What We Need

As we travelled from one country and culture to the next over the last few weeks, I thought a lot about what we as people need. I guess it's the mix of development and progress, cultural differences, and economic disparity that got me thinking. I decided I would share about the past week from that perspective, so bear with me.

To a greater or lesser degree, here are some of the things we need:

Buildings: Schools, Hospitals, Churches, etc.

(Construction on Outreach Community Centre in Caçador, Brazil)

(Mercy Air house, Mozambique)

Safety (New fire extinguishing system at Mt. Horeb, Brazil)

A Warm Shower (shock-proof, preferrably), when it's cold outside.

Parking Spots. Cars too. (Mt Horeb)

Kitchen Cupboards (Ron Wayner, Mozambique) Yay!

To Look Good. Real good.

Exercise

Cool Bus Stops

Good Music and Prayer Time

(Mt Horeb church *the 2 young drummers are excellent!)

A Place To Worship

Something To Anticipate

To Talk To Someone

Somewhere To Hang Out

To Eat. As often as possible :)

(My Dad, the couple who translate our training materials, my friends, and us.)

Girl Time!

To Smile at the Camera. Cheese!

Accomplishment--even if it's just climbing the sand pile.

Oddities. They keep life interesting.

Hugs. Often.

To Long For Things (and not get everything we want)

To Love and Serve Others--as we would like to be loved and served.

This is an important and often neglected need we have.

(School lunchtime, Mozambique)

And at the end of it all,

To Rest (with our feet up, of course)

We're finally in Edmonton doing just that. That, plus enjoying time with family. And that's needed too.

Enjoy your weekend.

When We All Work Together

How happy we’ll be!

That may sound a bit simplistic, but the truth is: working together does make us feel happier and it certainly lightens our load. And we experienced some of that this week.

We’ve had good working relationships with local, district, and even provincial authorities for years now and have certainly enjoyed their friendship and facilitation of many aspects of the mission’s work. But as is customary here, government department heads get transferred to new posts on a rotating basis every 4 years or so. This past year happened to be the year for that, and we were sad to see old, familiar faces leave and their new replacements arrive. Now is the time for new working relationships.

First, the new Administrator and her entourage of 50 including the new District Health Director, Social Services Director, and others paid us a visit. This happened while we were in South Africa with Bero, but our team reported that she was very pleased with the various mission projects.

Then, we went to meet with the new District Health Director. Cooperation between the government health department and us is crucial and we needed his “ok” before we could continue planning some upcoming health activities. Sometimes, there is a huge stack of legal paperwork to fill out and submit which then goes for a stamp of approval before things can go forward. Other times, you get their blessing without much ado at all. I like those times better! Thankfully, this meeting was one of the latter. After spending quite awhile chatting with him about cooperative activities past, present and proposed future, he smiled warmly and essentially said, “Not only “may” you go ahead with your plan, you are invited to do so!”

Our next visitor was from Social Services. He was interested to know more about our program for helping orphans, widows and the handicapped. A group of ladies who were in the office doing crafts with Alta at the time, moved out onto the lawn so we could meet inside. After briefing him on the program, he commended the mission with, (again in essence because I’m not good at verbatim), “All the approaches that we advocate as ‘best practices’ that work best for healthier individuals, families, and communities, you are already doing. We are very impressed with your programs. And empowering these women too, that’s wonderful!” Then he went on to explain how government programs could benefit the families we help as well. I told him that if wheelchairs are available, I have a few people in mind already!

(Women's group monitors learn crafts which they will then teach to other women.)

Dan Jones, with Mercy Air U.S.A., visits an orphan home and captures a few local scenes.

And a few little onlookers as well.

Apparently, the families we help now also have the attention of Mozambique's First Lady. She has sent someone to build traditional but “energy saver” stoves in their homes.

These clay stoves help conserve heat and therefore use less firewood or charcoal. Less work for the people who use them and less stress on environmental resources too. ☺ Apparently the First Lady is slated to pop in here for a visit next week too!

Other news:

Last week, Rick Neufeld and short termers Chris and Corissa transported maize for hunger relief in a remote community across the Zambezi river. First, they drove it 5 hours north,

then loaded it onto a boat,

which took several hours to deliver the supplies. They escaped crocodile and hippo encounters on the river just fine, but on the way home they had vehicle trouble. Ah well, it’s all part of the experience!
Some of the mission’s sponsored students attend higher grades at schools in surrounding communities. Here are some photos taken this week of kids at the nearby Pina Community School.

These girls attended the mission school until Grade 5 and are now in Pina for Grade 6. We’re very proud of these girls who stay in school!


A group of Mercy Air South Africa and Mercy Air U.S.A. visitors are here for a few days visit as well.

I see I’m not the only one with a fascination for photographing kids making funny faces.

More news:

FINALLY, finally!—the Portuguese copy of our health manual has been sent off for final revision and translation of remaining portions. I am so thankful for Keren’s hard work helping me with input and to pull it all together to meet our deadline (to the best of our ability). While the Portuguese copy receives its finishing touches and the English copy is being edited, Keren, who can draw wonderfully, is busy producing the needed illustrations. Those who use the manual for years to come will be grateful I didn’t have to use my cave-man drawings in it. :P

Also, I got a “real” fridge this week.

Look, even Mushu was excited!

After 14 years (Maputo experience not included), of bush living starting with no refrigeration, then to occasionally having a cooler with ice, then to a propane fridge (that worked more or less and made smoke and had no light) to improvising with a small chest freezer, to this.

It stands upright, it has a light, it gets cold, no dragging propane tanks around, no more fumes and no more “surprise” defrosts when the gas runs out.


What a splendid gift. We are so very thankful!

I better close for now. We have last minute work that needs attention and bags that need to be packed for our trip home. We’ll be gone for about 7 weeks, primarily to attend university graduation ceremonies for both our kids, but also to take in a conference and attend meetings with those overseas who work together with us and who are vital to the work here.

(Corissa tests the waters in a local canoe.)

So long.

Late Christmas, Late Spring

Christmas, for most rural Mozambicans, isn’t any more special than any other time of year. So when these Unique Christmas Gifts were handed out in March to orphan children in a local church orphan program, they weren’t disappointed at the timing at all…they were thrilled! Heather and Rick took on the job of purchasing, preparing and delivering the gifts. Click here to read her blog post about the event. Nat and Salena, who both served and met each other at the mission a few years back, returned for a visit and short term of service last month. They got involved in this project (as well as others) and did a post related to the Orphan Gift Pack distribution as well. You can check their blog by clicking here.

A warm, heart-felt thanks to all you who contributed to this Unique Christmas Gift item to make this possible!

Back to our current Canada experience:

Roger's Pass, Canadian Rockies

Somehow I expected to see more green grass and flowers when we got to B.C., since it’s the end of March, but it's been a long, cold winter and the scene most everywhere was either snow white, mud brown, or a combination of the two. Except of course for the mountain peaks, which are stunning year round.

Here’s a shot of the mounds of snow at Roger’s Pass. This has been melting for awhile so I’m sure it was much higher than this. When there is no snow, you can walk straight across flat pavement from this parking lot into the lodge beyond.

A top priority whenever we come home is to find a vehicle to use, and this time a very kind uncle of mine gave us his 1992 Acura. Here, Dwight and dad are doing a few last minute under-the-hood checks before we head out on our 10 hour trip (through the Rocky Mountains and across some prairie) to Edmonton.

We got a late start on our trip so ended up only arriving home at 1:30 a.m. We were very tired but very glad to see our kids again! Dwight's folks worked hard to set up a bedroom (by hanging a dividing curtain) for us in the small front room in the basement since our old bedroom is now occupied by our son. It's very comfy and I can't help but joke that it feels like we sleep in the "holy of holies". 

An unexpected perk of being home was that we got to attend an engineering project presentation event that our son, Russell, participated in today at the University of Alberta. His group engineered a Curling Stone Speedometer and there's a good chance the unit may go into production for retail. I was a very proud mom as I sat and watched the presentation. Most of it was electrical engineering mumbo jumbo to me, but what was crystal clear in my mind as I watched was the fact that no matter how small your steps may be--even if the resources for your task are scarce indeed--if you consistently work toward a goal, you can reach it. Crystal clear also were the memories of coaxing said son to stay focused on his studies (instead of playing on computer or making back-yard fireworks displays) while homeschooling in the Mozambican bush so he could one day attend university.

Russell and his group doing the presentation of their project and fielding questions.

Russ and Dwight by the poster Russ created for the project. I guess sometimes all that computer-play can be put to good use.

I should close for this time. We will be in and out quite a bit during our few months here and our schedule is filling up quickly, but if you'd like to get together with us give us a call, we'd love to too. You can reach us at 780-966-2034.


I will leave you with this teensy reminder that spring is, in fact, on its way regardless of how slow it is in coming.

Crocuses in mom's flower bed in B.C.

Good gets Great!

Seeing the school kids’ excitement this week when their new desks arrived reminded me of how much these kids love school. Years ago, when friends of ours paid the school a visit, they asked the kids if they liked school. They probably were expecting the usual chorus of sighs and groans but were taken aback (and captured the moment on video) as the kids in perfect unison shouted “We LIKE school!” But I digress.

It was quite the procession yesterday at the mission school as the students lined up to wave, clap, dance and sing as the truck loaded with new desks slowly approached.

These desks were purchased with funds raised by students at Thorsby Elementary School in Canada. Initially, they hoped to be able to raise funds for several desks, but as the kids, their families and in fact the whole community caught the vision, they were able to fund raise for many more. Both they and we were excited to hear that in the end, they were able to raise funds for more than just several--twenty-two to be exact. But the surprises in this story don’t end here. When we placed our order a few weeks ago, we realized that based on the current price, we in fact had enough for 24 desks! How cool is that?! It’s wonderful and certainly the perfect way to wrap up a story that went from good to great. Amazing, actually.

Some of the students even had new uniforms on which they were so very proud of. We were too! A lot of work goes into the running of a school, but the reward—helping to give children hope and a future—is worth every minute of it.

Everyone pitches in to unload that precious cargo.

Hmmm, the challenge of fitting big things and bodies through a doorway at the same time.

Hand waves to say thank you from older kids above and very cute preschoolers below.

Last week, Ron and Barb (Mercy Air founders/directors) came to stay at the mission for about a week since they had a flight to bring a work team to Chimoio. Usually, accommodations, etc. are provided for the pilots while whoever chartered the flight goes about their business, but Ron and Barb decided that since they were in the area, they would rather come out here to the mission farm to work and spend time with us. While they were here, Ron got busy putting one of my kitchen cupboards together and did some unique handcrafting of some log off-cuts that no one saw much potential for. It’s not quite finished yet but it’s beautiful already and very fitting for a kitchen in the African bush!

They will be returning next week on another flight. This time they’ll bring visiting family members along to spend time with us. The ladies want to paint the walls at our house and the guys would like to carry on working on my kitchen cupboards while they’re here. More power to ‘em, I say!


We decided we’d better get the kitchen floor tiled and ready for cupboards next week. Nice, huh? ☺

Some newcomers:

A guy came to sell wild guinea fowl chicks to us this week. They’re very young and we don’t really expect they’ll survive, but the guy was very hungry and was obviously hoping to sell them so he could buy food. They’re sure are cute though.


Some sort of mud-wasp obviously figured the keyhole on our veranda door was the perfect place to build his nest. Ummmm, buddy? Not a good plan!

I should run for now since I have a campsite to finish setting up for arriving guests, a course assignment to finish, and I really need to get packing/preparing for our upcoming furlough. We leave March 10th for Canada (via Brazil) and will be traveling and sharing about the work here with the many who take the seemingly innumerable needs presented to heart and give so faithfully.

The added perk, of course, will be seeing our kids and family again. Yes. Good gets great!