A friend recently asked me what Tete was like. Did it have the same sort of facilities that a town in the UK would have?  As I thought about his question, I came to realise that the many differences would make for an unusual and hopefully informative monthly update.

The town itself has a population of about 100,000 people. The trunk roads and the streets in the  town centre are covered with tarmacadam, but everywhere else you have to make do with dirt roads that hammer your suspension and send up a cloud of dust. To be best of my knowledge Tete has only two sets of traffic lights.

The Zambezi cuts through the town with a massive suspension bridge spanning the river. Drivers pay a toll to cross one way but it is free in the other direction. Some time ago a structural weakness was identified such that the authorities will not allow more than more lorry to cross at a time. It takes a minute or so to drive (slowly) across the bridge and we often use the time to search the water for crocodiles.

Tete has primary and secondary schools but no university. It has a large hospital but the nurses have a reputation for stealing the drugs that have been prescribed for their patients. The town centre hosts a large number of small shops but there isn't any one supermarket where you can buy all of your groceries. There are also hundreds and hundreds of wooden stalls scattered around the town and suburbs where basics such as soap, cooking oil and matches can be purchased.

Depending on where you live, some people have water plumbed straight through into their houses; for others they still have to queue at communal taps where they collect water in plastic drums. Electricity is much more universally available although we still have power cuts approximately twice a week. It sounds ridiculous, but when there is a power cut people actually have to phone the electricity company. Just last week I rang to advise them that although they had restored two of the three phases of the power supply, one phase was still down in our area. Within an hour an engineer had visited the sub-station and corrected the problem.

Tete has a post office but for the life of me I don't really know what it does. There are no post boxes anywhere in the town, so if you want to post a letter you have to visit the post office. Moreover the post office doesn't actually deliver any mail to private homes or businesses. If you want to be able to receive mail, you need to rent a private box but there are only about 150 boxes available. Most people just don't bother. This makes the whole process of communication something of a challenge. Every month we host a leadership seminar to which all of our rural churches are invited as well as any other independent churches who would like to avail themselves of this opportunity for training. In order to reach these far-flung congregations, we pay for an announcement to be made on local radio and hope that those who hear the message will in turn pass it on to those who weren't listening. This may sound very unreliable but we had 39 leaders at our most recent seminar, a clear improvement on the 26 from the month before.

Sharon and I are now the proud owners of Mozambican driving licences. As we were trading in our Zimbabwean licences, we didn't need to go through the whole process but we still had to sit a written test in Portuguese. Unfortunately the rules of the road are rarely enforced, expect for the occasional speed trap. Vehicles drive past with a dozen people hanging off the back. People overtake on dangerous bends and on the brows of hills. In fact only last week we had to pull off the road to avoid a car coming round the corner on the wrong side of the road - ironically the markings on the car indicated that it belonged to the very agency responsible for the issuing of driving licences!

We do a lot of travelling and need to fill our tank at least once a week. Tete has three petrol stations, although one of these has had its pump fiddled so that it actually dispenses 7% less fuel than the pump indicates - believe me, I checked. But outside of the main towns there aren't any fuel stations, not even on the trunk roads. A recent visit to one particular village church took four hours there and four hours back. On that occasion I had neglected to carry a spare fuel can, so as you can imagine I was very worried about running out of fuel on the way home.

I trust this has given you a taste of life in and around Tete. Not only is it unlike anywhere in the UK, it is also significantly different from our experiences in Zimbabwe. You will find a number of photographs on our web site that should also help you to imagine what it is like here. We depend on and value the prayers of our supporters. Hopefully this overview will prompt you to pray passionately and with greater understanding of our challenges and frustrations.
 

Please Pray

Pray for the local pastors to grow in knowledge and to lead their churches well Pray also for the weekly Bible studies that Sharon and I run in Moatize and Samoa Someone in the post office has been stealing a number of the small packets that people have sent to us. Pray that all of our mail would arrive safely Pray that we will know God's direction as we consider starting a congregation in the city Pray for safety in all of our travelling and that our car would continue to be reliable The Elim church is hosting its annual conference at the end of the September. Pray for a sense of unity and common purpose We have now restarted home school, using the Sonlight curriculum. This is proving to be very time intensive and we would appreciate prayer that both parents and children would get the hang of the very different methodology Sharon is applying for registration with the medical authorities so that she can commence some health education programmes. Pray that the people who are involved in this process would be reasonable and accommodating

Grace to you

Gregory and Sharon Kane

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Sharon's 'Joke of the Month'

*Fuel Efficiency*

A young man drove his mini bike in to a petrol station and dismounted.

"I'll need about a pint of petrol," he said to the attendant, "and a few ounces of oil for the motor."

"Certainly sir," the attendant said, "And would you also like me to cough into your tires?"