To

I would follow Hillary’s last post with a detailed schedule of “A Day in the Life: Music Missionary”, but so far it would look something like this:

5:30- Get up, get ready, eat breakfast, have some devotion time, etc.

8:00ish through 5:00ish- ???

Really, my days here at the SIL center have all been quite different from one another, not exactly the rigid schedule of a school teacher.  For the most part I’ve been tagging along with Edgar, a missionary here who does music and scripture recording/editing, research, a little bit of teaching at schools, churches and workshops, and generally building relationships with the church and community.

Some of my time so far has been spent in a recording studio, where I’ve listened to and learned a bit about the music of Mozambique.  Edgar has also shown me the work he has done in editing a film based on the book of Genesis which has been translated into a local language.

But I’ve also been around the city of Nampula a lot.  So much that I’m almost used to the way people (mostly) drive on the left side of the road.  Edgar has taken me to help him observe a local church choir and dialogue about their music, to connect with other missionaries in the area, to meet some local musicians and artists and learn about Nampula’s culture firsthand; it seems to be a very people-oriented job.  Here’s a picture of a secular group playing some more traditional instruments for us:

Next week there is a possibility that Edgar and I will go on a bit of a trip to a different city for a few days.  We would be helping one of the translation teams record the Gospel of Mark in a local language.  I really hope that we can do this, as it would be exciting to experience God’s Word being made that much more available to those who don’t have it!  Your prayers would be greatly appreciated for this project, whether or not Edgar and I get to be the ones to help out with it.

~Mark

A Day in the Life: Teaching at Rapale International School

5:00 a.m. – My alarm goes off. It’s already getting light outside because this part of Mozambique is technically in the wrong time zone. It’s getting light by 5 a.m. and getting dark by 5 p.m. I can already hear people moving around on the streets outside the compound. But it still feels early.

6:10 a.m. – I say a hasty good-bye to Mark and then wait anxiously as he unlocks the door and the padlock on the outer door so I can run to the compound gate to catch the chapa I’ll take out to Rapale.

6:15 a.m. – Three kids and I climb on the chapa.

6:30 a.m. – We’ve made it through downtown Nampula and have picked up 11 of the 12 kids remaining. Because I’m a teacher (and maybe because I’m white?), I have the front seat next to the driver. The 15 kids are crammed into the back of what would be a 12-passenger van in the U.S. I wrestle with a moral dilemma: none of the children have seatbelts, nor are they remotely safe in the chapa. I have a seatbelt. Should I use it, even though all these children don’t have that luxury? I finally decide to clip the belt into place. If we roll over, maybe I won’t be as injured and can help all of the injured children.

6:40 a.m. – We’ve clattered and bumped our way down part of the dusty red road to Rapale. We have one more child to pick up. He’s not at his stop, so we turn down a smaller dusty red road and ride between mud huts roofed with grasses. People who may or may not ever have been into a town stare at this chapa full of Zimbabwean kids and one white woman. We pull up to the last child’s house. The driver turns on his siren (his siren? I didn’t know he had a siren on his chapa!) and all the kids cheer and hoot and holler. The boy comes out of his house and joins the crowded benches.

7:20 a.m. – We arrive at Rapale. Prayers have been answered and the chapa has once again made it over the ruts and rocks without breaking down or rolling over. I shake off the tension of the ride and get ready for the school day. I look at the unusually beautiful mountains surrounding the school and can’t believe I get to teach here.

7:40 a.m. – Teachers share a quick devotion time together and pray while kids play in the school yard.

8:00 a.m. – School starts with the ringing of a cowbell. Kids line up in the school yard and walk in an orderly fashion into their classrooms. I take up residence in the staff room/library. I open up my computer and my 1956 edition of The Abridged Dewey Decimal System and begin cataloging the books to the best of my ability. Next week I’ll be in charge of monitoring upper high school students as they work on chemistry, physics, and biology to prepare for the IGCSE (the English version of the SAT, I’ve heard), but they haven’t arrived in Moz yet.

10:30 a.m. – Children swarm the playground, which is mostly a dusty area covered sparsely with grass and a few trees. My goodness how these kids can climb trees! One kid brought a soccer ball, so some kids are playing an unorganized game of soccer. Excuse me, a game of football. The teachers gather in the staff room/library for tea or Milo, my new favorite unsweetened chocolaty beverage. A break for hot drinks! I’m going to suggest that we take up this tradition at the library.

11:00 a.m. – I finally get to teach! Today I’m teaching 8^th and 9^th graders. Only two in the class now, but two more will be coming in a week or two. We’re studying chemistry. Right now we’re reviewing material from last year, so classes are pretty low-key, mostly note-taking and talking through the material. The kids are troopers, though, and patiently waiting for some more hands-on work.

12:30 p.m. – Lunch time finds kids gathering on the edge of the veranda to eat their lunches and drink their water, brought from home. Then they play. Teachers gather in the staff room to drink another cup of tea, coffee, or Milo, or to stand in line for the copy machine. It’s not all work and no play, though. This is a very fun group of teachers.

1:00 p.m. – Only one hour of school left. I sit down at the computer and realize I’ve lost the last half hour of work I did before lunch. Apparently our building doesn’t get enough energy to power both the computer and the electric kettle at the same time. I figure out which books need to be cataloged again and then start cataloging new books, making a mental note to myself to figure out where computers and Internet should go in Dewey Decimal, since my archaic abridged copy doesn’t include those subjects.

2:00 p.m. – I pack up my stuff, take a deep breath, and climb on the chapa again, praying that we stay upright, don’t run over anyone on a bike or on foot, and that the engine and tires hold out over the hilly bumpy road.

3:30 p.m. – I step through the compound gate, a little dustier, and very tired, but happy. 

--Hillary

The SIL Center

For the duration of our time here in Nampula, Hillary and I are living on the SIL Center.  The Center is a collection of houses, dorms, offices, classrooms, playgrounds, etc. that acts as a sort of “home base” for the missionaries that work in this area.  They host linguistic and related workshops, house missionary families, communicate with the translation teams who are working outside the city, and probably many other things I don’t know about, too.  In fact, Rapale International School, where Hillary is teaching, used to be located on the SIL center, but because of growth has had to move to a new location outside of town.

The director of the center is currently on furlough, so Hillary and I are residing in his family’s house on campus.  We feel a little spoiled: our not-so-humble abode is actually the biggest house at the center.  We have running water (limited hot-water, even), a large kitchen and dining area, a shower, and more space than we know what to do with.  As of yet we have not noticed too many problems with insects or other critters, although we have been told we need to clean without ceasing or we most certainly will have problems.

our front yard- with a little loft for relaxing

Crime is a bit of an issue in Nampula, so the center is surrounded by a wall and a hedge of thorns.  There are some guards on duty here, and we have been advised to “limit” our wandering around outside after 10 p.m., as they let a few German Shepherds roam the campus during the night.

The community, however, is a very agreeable bunch of people.  Everybody that we’ve met so far has been extremely nice and happy to meet us.  Not everyone works for SIL, either, which has been interesting to hear about.  There are missionaries with Africa Inland Mission, Missionary Aviation Fellowship, New Tribes, and more- all doing some kind of work in the area.  All in all, we are both very excited to get to know the people here more and work alongside them as well!

~Mark

Rapale International School

Saturday was orientation for students and parents at Rapale, where I’ll be teaching. Mark and I rode out to the school with Kevin, a local AIM missionary, and his two boys. The trip out to the school is long, somewhere between a half hour and forty-five minutes, and most of the road is red dust.

Dust. Red dust covers everything here. Every evening I wipe down the counters and tables in our house and the rag comes away with a film of red dust. Any object lying out is also covered with red dust. We’re smack-dab in the dry season here, so even the trees by the side of the road are covered with red dust. Most vehicles here don’t have air conditioning, so to keep from sweltering to death in your car, you roll down the windows, paved roads or not, so people in the cars are also covered with red dust. And the people who aren’t in vehicles are engulfed in clouds of the red dust every time a vehicle goes by. I’m not complaining about the dust. I just want to properly convey the way this rusty powder settles like a blanket over everything.

Anyway, the point of my writing was not to talk about dust. The car we rode in out to Rapale on Saturday was actually one with air conditioning, so we did not have to roll the windows down and breathe red dust for forty-five minutes.

As we arrived at Rapale, the other teachers were already standing in a line on the veranda, greeting students and their parents. As more and more families arrived, I felt like I was stepping further away from Nampula, Mozambique, and closer to the U.S. Or at least the U.K. Or South Africa. Or Zimbabwe. But definitely away from Nampula.

After enduring many impassive stares from the local Mecua people in Nampula, I sincerely appreciated the warm welcome I received from parents and fellow teachers. The teachers and the couple who run the school, Mike and Dilys, are all quite proud of Rapale. Rapale’s moved to a new location and only just within the last few days has everything come together so that classes can begin in the new facility.

In any case, the location for the school is absolutely beautiful. The land was given to Rapale (or sold to? Or loaned to?) by a local egg and chicken operation. I’ll write more about the egg and chicken operation when I think I have my facts straight.

The geology of the area in which Rapale is located is really interesting, in my opinion. Large granite boulders protrude suddenly from the ground at random intervals. Some boulders are large enough to look like they could be mountains, but they’re fairly smooth and solid rock, so very little grows on them.

I’m feeling divided, currently, about taking kids outside to do hands-on ecology or geology. I will have no better setting to teach junior high or high school kids about science in a hands-on way, but I’m a little afraid of the possibility of snakes. Some possible snakes we could encounter on a romp through the wild (or even in our own schoolyard) include: puff adders, green mambas, black mambas, and spitting cobras. Oh dear.

I’ve been told that if you just make enough noise most of the snakes will run away from you. However, apparently puff adders do their hunting by lying sluggishly in one place all day, so you should also watch where you step. Hearing all of that is enough to make me want to stay safely inside the classroom, but obviously people go outside all the time. And I would love to get the kids outside learning about ecology and biology in tangible ways. We’ll see!

Depending on when our Internet is up and running again, I may or may not get this posted before Monday morning. But please pray for my first week of teaching, and please also pray that I’ll be able to find a regular ride out to the school. All of the families and teachers are scrambling at the moment to find regular and affordable transportation out to the school (as it used to be located in town). Thanks so much, in advance, for your prayers!

--Hillary

Grocery Shopping and a New School

By the time we were getting ready for bed last night, my nerves were pretty well frayed and my emotions were a giant puddle of over-tired ooze. I had a good cry and told Mark I was homesick but knew it was just a result of not getting enough sleep for our two and a half days of travel and that I would be a new, more adventuresome person in the morning.

Thankfully, I was right and this morning, after about 11.5 hours of sleep, both Mark and I felt like new people. This morning Susan, one of the missionaries here, took us around town to buy some groceries and show us around a little bit. Open markets seem to be one of the best places to buy fresh goods, but for a lot of the packaged or refrigerated staples, like rice, coffee, butter, and so forth, stores are available and just as good to shop in.

The store that we went to, Frutas de Africa, was nice, but not like an American store. When I walked in, after squeezing past the crush of people, I was greeted by a very strong fish smell. I also noticed the store was pretty dark, with only a few electric lights spread around, somehow hanging down from a thatched ceiling. There was also a cat running around the store. Yes, a cat.

Food prices vary in comparison here to prices in America. Imported items are, in general, more expensive than in the U.S. Basically, it seems that if the average Mozambican wouldn’t use it, then it’s going to be more expensive than it would be in the U.S. If the average Mozambican eats it, then it’s going to be cheaper. (I don’t know if the cheap prices happened first or the Mozambicans’ food preferences—probably the latter?) A quart (or so—measurements are in metric) of milk is about $6.60. Cheese is about $10 per pound. Yikes! However, at least at the one store we went to, one pound of cheddar cost exactly the same as one pound of Gouda. So just for fun, we bought some Gouda! I don’t think we’ll be eating much cheese though, while we’re here! On the other hand, I was able to get about 4-5 onions for a dollar and bread is about $.15 per loaf.

After sharing a delicious lunch at Susan and John’s house, we drove out to the school I’ll be working at. Rapale has just moved to a new location and are only just, just, getting things up and running. Tomorrow is an open house for all the parents of the kids who go to Rapale to meet with the teachers and see the new building. I’m probably not going to know what I’m teaching until Monday, when I can meet with the woman who was teaching science last year. She’ll fill me in on what she was doing and I’ll be able to go from there. So, I’m going to get some excellent experience in planning lessons under the gun!

The school itself is beautiful. I’ll post some pictures later, hopefully (or at least when we get back—our Internet is very slow here). The school is L-shaped right now, with the hope that eventually it will be expanded into a U-shape and then eventually into different buildings. The classrooms are all connected by a wide veranda. Mike and Dilys, the couple who are running the school are very kind and full of the kind of cheerful energy that I admire.  

I can’t imagine a more beautiful setting for a school. It’s about 45 minutes out of town to the west and is surrounded by large granite stones that look like mountains sticking up out of the ground. The hills and trees roll for miles around, and the fine red dust that is so thick and invasive in every part of the city is practically non-existent.

All in all, we had a much better second day in Nampula and are looking forward to many more exciting days filled with work and exploration!

Two Days of Travel

So this is it: we have arrived in Nampula, Mozambique!  Already we have experienced God’s protection and blessing, and we thank you for your prayers!  Why do I say this?  Read on to find out!

On Tuesday, Hillary’s mom brought us to the airport in Minneapolis around 3:30 p.m., and we sailed through all the security/checking in stuff.  We grabbed a bite to eat and were hanging out by our gate, when we found out our flight was going to be delayed about one hour.  This had us a little worried, because we already thought we didn’t have much time in Chicago for our connecting flight.  So, after having to wait the hour (plus a little more) we were in the air headed for Chicago, with an estimated 12 minutes between when our flight landed and our next flight took off.

Needless to say, we were a little worried.  It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if we missed our connecting flight, because all our flights were booked at once, and the airline would have been responsible for getting us to our destination.  However, we had planned on meeting someone during our layover in London, and we really would have been disappointed had that not worked out.  So we land in Chicago and literally run through the terminal towards our next gate.  The cool part is, God worked it out that our next gate was only five gates away.  So there we are running awkwardly and we see the gate attendant at our gate calling up and down the hallway “London? Anyone for London?”  Frantically waving our tickets and shouting, we arrive breathlessly as they hurry us on the plane, three minutes before the scheduled take-off.  God was certainly on our side there.

Then came the seven-hour overnight flight to London.  Both of us were relatively keyed-up and sleep did not come easily, probably only two hours for each of us.  But when we arrived in London, we were incredibly blessed with a very nice visit with this friend who lives about 45 minutes from the airport.  She took us home to a “real, live English home” as Hillary calls it, where she served us lunch, let us play with her kids, and let us refresh ourselves.  This was a very nice blessing, and although we were a little tired, it was nice to break up our travels like that.  Refreshing for our souls, at least.

Afterwards, she took us back to Heathrow airport, and we spent over ten hours on our next flight (also overnight) to Johannesburg, South Africa.  That one was a doozy, to say the least.  Neither of us slept very well and were pretty out of it as we wandered around the airport.  Our last flight from Jo’burg to Nampula was actually quite nice, as we both slept most of it (about two hours).

Still, 48 hours of travel with only five hours of some kind of sleep and a few periods of upset tummies (not to mention a seven-hour time difference) left us rather incapable of most mental functions, and conversation with the various people and missionaries we met Thursday afternoon and evening was mostly one-sided, to say the least.  Hillary went so far as to say she felt inches from death.  But we slept like a rock Thursday night, and are now ready for the many adventures God has in store for us!  Thanks again for your prayers, helping us to arrive safe and sound in Mozambique!

~Mark

Six-Week Science Teacher

I've been waiting to post about what I'll be doing in Mozambique because I just wasn't sure. I received an e-mail from my contact in Moz about a month ago, listing a couple of possibilities, but I didn't see a point in posting all the possibilities when I might end up doing none of those things anyway.

However, on Friday night I received an e-mail from my contact at the school where I will be working. She said that she had been reading through my past experience and training and had just noticed that I had studied science. She said that the school had had a science teacher lined up for the 2012-2013 school year, but that person canceled unexpectedly. She thought maybe God had planned this just right, and would I like to teach science for the 6/7th grade and 8/9th grade class for the duration of my stay in Mozambique?

As many of my library coworkers will know, I love science and I'm thrilled at the opportunity to teach for six weeks! I definitely think that God orchestrated events to benefit the school and allow me to use something I'm passionate about! At this point I'm not too nervous about having only days to prepare for teaching, but maybe that will hit me when I get there. For now I'm just excited: excited to get to know the kids and minister to them in whatever ways they need and excited to teach science.

Please pray that:

• I'll be able to minister to the kids and love them in whatever ways they need right now
• the students I teach will learn lots of science and will learn about how amazing God is through science
• I do a fine job teaching, even with minimal prep starting up

Luggage Full of School Supplies

Mark and I were especially touched over the last couple months to hear from the church we had attended while living in southern Minnesota. They wanted to make us the missions focus for their summer Vacation Bible School.

When we agreed to this, they said that they would share with the kids about what we were going to do in Mozambique and that all the offering money collected during VBS would go toward our trip. We’re planning on visiting the church in the fall, sometime after coming home, to share with the kids about what we did while we were in Mozambique.

The money the kids collected during the week surprised and delighted us. The school where I will be working mentioned that whatever school supplies I could bring down with me would be helpful, as quality supplies are hard to come by where we’ll be. It seemed natural, then, when we realized that we would have enough money, to decide to bring an extra suitcase full of school supplies to the school where I will be working.

Feel free to watch the video that we sent to the VBS program at the church in Minnesota here. Be warned: we filmed this video at about 11:30 p.m. on a Saturday evening after a long and busy week.

We think this is a good use of the money for a few reasons: 1) the school in Mozambique would benefit from the supplies and 2) the children at the church in Minnesota will get to see a tangible way in which their offering money was used. We’re hoping and praying that seeing how God uses their offerings will cultivate in each child a generous heart and a passion for missionary work both in and outside of the U.S.

Here’s the school supplies in the suitcase, artistically arranged by Mark:

Please pray that this suitcase and all its contents make it safely to Mozambique!

Passport Photos Revealed

I wasn't really planning on publishing these passport photos, but Mark went to all the effort last night of scanning and cropping. So, here you go. Happy-Go-Lucky next to Killer Death Stare:

A Pile of Packing and Passport Photos

I chuckle every time I glance over at our little pile in the corner of things we plan to take to Mozambique with us. The pile itself isn’t entertaining. It’s the copies of our passports lying on top.

Mark squished our passports right next to each other to fit them both on one sheet. His passport is older; he got it back in 2006. My passport is band-spanking-new, because I hadn’t traveled outside of the country since getting married and changing my last name.

When Mark had his passport photo taken, apparently there were no facial expression requirements. Now, I know this about my husband: whenever there are no facial expression guidelines for him to follow for a photo, the facial expression he will assume will not be normal. His passport photo is no exception. His head is cocked slightly to the left and up, his eyes are slightly closed, and his mouth is hanging open in a wide lazy smile.

When I went in January to have my passport photo taken, I was told I couldn’t smile. I had to look serious. I remembered, from having my driver’s license photo taken two years ago that when I’m told I can’t smile and a picture is taken of me stoically staring at the camera, I’m bound to look drugged. So, being the quick thinker that I am, I made every effort to open my eyes wide in what I hoped was an alert and intelligent facial expression.

I’ve since realized I need to go stand in front of the mirror making facial expressions for at least 15 minutes a day because the result of my attempt to look ‘alert’ and ‘intelligent’ actually comes across as, “Yeah, that’s right. I’m going to kill you if you don’t let me into your country.”

So, our packing list that had been on paper is slowly materializing in the corner of our house, our places of employment are making plans to fill in the chinks while we’re gone, and our fridge is slowly emptying out.

We’re so excited to see all these plans finally turn into realities!

-Hillary