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Gregory's Turn
to write
The room was far too hot for comfort. A
solitary fan rattled in one corner but failed to make any headway.
Tete can easily make you feel like you are inside an oven; the added
presence of nearly 200 sweating bodies only exacerbated the sense of
discomfort. Yet no one uttered a word of complaint. The only cries
of protest came from those left outside. They peered through the
window shutters, banging intermittently on the door. From time to
time a few more gained admittance, stepping over a mass of sprawled
bodies, the only illumination being the beam of light that flared
constantly against one wall.
No, not some arcane ritual or dreary night club. This was the scene
of our first ever showing of the Jesus film. This well known movie
has been dubbed into many languages round the world and we managed
to lay our hands on a copy in Nyungwe, the language used here in
Tete. One of the most heartening comments we heard was from one
woman who expressed her shock and delight that Jesus knew how to
speak in Nyungwe. Portuguese is the language of
choice among the educated elite in Mozambique, yet
there was Jesus happily chatting away to people in the woman's
tribal language. Presumably this encouraged her in her own prayers
so we didn't point out that the Jesus on the screen was of course
only an actor.
We received just one complaint on the night - unfortunately from the
headmistress of the school whose classroom we were using. She
insisted that the next time we screen such a film, we should do so
outside and project on to one of the walls. This way people could
sit or stand in the playground and no one would have to be turned
away! My only problem with this suggestion is that my sound system
won't be powerful enough for an outside screening. But that's very
much the sort of challenge that we have come to relish.
We are thrilled to be expecting two sets of visitors during April.
Towards the end of the month a church in N. Ireland is sending four
people from its missions committee to observe more closely what we
are doing. The other visit is from neighbouring Zimbabwe. The Elim
church in Mutare is sending a team of five young people to speak at
our first ever youth conference. Our youth work here is very
rudimentary; in many cases the youth meeting is little more than a
song practice for Sunday. In order to show our youth what can be
accomplished, I asked a team to come up and explain how the youth
work is organised in Zimbabwe. Hopefully this will help to take our
Mozambican youth meetings to a new level. It will be an interesting
experience for the Zimbabweans: when they have previously visited
Zambia and Botswana, they were able to make themselves understood in
English. But here in Tete they will have no choice but to speak
through an interpreter. It is our hope that this will not be the
last time we receive visitors from Zimbabwe. The church in that
country has so much to offer and we would love them to embrace an
indigenous missionary vision of their own.
It doesn't matter where you go in the world - the sights, sounds and
smells may vary but sin always manages to rear its ugly head. We
were reminded of this very recently when our national executive was
forced to dismiss one of our pastors. This man, Paulo Raposa, is
married to a woman who suffered a stroke a few months ago. She has
regained some mobility but is still very limited in what she can do
around the house. Unfortunately the pastor decided that the best
thing to do in this situation was to take a second, younger wife.
The first wife was understandably terrified that she was about to be
sent away and there was plenty of murmuring in the community as to
what this implied about the Elim church.
Our primary role here in Mozambique is to build structure and
maturity into what is essentially a very young church. I have
mentioned before that not one of our pastors has been to a Bible
college for training. So, distressing as this episode is, it has
served as a timely reminder of the importance of maintaining
standards within the church . We were able to work alongside the
national executive, showing them how to investigate the offence in a
proper manner and how to ensure that the outcome was communicated
clearly to all of our churches. Moreover at our monthly leaders'
seminar, I spent two hours looking at the wider issue of church
discipline. I ran through some Biblical principles and thereafter we
split into small groups and worked through some typical case
studies. This teaching was clearly new to many of our leaders; but
there was a good understanding that if our churches are to grow into
maturity we need to root out sin wherever and whenever it springs
up.
The apostle Paul wrote the following to one of the churches that he
helped to found during his missionary travels: “Christ loved the
church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her
by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to
himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other
blemish, but holy and blameless.” (Eph 5:25-27 NIV) We would
urge you to continue with us in prayer as we seek to make this just
as true for the Elim church in Mozambique.
Grace to you
Gregory and Sharon
Kane
Elim International Missions
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Prayer Requests |
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- Praise God for the
successful screening of the Jesus film
- Continue to pray for the
recently launched Portuguese service that follows our
English meeting
- Pray for the youth
attending their forthcoming conference and for the
Zimbabwean speakers
- Pray for our church
leaders as they get to grips with the issue of
discipline within the local church
- Continue to pray for our
safety on the roads as we have to undertake a number of
long journeys over the coming month
- Many of our church members
and leaders are now studying the discipleship programme.
Pray they would grow in faith and understanding
- Our boys are generally
doing well with their home schooling. Pray that they
spur one another on to greater diligence
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Sharon's Joke of
the Month |
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* Elijah *
The Sunday
school teacher was carefully explaining the story
of Elijah the prophet and the false prophets of
Baal. She
explained how Elijah built the altar, put wood upon
it, cut
the steer in pieces, and laid it upon the altar. And
then,
Elijah commanded the people of God to fill four
barrels with
water and pour it over the altar. He had them do
this three
times.
“Now,” said the teacher, “can anyone in the class
tell me
why the Lord would have Elijah pour water over the
steer on
the altar?”
A little girl in the back of the room started waving
her
hand, “I know! I know!” she said. “To make the
gravy!” |
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