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Sharon's Turn to write
Imagine a land where
you wake up on what promises to
be perfectly normal Monday. Around 10 a.m. you notice that
the internet connection has gone down, and neither can you
get a signal on your mobile phone. You wait a while - such
occurrences are not unusual in this land - but by the time
you go to bed there has been no change. Ah well , you
think, maybe tomorrow... But the following day there
is no sign of any improvement. Wednesday dawns. You turn on
your phone - nothing. Modem? Dead. Your land line is still
working, but when you try to use it to call family overseas
you find there is no international connection. You need to
withdraw money to pay month-end bills, so you go to the ATM.
No money on offer. You can't even check your balance. Not to
be deterred you try a different bank. No difference. You
take a deep breath; it's time to brave the queues inside the
bank. You open the door, and can't believe your luck - no
queue! Your elation quickly dies. There's no queue because
there's no service. The whole banking system is down.
By now you have realised that this is a little more than a
temporary blip in electronic communication. You start to
make enquiries and discover that somewhere off the coast an
underwater fibre-optic cable has been damaged, cutting off
communications to more than half the country. How long do
the engineers think it will take to repair? They say
they are bringing in experts from overseas. Current
estimates are that it will be sorted within around four to
six weeks.
And that, dear friends, is why we are late sending this
newsletter!
In the midst of all that, just to cap it off, Gregory
checked our post box one day and found it empty. Since he
had seen his tax return in it just days earlier and had left
it for a time when he had less to carry home, he feared
someone had pilfered our mail. Making enquiries in the post
office he was told that the boxes had all been cleared
because they were planning to rent out that space and
re-locate the boxes to the other side of the post office.
So, he asked, where is the mail?
We've locked it safely in a room.
But I need that document. Is there any way I can get it?
Sorry, that won't be possible. The mail from all 300 boxes
is on just one table.
Gregory changed tack. How long it will take to relocate
and reopen the boxes ?
We don't know. Maybe a month...
So, what do you reckon? Will the Inland Revenue believe him?
Apart from this rather surreal and unnerving feeling of
being cut off from the outside world, April was a far better
month than March. It started well with the Easter
celebration in the Moatize church. They had invited all the
congregations from the city to join them for supper on
Easter Saturday, an all night prayer vigil, and then a march
of witness and open air service in the local market on the
Sunday morning. Gregory offered to screen an Easter movie on
the Saturday night which added some extra appeal to the
programme. Overall the weekend went well. We were pleased
that the members of our international church turned out in
force, as previously there has been something of a
separation between them and our other more indigenous
congregations. I did not stay for the prayer vigil, but
brought Josiah, Nathanael and Samuel home once the movie was
over. Gregory and Daniel took part though and felt positive
overall about the experience. Sunday dawned bright and
clear, and well over one hundred people walked in procession
to the market, distributing Gospel leaflets to curious
onlookers. The young evangelists whom Gregory trained back
in November had got some other youth together and prepared a
drama of the Easter story which they performed with great
gusto. One of our greatest sources of joy is in seeing our
people doing what we have taught them to do, without needing
any further input or involvement from us. Easter Sunday gave
us one of those moments of great joy.
I had a similar high point two weeks ago when I went to
speak to the women's group at Ntowe, a small village deep in
the bush about 70 miles from Tete. At the start of April,
with the rains behind us, I started paying weekly visits to
this isolated church where the people are largely uneducated
and very hungry for the Word of God. I easily have 25 - 30
women gathering each week, plus children and sometimes even
some men! On my first visit I had noticed a girl of around
nine years old - Ruth - who was just too skinny. Lots of
children in Mozambique are not well nourished, but Ruth was
clearly in a particularly bad way. With the help of my
interpreter, Edinah, I found out that her parents were
divorced and she was living with her father, who was quite
simply clueless about feeding a child. It is a foundational
principle of our ministry that we are here first and
foremost to make disciples and not to offer handouts. So I
put it to the women that they should stop ignoring Ruth's
obviously desperate situation, and that between them they
should find a way to help her. After all , I pointed
out, how much does one child eat? Between all the
families represented here what is one extra mouth?
Edinah gave them further encouragement, quoting Jesus' words
that when we feed one of these little ones in his name we
are feeding him.
The following week I was unable to go to Ntowe, and so two
weeks had passed by the time I saw Ruth again. I was
nervous, and fully expected to be met with sob stories and
pleas for me to take on the job of feeding Ruth. But in the
event I could not have been more delighted. Even before
asking what they had managed to do for her I knew the answer
was going to be positive because she already looked
healthier. They had taken our teaching very seriously, and
each day someone was tasked to take her food from their own
kitchen or table. And because the help is rooted in her own
community there is no danger of Ruth going hungry one day
because the foreign donor has other calls on his resources,
or the missionary from the city fails to turn up with the
food package.
Feeding one extra mouth is not a significant burden even to
a poor rural community. Running a village-wide distribution
of life-saving mosquito nets is another matter. That is a
one-off intervention that protects thousands of lives and
goes on doing so for the following five plus years. But it
is expensive. To give out 100 nets costs around £350. Last
year we gave out 700 nets, in 2008 we gave out 1000. We
would dearly love to visit new communities this year and
give out hundreds more, but as I write this, we have only
200 pounds in hand for this project when we need ten times
that amount to make a meaningful difference. If your church
would like to do something significant and long-lasting to
help the rural poor in Africa, please give serious
consideration to this as a possibility.
Another blessing of April was that Daniel and I visited
Maputo for the first time since we left in 2006. The excuse
for the trip was to collect new passports from the British
High Commission. However, my chief motivation was to visit
Hilda, the young woman who got married at the end of
February. It was a joy to see her and Samuel again, and to
see they are happy and settling well into married life.
Hilda was, however, having a hard time socially as she moved
to Maputo knowing only two people there other than Samuel.
Since she doesn't speak Shangaan (the tribal language of
southern Mozambique) it was not proving easy for her to make
friends in her neighbourhood or in Samuel's church. I was
able to put her in touch with a Christian lady who
introduced them to a large Portuguese-speaking Assemblies of
God congregation and all the friendships available therein.
As well as seeing Hilda and Samuel I caught up with a number
of friends from our Maputo days, and Daniel went on an
overnight camping trip with a former class mate, his
parents, and a bunch of youth they are reaching out to. All
in all it was a good trip, and in many ways left me with
more positive feelings about Maputo than I ever had while we
lived there.
Finally, a little bit of news from May that I'll sneak in.
This week we were pleased to have a group of four visitors
from Ingatestone Elim church who did a three day conference
on worship in our international church. The week before they
arrived was the week our communications went down, which
made for some tension in the immediate run up to the
conference. However, the team arrived safely, and all the
work Gregory had put into inviting people from Elim and
non-Elim churches over the previous weeks paid off. We had
around 45-50 people gathered each day, and there was an
excellent atmosphere as people from different churches
learned together, worshipped together and shared meals
together. This was the first time we had put on a large
conference in our international church, and we were pleased
to find it was eminently doable. I suspect Gregory is
already thinking about when the next one will be, and what
topic we'll take for that one!
And talking of visitors, we don't have any teams booked to
visit this year other than the folk who have just been with
us. If you'd like to come and be a part of what God is doing
here, and get a taste of the challenges of living in one of
the poorest countries in the world, get in touch. It won't
be a holiday. Indeed you need to be reasonably fit or the
challenge will be more like an ordeal. But seriously, we
enjoy having people come out. It is a great encouragement to
the people here to know they are not forgotten, and it is a
catalyst to the work.
Grace to you
Sharon
and Gregory
Kane
Elim International Missions
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Prayer Requests |
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- Josiah starts his GCSE
exams this week. We have not heard from him since half
term, partly because of our communication problems. Pray
for him as he faces the challenge of his first major
public exams without home support.
- Give thanks for the
excellent outreach over Easter and for the successful
inter-church conference last week.
- Two of our church
members yesterday launched a new community outreach
initiative, visiting patients in the central hospital.
Pray that this outreach will gain momentum and will
bring comfort to many people. The hospital serves the
entire province and some of the patients find themselves
far from family support during their time of need.
- Give thanks for the
encouragement of what is happening in the Ntowe church.
Pray that believers in this land will truly show
Christ's love and grace in their communities.
- We mentioned last month
that as a church we made a formal complaint about the
way the woman who lost her baby was treated. We have not
yet received a reply, but we have heard that the letter
was read to the hospital director and then sent to the
provincial health department. Continue to pray that the
authorities will not only reply, but will take necessary
action to eliminate such practices from the hospital.
- At the beginning of
April we appointed Zivanai Baira, one of our Zimbabwean
church members as assistant pastor. He has an excellent
track record of serving in the church. Pray for him as
he begins working as a pastor in an official capacity.
Last week he had his mobile phone then his wallet stolen
within three days. Pray that he resists any effort of
the Evil One to make him despair.
- Give thanks that our
communication difficulties seem to be over, and much
sooner than the predicted four to six weeks.
- Continue to pray that
God opens the door for us in terms of buying land to
build a church building in the city centre.
- Next Sunday, 16th May,
our international church service will take place at the
riverside as we will be baptising three believers. Two
of them became Christians in our church, while the third
joined us when he moved to Tete from Beira. Pray that it
will be a joyful celebration and that any crocodiles
that might still be lurking in the river will stay far
away.
- And, as always, please
pray for our health and safety. Pray also for our
families. My wider family has been facing many serious
health challenges over the past couple of years, and
every time one crisis passes it seems another one takes
its place. It is difficult being so far away during
those times.
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Sharon's Joke of
the Month |
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God vs Satan
And God populated the Earth with broccoli and cauliflower and
spinach and green and yellow vegetables of all kinds, so Man and
Woman would live long and healthy lives.
And Satan created McDonald's. And McDonald's brought forth the
99-pence double cheeseburger.
And Satan said to Man "You want fries with that?" And Man said,
"Super size them". And Man gained pounds.
And God created the healthful yoghurt, that Woman might keep her
figure that Man found so fair.
And Satan froze the yoghurt, and he brought forth chocolate, nuts
and brightly coloured sprinkle candy to put on the yoghurt. And
Woman gained pounds.
And God said "Try my crispy fresh salad."
And Satan brought forth creamy dressings, bacon bits and shredded
cheese.
And there was ice cream for dessert. And Woman gained pounds.
And God said "I have sent you heart-healthy vegetables and olive oil
with which to cook them."
And Satan brought forth chicken-fried steak from KFC, so big it
needed its own platter. And Man gained pounds, and his cholesterol
went through the roof.
And God brought forth running shoes, and Man resolved to lose those
extra pounds.
And Satan brought forth cable TV with remote control so Man would
not have to toil to change channels. And Man gained pounds.
And God brought forth the potato, a vegetable naturally low in fat
and brimming with nutrition.
And Satan peeled off the healthful skin and sliced the starchy
centre into chips and deep-fried them. And he created sour cream dip
also. And Man clutched his remote control and ate the potato chips
swaddled in cholesterol. And Satan saw and said "It is good."
And Man went into cardiac arrest.
And God sighed and created quadruple by-pass surgery...
And Satan created private health care...
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Gregory's Quote of
the Month |
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"Stop for one whole day every week,
and you will remember what it means to be created in the image of
God, who rested on the seventh day not from weariness but from
complete freedom. The clear promise is that those who rest like God
find themselves free like God, no longer slaves to the thousand
compulsions that send others rushing toward their graves."
- Barbara Brown Taylor |
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