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Sharon's Turn to write
Here's a riddle for you: What did the Kanes use for
transport before the bicycle?
Answer: A car!
Transport, or rather the problems associated with it, seem
to have dominated our lives over the past few weeks. The
chief issue has very little to do with our own vehicle. The
city of Tete has two claims to fame. It is the hottest city
in Mozambique. And it is the only place in the country which
has a road bridge across the river Zambezi. The suspension
bridge spans the 500-metre-wide river and carries not only
local traffic, but also all the road haulage thundering
along the international routes between South Africa,
Zimbabwe and Mozambique to the south, and Malawi, Tanzania
and other African nations to the north. The bridge has been
showing signs of wear for some time, and the Mozambican
roads authority has recently undertaken major repairs. This
involves the bridge being closed between midnight and early
morning, with only one carriageway open the rest of the
time. Traffic is fed across into town for half an hour, and
then stopped while those travelling out of town are allowed
to cross during the next half hour. Only motorbikes and
bicycles are allowed to cross freely, even contraflow.
Depending on whether you hit the queue at the 'right' time
or at the 'wrong' time, the 10-minute drive into town now
takes between 30 and 90 minutes. And then you still have to
get back across the bridge to get home!
We live on the out-of-town side, but all the meetings at our
International church, plus of course all our commercial
activities have to take place in town. We quickly realised
that driving into town was no longer economical use of our
time. Since the bridge repairs are set to last 18 months, we
looked for a more acceptable solution, and so we parked up
the car in favour of two-wheeled transport. Gregory has a
small motorbike, which I tried to learn to ride, but lacked
the courage to master. For a time he was motorcycling around
while I was pedalling. Recently, however, he has had a
series of mechanical problems with the bike, leaving him
with no option but to borrow my bicycle. We've always
struggled to exercise to the level we'd like to, so maybe
the bridge repairs will turn out to be a blessing in the
end, though dodging the lorries on a windy suspension bridge
above a crocodile-infested river does feel like suicidal
madness sometimes!
September was marked in my diary as mosquito-net month. My
first trip took me to Chicongolo, a rambling village deep in
the bush and totally devoid of services and infrastructure.
We have two churches there. Until recently they were
isolated and weak. Because of the distances involved the
leaders rarely came to central meetings, and our senior
leaders visited them only infrequently. This changed about a
year ago when Gregory brought a new member onto the
executive, a man called Mario, and gave him specific
responsibility as superintendent for that district. He and
his wife, Joaquina, have been making regular trips by
bicycle, teaching and encouraging the churches. We have seen
a marked change in the churches since, with the leaders
attending our seminars, and both congregations constructing
brick buildings entirely from their own resources. Gregory
has since bought roofing sheets for them, so within the next
few weeks they will be able to put durable roofs on top of
the walls. But back to the mosquito nets...
I knew I was set for a long day, so I was at Mario's house
at 7a.m. He had arranged that he and Joaquina would
accompany me to 'the crossroads' where the Chicongolo pastor
would meet us to guide us along the maze of paths, through
the forest, over the rivers, and into the village.
Unfortunately Mario and the pastor were each talking about
two different crossroads. When we arrived at the turning
where Mario expected the pastor to be waiting for us, there
was no one there. Mario has made many visits to Chicongolo
but uses a different route which is only accessible by
bicycle. Nevertheless he was reasonably certain that, so
long as there were not too many forks, he could get me
there...
I never knew the bush was so vast or so devoid of human
habitation. We tried to discern the right path by looking
for human footprints or bicycle tracks, but sighted nothing
but gazelles disappearing between the trees. I lost count of
the number of seven point turns I made when the path we were
following petered out into nothing. At one point we crossed
a dry riverbed and I guessed the car would probably not get
back up the bank I had just driven down. There was no
turning back after that! Finally, at 1p.m. we arrived to
commence the program that had been booked to start at 10a.m.
Our arrival was greeted by a huge crowd of enthusiastic
villagers who sang and danced their way to the car in
welcome. I have to admit I was too tired and concerned about
how I was going to get home again to share much in their
joy! Thereafter Mario preached the Gospel to an attentive
crowd and I explained about malaria and how to use the
mosquito nets. We then distributed the nets to the
vulnerable members of the community whose names had been
efficiently written down ahead of time by the pastors and
community headmen. The population of Chicongolo is not huge
and we had spare nets to give to those who were deserving
but who had been overlooked by the leaders. We drove away at
4p.m., leaving behind a crowd who were just as happy as they
had been when we arrived. On the return journey we used a
more direct route and took a local guide, so the journey
home was a more reasonable three hours.
My second trip was to Capirizanje, a rural district
administrative post on the way to Malawi. Our church there
fell apart a year or more ago when their lay-leader moved
away. We have recently tasked Pastor Araujo (see below) to
relaunch the work there, and I offered to give out mosquito
nets partly to raise the profile of Elim in the locality.
The government representative at Capirizanje is a godly
lady, and we worked alongside her in this project.
Although Capirizanje is on the main tar road and only an
hour's drive from Tete, I still had a 10-hour day. Again, we
started the program with some Christian songs and Araujo
preached the Gospel. The malaria teaching went well, and the
nets distribution also, until we finished the lists of names
and realised there were between 150 and 200 'hopefuls' who
thought that just by turning up they would automatically be
given a mosquito net. Since we had just over 100 nets left,
things were set to become very ugly. Even after living here
for four years, we are still shocked by the jealousy that
rages in the hearts of many of the local people. They strive
to better themselves, with scant regard for others, even if
those others are more destitute than they are. This
frequently leads to serious fights over very petty things.
Since we were not going to be able to satisfy everybody, we
ran the risk of causing a riot by choosing some individuals
over others. Araujo assessed that the crowd was becoming too
hostile for us to be able to proceed, so we put the
remaining nets in the car and got out fast. I arrived home
only just before night fall, exhausted and disappointed that
at the end of what ought to have been a good day, I should
feel so angry.
There is a myth that poor people are good. There is a school
of thought that if we help them materially, all their
problems will be solved. The longer we work here the more
convinced we become that sin is universal. It is ugly and it
is tyrannical in binding people. We don't pretend to like it
when we try to help people and come home wondering, “Why do
we bother?” We constantly need to remind ourselves that it
was this sin-soaked world that God so loved that He sent His
Son. That love shines all the more brightly against the dark
background of unrestrained sin. And we constantly need to
ask Him to fill us with that same love. Our own reserves are
just not adequate.
September has not been all about mosquito nets. The Elim
Pentecostal Church of Mozambique held its annual general
meeting from 11-13th of this month. It was held in Moatize,
the church where we recently had to dismiss the pastor. We
praise God that, despite that upheaval, we had a record turn
out with people travelling vast distances to be with us. The
executive and the local Moatize leaders organised the
logistics of the program, and it went very smoothly. During
the weekend Gregory announced the new structure of the
executive committee, including nominating Pastor Joao
Cafuliza as the new chairman. That post had been vacant
since the previous chairman died shortly after our arrival
in Tete. We deliberately didn't hurry to replace him,
preferring to spend time testing the hearts of the men. It
is therefore a blessing to have reached the stage of feeling
confident in appointing these men to specific offices.
The following weekend the Elim Pentecostal Church of Malawi
had a huge celebration of their landmark 25 years. Gregory
had planned to attend and was hoping to be able to visit
Josiah over the weekend too. Unfortunately, literally at the
last minute, our car battery decided to give up the ghost
and Gregory was unable to replace it in time to make the
trip. We were greatly disappointed that Gregory had to stay
behind, but enormously thankful to God that the battery died
while the car was parked in our yard, and not when I was out
in Chicongolo, miles from civilisation and way out of cell
phone range. That would have involved a night in the
village, and I'd have arrived home the next day sitting on
the luggage rack of a bicycle! When we consider how the Lord
shields us from such eventualities, we really do praise Him
for His grace and favour. Three of our executive members
attended the celebration as representatives of the
Mozambican church, and they had a very enjoyable time.
The other big event of this month was that we said 'Goodbye'
to Josiah as he started his life as a boarder at St Andrew's
School in Blantyre, Malawi. I would love to be able to tell
you some tales of how he's doing, but since he has barely
communicated with us, there is not much to say! Gregory is
planning an overnight trip this coming week, and then in the
middle of October he will be home for half term, so
hopefully in the next newsletter we'll have more to report.
From our side we are all missing having him around. It took
us a long time to get used to laying only five places at the
dinner table!Grace to you
Sharon and Gregory Kane
Elim International Missions
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Prayer Requests |
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- Road safety, whatever
the means of transport we are using
- Perseverance to keep
serving, and loving, and giving and teaching even when
it's tough
- Josiah's well-being in
school, and that he would keep in touch a bit better
- People to use their
mosquito nets and that many lives will be saved
- God's richest blessings
upon Araujo as he seeks to relaunch the church in
Capirizanje
- Pastor Samuel has now
moved on from our international church and will plant a
new church in one of the high density areas of Tete.
Pray for God's grace to be with him and his family
- With Pastor Samuel
leaving, Gregory has taken responsibility for the youth
group at our International Church. We long to have a
group of young people in love with Jesus and committed
to the Gospel.
- Our Sunday school is
struggling as the superintendent had the opportunity of
a good job elsewhere in Mozambique for four months. Pray
that the remaining team of teachers will continue to
serve well
- Mozambique is gearing up
for the scheduled presidential elections on 28th
October. Pray for peace in the nation at this time
- Above all, pray that the
Gospel impacts people's lives and transforms
individuals, families and communities. There truly is no
hope for mankind outside of the Gospel
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Meet
some of our leaders |
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Meet Araujo Quembo Viana. He
is married with two children and lives in the area near
Samoa where most of our Elim churches are to be found.
Araujo holds down a host of different responsibilities. He
is the treasurer for our executive council, managing the
national church's finances and reimbursing travel claims
from our various superintendents. He is also a district
superintendent in his own right, looking after a network of
six churches in the area around Madamba. He recently moved
on from the previous church where he was pastor and has at
Gregory's invitation embarked on a new church plant in
Capirizanje. This is a strategic location as it is the
Mozambican Government's administrative centre for the area.
Araujo also sells Bibles door-to-door and he is often to be
found with one of our Saber MP3 players, holding small
meetings and using the technology to teach people more about
the Bible and the Christian faith.
Because of the disruption caused by the civil war, Araujo
had to drop out of primary school. A few years ago he
started attending adult night classes and has recently been
awarded a certificate stating that he has made up his
missing primary education. He ekes out a living as a maize
farmer and is as such heavily reliant on there being good
rains. This year we were able to assist him with a
substantial loan to set himself up in business as a buyer
and seller of maize.
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Gregory's Quote of
the Month |
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"You can never get a cup of tea large
enough or a book long enough to suit me"
- CS Lewis |
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