The story of the Bible

Recently I had the opportunity to do an evangelism teaching. I along with one of the pastors taught the participants the Creation to Christ story of the Bible. This gives the story of the Bible from beginning to end, ending with an opportunity for the person to make the decision to accept Christ as their personal Saviour. Thankfully each one of the participants were able to tell me when they made the decision to accept Christ as their Saviour. Pray that the participants will go back to their churches and share with others about this method of evangelism. But more than that pray that they would have the desire to share this story with their neighbors and family.

Carol and the fish guy

As I was at one of the churches which was literally at the end of the road, a man came by selling fish. He had just caught the fish in the river. The fish smelt bad, more than the normal fish smell so I'm not sure how long ago he had caught them. But everyone was excited about them, the insides had already been cleaned out. He was so excited that I had my picture made with him that he gave me a fish for free.

Carol and Whitey

Remember Teddy E Bear who was here with me for a while? Well he inspired a missionary friend to have Whitey come and visit her. Whitey is a white squirrel from the mountains of NC. He has had quite an adventure. I was with him a while on Sunday. We had a really good service at church. Then we went to one of the nice hotel restaurants for an enjoyable lunch. Plus you get a good view of the city from this hotel.

An American moment

The other day I was helping to transport a body to a neighborhood area in Nampula. I was following the car in front of me because I didn't know where we were going. We got a road where I have passed hundreds of times. As we went to the left of the building I had a truly American moment. I started thinking he is going on the wrong side of the road and this is through a military area, we are going to be in trouble. I was so convinced that he was going the wrong way!

After a few minutes I realized Carol there was nothing wrong with the side of the road he went on, he did it the correct way. I thought wow what an American moment.

Then after we transported the body we were leaving the house. It ended up that I was leaving at the same time as the other car. I thought good I can follow them out of this neighborhood. I started following the guy. Eventually he stopped and got my attention. I said are you going back to the hospital. He smiled and said not until I visit my friend who lives up this road, he said you need to go back and turn on the other road. I laughed and said thanks. I followed the road he told me and I found my way out of the neighborhood and made it back to my house.

A new home for Coconut

A prayer has been answered...At the end of the year Coconut will have a new home in Cuamba. I'll tell you how it happened. A friend of mine from Cuamba called and asked if another girl from there could spend the night at my house. She was arriving in Nampula from a trip home to Korea on her way to Cuamba. So I said she could spend the night. Iwasn't even thinking about her being interested in having a dog. Then she asked what are you going to do with Coconut when you leave? I told her that I wasn't sure, I told her about Boots being with her new family. By the way Boots seems to be doing good and adjusting fairly well, if she will just stop howling when she is by herself. She said she would like to have Coconut when I leave. What a great answer to prayer.

Another visit to Pedro's mom

As I look back on these few days I can see how God is answering my prayer and giving me a heart to share with the people here. I was able to go visit Pedro’s mom again and I was able to have a conversation with her through Pedro translating into Makhuwa. I asked her if she had accepted Christ. She said she had. She doesn’t go to church anymore, she stopped going after her husband was kicked out for having more than one wife. It was such a good visit with her. I asked her several times about her accepting Christ because I wanted to make sure. Then it came to the point that I had to just trust her and what she was saying because God knows the condition of the heart.

She said that she was sad when she heard that I was leaving because she is always happy when I go to visit her.

On my way home from that trip I was reminded of how my connection when that area really started. I had gone to the area but then the day that I transported the dead body, the day that I didn’t want to do that, but it worked out so that I did. God used that day to help me build more relationships in that area of Murrupula.

During the trip on Wednesday I went with Pastor M to visit some of his family. As we were sitting there I saw a lady and my heart really broke for her. I prayed for her. I asked Pastor if she was a Christian and he said no. That gave me the opportunity to say next week can we come back and do evangelism training for the church here and then we can come back and visit her? So we set up a time to do the training and we’ll go back and visit her and talk with her.

I stopped again at Pedro’s mom house and invited her to go to the training. She agreed to go to the training. It will be a good time for her to hear the story of the Bible from beginning to end.

As I got back to Nampula that evening I went to a restaurant with some other people. If I would have let myself I could have cried for the people as I thought of the ones I had seen during the day.

The Pastor told me that he had had his time playing with his friends and now I could go play with my friends when it was my turn to go visit with Pedro’s mom. I thought that was cute.

We also dropped off the Pastor’s wife at her family’s house. The mom wasn’t there when we dropped off the wife. We went and did some other visits and then came back and the mom was there this time. She said I was at a neighbor’s house and I saw the car and I knew that was Carol’s truck. I thought that was neat that she recognized the truck and knew it was mine.

Hat Man

I took a picture of this man and he was determined that I would leave it with him. Someone finally got him to understand that the picture was inside the camera and that I couldn't leave it with him.

Baptism

First we started on nice paved road. Then, too quickly, we were off the nice paved smooth road to the pothole filled dirt road. After about 30 minutes on that road we turned off through the grass weeds continuing to the mission church where we were going. Finally we arrived after the path through the weeds had gotten smaller and smaller. We arrived to a location where once again I was the third missionary and first female to arrive at that area. We were there for baptisms.

After a few minutes we entered the church building and the pastor asked questions of the 6 baptism candidates. Questions such as what is your testimony? Then after successfully answering these questions we began the walk to the watering hole. It wasn't too far of a walk however the sun was hot and there was not any shade on the path or once we arrived at the water. We walked through gardens of cabbage and carrots. One of the nationals even gave me a cucumber to eat as we walked.

We arrived at the water and it was so interesting because the ladies all stood on one side and the men on the other side. Then the pastor shared some words before baptizing the people. After the baptism some of the people stayed at the watering hole to take a bath. After all you don't want to miss an opportunity for that since water can be scarce for the Africans.

After returning to the church we had a church service. One of the groups even sang a song in English called I love you Jesus. They really did good.

Lunch was eventually served at about 2:30 pm, afterwhich we returned to Nampula.

Clean your faces

After a river baptism, the most interesting thing happened. All at once the kids immediately leaned over and began washing their faces. It was the girls on one side and the boys on the other all lined up. It was in unison even though it wasn't meant to be. It was a cute sight to see.