Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? (Ps 10:1)

In the midst of our confusion and frustration this month we took comfort from these words written by David. They reminded us that our experiences are in no way unusual. Those whom God loves, He disciplines. And sometimes the discipline takes the form of silence from heaven when we are crying out for answers.

Our sister P is still being held in jail without charge. We have prayed and fasted. We have spoken to police investigators, lawyers and even to the chief prosecutor. And yet, five weeks on, she is still incarcerated, and no one will give us any indication as to how much longer this might continue. We can only conclude on a human level that the rules of the game are different here. And on a spiritual level, that the Lord is testing us to see what is in our hearts. With that in mind we have sought to keep encouraging our people to be faithful in prayer, to walk consistently in the light, and to keep on caring for P. On the last point they have excelled. Scarcely a single day has passed without someone from the church taking her food, and speaking to her if the police guards have allowed it. Many of the police officers have been remarking on the dedication and love our church has been showing to P. Hilda has been asked, "Are you really just a friend, or are you sisters?" As a nation Mozambique has known little of grace, compassion or love during her troubled history. Clearly we are being given an opportunity to demonstrate the goodness of God, and we are eager not to pass up on this opportunity.

In addition to social visits, twice we have applied for, and been granted, permission to hold a short church service with P after our Sunday morning service. The only restriction has been that we were asked not to sing loudly as this may agitate the other prisoners. There is a certain irony in this as the call to prayer has rung out from the local mosque during both of our prison services, drowning any efforts we may be making to sing. We heard this week that some of the other prisoners have been asking if they can borrow the Bible that P is constantly reading. Since it is an English Bible the request is pretty pointless. Knowing that the hunger is there, we are planning to take a bunch of Portuguese New Testaments to the jail this week for distribution among the police officers and the prisoners. As our hopes of an early release have been raised and dashed several times, we now think we must focus our efforts on encouraging her in her walk with God, and shining the light as much as possible in the prison. If she comes forth as gold, and others find Jesus through this whole period, then it will have all been worthwhile.

With all of this constantly on our minds, life has, of course, had to continue! We had scheduled a trip to Beira for the first weekend of August. Beira is an important port city about half way down the Mozambican coast. It is a full day's drive from Tete. There is a church there that came under the Elim umbrella ten years ago through contact with the Elim church of Zimbabwe, but we had never visited the church or even met the pastor. We were delighted by what we found. Pastor Vincent is a steady and faithful man. He is head of mathematics at a secondary school. He has paid his way through the diploma course at a Bible school, which requires attendance four nights a week for 4 years. Even more unusually, his wife also completed the course, taking casual work to fund her studies. They have built a building, also largely from their own funds and the church offerings. We spent a pleasant time with them on the Saturday and the Sunday, and discussed together how best we can support them. Clearly the needs of a reasonably well-developed church in a major city are very different from the needs of young rural churches with largely illiterate congregations. We hope to network with other groups working in and around Beira to supply the training and other needs of the church so as to bring it to still greater maturity. We hope that Pastor Vincent will make it to the conference this weekend and that this will strengthen his sense of belonging to the Elim family within Mozambique.

Our trip to Beira also gave us the chance to buy books, and we came back with the car loaded with ten big boxes of Bibles and Christian books in Portuguese and several tribal languages. Having almost cleared the previous clutch of boxes from our lounge we now have a whole new batch to trip over! Having finished the business in hand we took three days off, explored Beira, (that didn't take too long!) and jumped over the waves in the Indian Ocean. It was a welcome break, but not nearly long enough.

The HIV seminar mentioned in the prayer requests last month went very well. About 40 people attended, most of whom were pastors and other church leaders representing more than 20 Moatize churches. We first covered the general medical facts of the disease. We then moved on to the role of the pastor in prevention of HIV, covering the need to teach clearly what the Bible says about sexual purity, to strengthen marriages, and to teach openly among the youth. Sex is still more or less a taboo subject in the church here. Some churches will preach against immorality and the message is, "Don't do it!" The ideas of finding out why Christian young people fall into sin, and of giving married couples practical guidelines for strengthening and guarding their marriages were pretty novel, but fairly well accepted on the whole. On the third day we considered the pastor's role in caring for those already infected or affected by HIV. As mentioned above, this nation knows little of compassion, and even the church tends to be rather harsh and quick to condemn people. We spent a long time looking at counselling issues, and also considered how the church can support the poor and vulnerable in practical ways. Of course, the seminar will bear little fruit if it stops there. We encouraged the churches to run their own training days, and offered to supply free course books to those who go on and do so.

I hope to repeat the course in other locations, particularly in the area around Samoa where most of our village churches are located. To that end we have commissioned a translation of the core course book into Chewa, since we have found Chewa literacy to be far higher than Portuguese literacy in that area.  The absolute rate of HIV infection in Mozambique is around 16%, and the epidemic is spreading alarmingly quickly. In 2000 only 11% of the population was infected. The church clearly needs to confront this challenge urgently.

We thank God that Gregory travelled safely to Zimbabwe with Pastors João and Jolinho. They were well received, and it was a hugely valuable experience for them. As well as observing the conference proceedings, Gregory arranged for them to sit down with key leaders and talk through specific aspects of church life and governance. It was great for them to see a sister Elim church in Africa that has grown to maturity and is managing its own finances, training its own leaders and making its own decisions. We realise the Mozambican Elim church is very young and has a long way to go yet, but having a vision of where you are heading for does help in getting there!

Please Pray

Pray with us for P's release from gaol and for her well-being for as long as she is held there. Pray for the church to be strong in faith and blameless in behaviour as we respond to the challenge of her imprisonment Give thanks for a successful HIV seminar and pray the churches will be active in their response. Our home school materials were cleared though customs without difficulty and we restarted home school this week. Pray for a smooth adjustment to 'term time' Josiah's arm has healed well. Give thanks to God! This weekend (7-9 Sept) we have our annual conference. Pray for safe travel for those who are coming from a distance. Pray for unity and a sense of celebration Praise God for the excellent executive visit to Zimbabwe. Materially our brothers in sisters in Zimbabwe are struggling to find all of life's basic commodities: soap, salt, sugar, toothpaste etc have all disappeared from the shops. Pray for God's provision for them. We plan to show another Christian film on Sept 21st and to hold an open air in the market on the 22nd. Pray for fruit. Pray that the Mozambican church and the government will be both determined and wise in tackling the HIV epidemic.

Grace to you

Sharon and Gregory Kane

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Sharon's 'Joke of the Month'

* Wrong Number *

A woman was at home with her children when the telephone rang.

In going to answer it, she tripped on a rug, grabbed for something to hold on to and seized the telephone table.
It fell over with a crash, jarring the receiver off the hook.

As it fell, it hit the family dog, which leaped up, howling and barking.
The woman's three-year-old son, startled by this noise, broke into loud screams.
The woman mumbled some colourful words.

She finally managed to pick up the receiver and lift it to her ear, just in time to hear her husband's voice on the other end say,
"Nobody's said hello yet, but it certainly sounds as if I have the right number."