The Kanes in Mozambique

 
 

August 2009

  Josiah and Daniel's Turn to write

This month we've asked Josiah and Daniel to take a turn writing about what's been happening in our lives. I'm sure that you'll find their perspective amusing, informative and refreshing. We certainly enjoyed reading their take on life here although I'm still not too sure about calling me a bear with a sore head...

Josiah: Most people back at home don’t have a wall of their house stacked five high with bales of mosquito nets. We are going to redo that mosquito net project we did last year, judging it to have been successful in staving off malaria for the needier in remote villages. So right now we have 14 cuboid bundles of nets in one corner of our lounge. The rigid blocks actually make a half-decent den for my younger brothers, so they aren't (thankfully) griping about lost space. Hopefully these 700 nets will prove equally as priceless to those who receive them as the last batch were.

Josiah: Another thing people scarcely notice at home is rivers. Water strolling gently through the country has always been invaluable to society, long before taps were invented, and here they remain similarly vital. Water is used in every process you can imagine, from making food to staying clean. They even provide a source of recreation, like the Ancient Roman public baths but outdoors, provided and maintained by God the Father. We recently had a team of youth visiting us from Belfast, and they were involved with children’s clubs, youth meetings, open airs, and a few days staying in a rural village. While in the city we all took an afternoon off  and went down to a nearby river just to have some fun. Later when they were staying deep in the bush they even had to experience bathing every day in the nearby river. I ought to mention (to save my parents being accused of irresponsibility) that the team did not suffer all the same privations as their African neighbours— they did not drink the river water, they slept tightly under mosquito nets, and they weren't forced to walk all the many miles between their sleeping place and the churches in which they worked, but it was a great experience for them. We've put together a short video of the team's adventures and posted it on YouTube at http://uk.youtube.com/user/ElimMoz . It's not one to be missed.

Daniel: Not all our adventures here are to do with church work. We still have a life to live, and we have many experiences, good and bad. On the twenty-fifth of June we had a very bad experience: our dog, Tobias, died. She was very much a family member and had been with us for longer than Samuel has. She patiently endured the times we were away, and guarded us well when we needed her to. But sadly she got old, sick, and died. Although we were very sad about this, we realized that we would need another dog. Therefore we bought a puppy. This new member of our family is very small, energetic, and always biting. She is a sandy colour, with black muzzle and ears, meaning that if she lies in the dust with her head in the shade, she is almost perfectly camouflaged. We named her Barnacle at Samuel’s suggestion as, “She’s little, and she clings!” Since his previous suggestion was Woof-woof for a boy or Bark-bark for a girl, we adopted his better idea very rapidly. I have been given the job of training Barnacle and it is not easy. She won’t stay outside, won’t stop biting, and won’t stop getting stepped on! She has learnt 'Sit' and 'Wait' rather well, and she is getting along with 'Paw'. Whenever I try 'Fetch', however, she runs after the stick, settles down, and eats it. I'm sure she’ll learn, but it can be rather tiring teaching her.

Josiah: One of my father’s evangelism projects involves a nifty little device named the Saber. Okay, to be fair it is not that nifty. It is slightly larger than a brick, and roughly the same shape. Essentially it is a wind-up MP3 player, designed and constructed specifically for missions work in (to put it mildly) inopportune conditions. On this device we might place a simple gospel message or even an entire book of the Bible in one or more of the local languages. The clunky size is necessary not only to keep it from breaking, but to hold an efficient belt-driven wind-up charger with which 10 minutes winding provides a full hour of speech from the powerful speaker also contained in the device. We entrust these machines for a month at a time to several of our village pastors, who then arrange for all their neighbours to come round and hear the Word of God. In spite of everything drive belts do come off and electronics sometimes stop working under African heat, dust and humidity so I or my Father do any fixes necessary. We also load onto the machines brand new sets of messages for the evangelists to use again and again.

Daniel: In the midst of all this, we are still ministering our own church in town. This church is going really well at the moment. We are getting about eighty people every Sunday, and we often have many new people. Sunday School is the highlight of the week for many of our children. The Sunday School is being regularly taught by the church youth, which is also doing all right. Josiah and I are getting involved, and often we go out with the rest of the youth to do evangelism or sell Bibles. There is also a youth meeting every Thursday. However, this is still Mozambique and we have many unusual experiences that could only happen here. For example, one Sunday we arrived, opened the church, set up the microphones, the projector, holy communion, etc. The service went smoothly until it was time for communion. My dad had asked one of the men to lead communion, and he was doing really well even though it was his first time. Then it got to the time when he had to break the bread and pass it around. He reached under the handkerchief, which is placed on the bread to keep flies off, and withdrew his hand empty! We searched and searched for the bread, but it was gone. Eventually we managed to get some more bread and communion proceeded. But the mystery was unsolved. After much debate, we decided that one of the local waifs had come in and stolen the bread during the service. That is the sort of experience one only has in Mozambique!

Josiah: Another big issue for me is that I am going to board in a school in Malawi from September. I'm now fifteen and coming up to public exams, which really need a more formal education than home school can provide, particularly in terms of exam preparation. The school work shouldn't be a problem as I have been very well taught, but this will be a big change for all of us.

Daniel: And finally, just to finish off, I’ll talk about the thing that holds everything together, the thing that sometimes seems horrible, and sometimes you can’t do without. This thing is the family itself. My dad is pretty stressed these days, and is trying his hardest not to be a bear with a sore head; trying rather unsuccessfully, I'm afraid. My mum is very patiently teaching my little brothers and me while still managing the house, doing woman’s meetings, and leading worship in church. Josiah is a teenager now, good and proper. He spends all his time on the computer, fights about school work, stays up until three in the morning, snaps at his younger brothers, and locks himself in his room all the time. He also sleeps in quite late. I am trying my hardest to cling to my childhood, but I know I'm fighting a losing battle. As Josiah is now going solitary, I am spending more time with Nathanael and Samuel, and also am spending more time on my GameBoy Advance. Nathanael just gets on with life, does his school work, and then plays the rest of the day. Samuel is learning to read, write, and do maths, and is also trying his hardest to drive the rest of us insane with his continual babbling and singing. However, whether good or bad, we are a family and must stick together to get through these hard times.

Grace to you

Gregory and Sharon Kane
Elim International Missions

 
   Prayer Requests  
 
  • Keep on praying for our health, protection and safety as a family. We never take this for granted.
  • Pray for the new mosquito net distribution programme that's due to start in September
  • Thank God for the successful team visit from members of Elim churches in Belfast. We also hosted a separate youth team from Elim in Zimbabwe and this visit was successful albeit equally exhausting!
  • We recently attended a meeting at the city council with regards to our noisy local bar. The proprietor was told off by the council and we hope and pray that he will take this to heart. Certainly this past weekend it was much quieter.
  • We're heading down to the port city of Beira in August to visit our Elim church there and we will spend a week in Bible teaching and evangelism. It's a nine hour journey to get to Beira so please pray that the car will run well and that we are able to pick up fuel en route - there has been a diesel shortage for the past three weeks
  • While we're down on the coast, we're planning to take a week's holiday. Pray that this would be a good time and that we would manage to 'recharge our batteries', physically and spiritually
  • Pray for our home life that we would find a good balance between work and play. Pray especially for our home schooling that the boys would thrive and for Josiah as he looks to start boarding school in Malawi in September.
  • Continue to pray that Sharon will be granted permission to work as a doctor. The authorities seem to have mislaid one of the documents and we have since re-submitted this. Please pray that the application will be considered favourably.
  • We have been offered the opportunity to host a medium-term team next year - a bunch of young people who will come out for a  extended 3-6 month missions experience. Thus far there haven't been enough applications coming in, so please join us in praying that more young people would respond to this challenge
  
   Sharon's Joke of the Month  
  A Plausible Explanation?

One day, Adam sat outside the Garden of Eden shortly after eating the apple, and wondered about men and women. So looking up to the heavens he said, "Excuse me God, can I ask you a few questions?"

God replied, "Go on Adam but be quick. I have a world to run."

So Adam said, "When you created Eve, why did you make her body so curved and smooth unlike mine?"

"I did that, Adam, so that you could love her."

"Oh, well then, why did you give her long, shiny, beautiful hair, and not me?"

"I did that Adam so that you could love her."

"Oh, well then, why did you make her so stupid? Certainly not so that I could love her?"

"Well, Adam no," God replied. "I did that so that she could love you."

 

  
   Gregory's Quote of the Month  
  "Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are anger and courage. Anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain as they are."

- St. Augustine