The Kanes in Mozambique

 
 

July 2008

  This month Josiah and Daniel are taking a turn to write

Daniel: Hustle! Bustle! The gigantic job of tidying, chucking out and packing has begun. We are preparing to leave our abode in Tete to go home on furlough. My mum and dad are busy packing. Josiah is doing a bit of work on Nathanael and Samuel’s room, while I am tidying mine and Jos’ bedroom. The gigantic job is not at all easy, since we have accumulated much junk in the two years that we have been in Tete. Recently all the bright curtains we put up have been replaced with the dull ones that were here when we arrived, and all the pictures have been taken off the walls. To quote my mum, it “cuts a toe off this monster, but it makes the house look very bare.” Unfortunately, there are many such ‘toes’ on this monster as well as feet and fingers, and cutting them all off is taking time. Yet we are beginning. Preparations for going home are under way.

Unfortunately, ‘home’ is not the term I would use. If we were going home, then we would just have to step outside the house, and then step back in again. Home for me is Tete: this hot, dusty, dry place, full of little mud huts, barefoot malnourished children, and several confusing languages. I cannot imagine needing bread, cheese and bananas and just popping into the local supermarket and buying it all in one go. Here we must visit a different shop to get each item and shopping can last for hours. Yet I prefer this free, strenuous life to one trapped in the convenience of concrete, brick and asphalt. Also, I worry that when we go back to the UK, the church here will wither and die, causing two years’ hard work to be destroyed.

Despite the fact that we are leaving, the work has to go on. My parents still have to sort out church problems, run seminars, and preach at church most Sundays. They are also training promising leaders to continue the work while we are away. An example of this is Clara, Mel’s ex-helper. Now that Mel has moved on to Malawi, Clara is running children’s clubs and groups for women. Josiah and I help her on Monday nights with a club at the same school where we have our Tete church. Unfortunately the students are very rowdy and disobedient. During the latest club, the children made far too much noise to be able to hear anything that Clara was saying. They were interested only in the songs, the prizes handed out at the end, and in the latest school gossip. Josiah and I reckoned that the problem was that Clara was making the studies too much like school lessons. And since she is forbidden to take a stick to unruly children as the teachers do, we realized that she would have to grab their attention by something fun. Josiah and I offered her some handy tips, things that we have often seen our dad use to good effect.
Josiah: My father’s idea of leaving the work seems to be less winding up and slowing down than continuing at the same hectic pace all the way till take off. It is impossible for us to keep this house, due to a recent rent hike, so we have to do even more packing than when merely closing the doors is an option. But even as we have to pack up the house and close home school, we are organising final movie nights, leadership seminars, training Sunday school teachers, and other such events. While we are gone the national executive will be responsible for the churches, while a leadership team will run the city church that our family was heading. Most things are set as well as we can get them, and the future of the church rests in God’s hands. Our family, however, is somewhat more apprehensive.

We do not really know what to expect, except a serious shock. Mum and Dad at least grew up in the UK, and can call it home. Even they know that the whole country will have moved on and left them behind. I have spent no more than half my life in the UK. Samuel has spent a measly 1/5. We will have to adjust to conventional school, to British churches, to the English language, to the availability of things at home, to British customs, to the weather, to friends who have changed, and to a whole host of unexpected things that we cannot imagine. Furlough is - to Christian soldiers - not a case of returning home. We can never expect to get home until we reach heaven. Instead we can hope to return from dog-fighting evil and land in a welcome airstrip.
Daniel: We have a lot of fun in our city church because we all participate. My dad, of course, leads church and trains new members. Since he cannot sing, my mum leads that, and also translates his sermons into Portuguese. She is not alone when singing. A woman called Hilda helps to lead worship, a young man has recently been playing keyboard, and I drum at the front. Since we are in Tete, I cannot get a fancy drum set with cymbals and proper drumsticks, so I drum on a wooden goatskin drum with crudely cut sticks, and I improvise cymbals by occasionally clashing the two sticks together. Josiah projects the words onto the blackboard, and occasionally he and I lead Sunday School. Nathanael has a very important job—he carries the plate for tithes and offerings at the end of the service. And Samuel just has fun and looks cute. It’s a bit sad that soon we shall be leaving our church jobs behind for six whole months.

Some very exciting things have been happening in our church over the past two weeks, showing how our people are definitely growing. On the 15th of June, we held our Dia da Colheita, or Harvest Day. On this day, the people in the village churches had to bring in a tithe of their maize harvest. Since we pastor a church in the city, we said that if anyone wanted a sack to bring their harvest tithe in, they were welcome to one, but if they worked for money, they should bring a tithe of their salary. When the great day arrived, we were amazed and pleased to see that 23 people paid their tithes. A few of these people did not even have jobs, and were completely putting their trust in God to look after them. We were thrilled to see the faith shown on that day, and we collected a little over 230 pounds.

The next Sunday a team came from the hospital to take blood. A couple of months ago, my mum and dad gave blood to save a church member’s life. Seeing this, the hospital asked if the church would hold a blood donation session after church. This we agreed upon. Once church was finished, every member who wanted to give blood went into another classroom where the men from the hospital were waiting. Everyone else stayed in the church classroom. Because people often feel faint after giving blood, the hospital agreed to feed the donors. This was done and they received a delicious dish of fish and spaghetti. We also served food to those who didn't donate, partly so that they did not leave at once and leave the donors alone, but also so they did not feel left out. Four of the ladies from our church cooked the meal: rice, salad, a delicious potato sauce, and goat meat. The best bit was that of the 32 adults present, 10 people gave blood. We were thrilled to see our people show such faith and courage two Sundays in a row.

Not everything is work, however! A couple of years ago, my dad discovered something to stop him from going mad. An Internet writing competition called FaithWriters has become his great hobby. He is now in the top level, and recently came second place over all. Three months ago, Josiah took the hobby up. It is so good for his creative writing that it has now become a part of school for him. And, most fantastic of all, three weeks ago my mum joined in. On her second story she was placed in the top five of her level, and so advanced a level. Hopefully, they will be able to continue it when we return to England. If you would like to read some of their entries you can click here or here or here!

So, that’s it. We will soon leave and hope that our churches survive. Seeing what God has been doing recently, we are fairly optimistic.

Grace to you

Gregory and Sharon Kane
Elim International Missions


  
   Prayer Requests  
 
  • Pray that we will be able to sort out the house and pack in time to go, and that God would give us strength to finish the task
  • Pray that our belongings that we leave in a container here will be kept safe
  • Pray that when we go home, we will be able to relax
  • Pray that Clara will be able to keep her seven clubs running and that the children would learn a great deal
  • Pray for the executive members (João, Jolinho, Mateus, Mário, Araujo and Samuel) that they will continue to shepherd the Elim Church in Mozambique while we are gone
  • Pray for Stephen, Tafadzwa, Hilda, Earnest, and Clara who will be leading the city church in our absence
  • Thank God that the Dia da Colheita and the blood donation both went well, and that our people showed such faith
  • Pray for us four boys; that we manage to fit in with the educational system in Great Britain
  
   Sharon's Joke of the Month  
 

* Captain Can't Swim *

I worked in the biology department at Buffalo State College
in New York. The Great Lakes Laboratory, also stationed at
the college, employed a licensed boat captain to man its
research vessel. It was common knowledge that the captain
couldn't swim. When newcomers learned of this, they would
approach him about it.

"Is it true?" one of them asked incredulously. "You, a boat
captain, can't swim?"

"No, I can't," he replied. "Can pilots fly?"

 

  
   Gregory's Quote of the Month  
 

* Frederick Buechner on Anger *

"Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savour to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back - in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you."