urn to write

Vroom!
We hope this picture gives you as good a laugh as it did us! Gregory recently had a story published in Direction (the monthly magazine of the Elim Pentecostal Church). It was a true account of a motorcycle ride through the bush that he made a few months ago. He sent them a photograph, and to our great amusement this is what the editor turned it into! It captures perfectly the mood of that memorable day. Those of you who do not receive Direction can read the story elsewhere on our website

Splash!
But now we have another memorable day to recount. After many months doing the slow work of teaching and making disciples, this month we got the fun bit of the deal: we held a wonderful baptismal service.
The rains are over and the tributaries of the Zambezi are once more crocodile-free. On 11 May the crowd of nearly-naked local children who were playing in the Rovubúe river clearly did not know what to think when their beach was invaded by 35 strangers carrying bamboo mats, food parcels, containers of drinking water, a microphone and loudspeaker! This baptism was certainly a very public affair. We sang, preached, and heard testimonies from the 10 baptismal candidates. Then Gregory and João Cafuliza waded out into the deeper water and each person was baptised amidst great celebration. It was a joy for us to baptise three of our members all of whom have been saved as a result of coming to our church over the past year or so. But the greatest thrill was in baptising our own 11-year-old son Daniel. I am not sure whether it was he or Gregory who wore the bigger smile as he came out of the water! Once the official part of the day was over we all did what we had been longing to do and dived in to the lovely cool water, (without adopting the dress code of the local children!) We played games in the shallow water, had lunch together, and finished with a karaoke session in which anyone was free to come to the microphone. Photographs of the day are also available for viewing on our website.

Sons
Being baptised was certainly the highlight of Daniel's month, but by no means the only sign of his growing maturity. He has recently participated in selling Bibles on a stall in the market, performed a mime in a market-place open air, lead bilingual worship in church, and helped Clara to launch an after-school Bible club for the pupils of the school where we hold our Sunday services. Josiah (14) has also been active in serving the Lord. He volunteered for Gregory to wrap him up in toilet paper in the market-place to illustrate the way in which people are held in bondage to sin. And he spent a full day last week with the team of youth from Zimbabwe who visited us for a week of evangelism. It is exciting to see him entering his teen years more bothered about the preaching of God's message of salvation than about his street cred! Our younger two boys are also doing well. Samuel (4) is often to be found singing or reciting memory verses at the front of the church. He is also just beginning to read. Nathanael (7) frequently shows great insight in the comments and questions he makes during family devotions and our weekly church prayer meeting. He is also gaining such confidence on the recorder that he now allows me to accompany his playing on the keyboard.

Dad
On 27th May Gregory reached the milestone which I passed at the end of February. It was a hectic day as our Zimbabwean friends were here and Gregory spent the morning preaching his heart out in the market. He later told me he could not imagine a more satisfying way to spend his birthday. It makes me very proud that, twenty years on, the man I fell in love with is as crazy about Jesus as he was when I first knew him. The boys presented Gregory with a beautiful hand-made book entitled "40 reasons why our Dad is the greatest in the world." Each of them had contributed to its creation.

Mum
My life has been unfairly dominated by our ageing car recently. First I got Ray Cotter stuck in the river because the four-wheel-drive mechanism had stopped functioning. Then I had to be towed home from Moatize one night when the engine simply refused to turn over. It turned out we needed no more than a new battery, and maybe we could have bump started it, but that wasn't clear at the time. Then recently I drove to Malawi to take a book about HIV to the printers. We knew there was a fault with the exhaust but our mechanic had assured me that the car would get me there and back. This proved to be an over-optimistic prediction and I spent an extra night in Blantyre to allow a very kind and godly mechanic to work on the repair. He did not charge us for his day's labour and the car got me home, though still needed some work doing on it. I am always nervous that one day I will set off for the bush and the car will not bring me home, and we truly praise God that He has not allowed this to happen. In between these nerve-wracking moments my work in teaching the women continues. I am currently holding weekly studies in Madamba, a village on the road to Malawi where we have an inconspicuous little grass church. It thrills my soul to be there. The women are zealous for the Lord and his Word. Most of them cannot read and yet every week they are able to repeat the Bible story and the main teaching that I gave them the previous week. Usually when I start a series of studies in a new place I get a good number to the first one or two meetings and then the numbers drop off steeply. But in Madamba the church is full every single week. The slow work of teaching and making disciples is not burdensome when we see such wonderful enthusiasm in our hearers.

We are due to leave Mozambique on the 09 July to spend six months back in the UK. We will spend July and the first part of August in England and Wales, visiting a number of churches and catching up with friends. Thereafter we will move to N. Ireland where we will be stationed at the Elim church in Lisburn. We look forward to seeing many of you during this time.

• Praise God for the wonderful baptismal service
• Clara assisted Mel during the 6 months Mel was here. After a short break she is now ready to take over the children's work. Pray for her.
• Pray that this year's Day of the Harvest on the 15th June would be well supported and that our churches would reap the rich benefits that come from trusting God in the area of tithing
• Give thanks for the successful visit of the four youth from Zimbabwe who preached the Gospel, healed the sick and cast out demons. Pray they go home inspired to serve God further in their own land and across borders
• Next week we are holding a series of healing meetings with a visitor from the UK. Pray for a powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit and for many people to be healed and saved
• Pray that the HIV book will be printed well, and that we will use it to good effect during our next term of service to save many lives.
• Pray that the Lord would intervene and bring an end to the current political violence in Zimbabwe and the xenophobic violence in South Africa.
• There is much to do as we begin to make preparations for our furlough. Our goods have to go into storage, duties have to be handed over, and we still need to find somewhere to live while we are back in the UK. Please pray that everything would fall into place.
• Pray for us to cope with the cultural re-adjustment as we travel home. For Nathanael and Samuel the UK is a foreign land! Pray that our family life remains harmonious during the changes.