Time, and blogging

Ok so, it's been awhile since I blogged here. My apologies to all who thought I had either died or abandoned this site. :) Things have just been extremely busy for us for the past several months. We also now have a new blogging platform (on samministries.org) for news...which leaves this site as more or less just for personal ramblings--which I enjoy, given I have the time to dedicate to that. The second hold up has been issues with blogger--the interface, etc. keeps changing; HTML and Compose views are not consistent and I keep getting error warnings and red banners flashing, telling me publishing may fail. *sigh* Sometimes it seems to be all uphill!

But I will do my best to keep my tales updated. Here's what's happened (in photos and in brief) over the past 2 month. Several visitors have come our way to spend time here helping out and getting acquainted with the local context. Four of these ladies were nurses, so I've had lots of help with the various ongoing health projects and the health workers have enjoyed their input as well.

Jodi (the first to come) changing Marta's dressing. Marta was bitten by a Puff Adder, and her story has impacted us all. You can read the details here The next to arrive were these ladies. They've been a group of hard workers too! Here they are on a home visit with the 101 year old granny (who has since passed away).

While they were here, we took them up "the rock" to see the sun set over this beautiful area. We took a chair on our hike as well (Andy's brilliant idea), so each had a turn trying out a classic pose...

I just like this photo that Jodi took, it's of Simon weighing an orphaned baby who's in our infant milk program. I love how the baby is studying Simon while Simon studies the dial on the scale.

We've also been REAL busy working on translating reading books for the school library, and working on remedial materials for kids who are struggling. This is Fani hard at work.

It's great fun reading with the kids, I wish I had more time to commit to it but there are other things to be done. Like taking photos of kids for their sponsors.

Here, Paulo (teacher) helps get a smile from a shy student. Amid the activity, Dwight and I took an express trip to South Africa to do some business, then we headed right back home again. Here we are in a line up (which was NOT express) at the border post in South Africa. Well, we've seen worse. At least we weren't caught standing outside for 3-4 hours without an umbrella under an emergency foil blanket while it poured rain and stormed.

So far this year, we've had a few real hot days, up to +40C. It has threatened to storm but so far it's blown more than rained. Apparently the wind was too strong for our mission vehicle carport and it collapsed in the middle of the night one night when the wind got violent.

Thankfully our maintenance workshop is under construction. You can see it under construction here. And I can see it's time for an update there too! The airstrip has seen some good progress lately and yesterday, Aviation officials came to do an inspection. It seems that went well so now we await the final "ok" to open.

Oh, and it's orphaned duiker season again (due to it being intense hunting/trapping season). So here we are with our latest addition. Better go dig out those baby bottles again.

With that, I will close. But first, a few random, curious photos taken over the past few months.

At a local gas station, turn off your car, butt out your cigarette, and turn off your cellphone? Something makes me think it may be hard to get compliance on that last point.

This sign at a South African bank warns you that can't smoke or take your gun inside. Cell phones left on must be ok then? Phew. ttyl

Farewells and Family Days

Although tomorrow is Alberta's official "Family Day", many people are celebrating it today already. My own family (husband and kids) are all off in different locations, so it's a good thing we had some family celebrations last week already.

One of the celebrations, the main one, was Dad Lagore's birthday. Now, his birthday fell on the same day that Dwight was scheduled to leave for Moz (Monday), so the birthday dinner was slated for a few days earlier so we could all be together for it.

His mystery age is in the candles, if you can see them from there.

Saturday and Sunday were a flurry of packing suitcases and getting things in place for Dwight's trip to Mozambique. The main purpose of this trip is to attend the annual general meeting, however it is also a good opportunity for him to follow up on a number of things on the field that need his attention.

But back to the story. By Sunday bedtime he was pretty well packed and ready to go. Between his personal items and a wealth of donated reading glasses for leaders and gifts for orphans, his suitcases were pushing the maximum weight limit of 50lb each.

On Monday morning, we headed to the Edmonton International Airport to say goodbye to him and to Bill Green. Bill Green is SAM Ministries' executive director and this is his first trip to Mozambique, so it was quite the occasion.

Amanda (our daughter), Dad Lagore, Dwight, Mom Lagore in the airport parking lot.

Once we got them checked in, we had a bit of time for coffee before their 12:40 flight.

Discussing something either very interesting or very important.

When the time came for them to go, we said farewell and they headed for the departure lounge as we headed back home. Two hours later, I received a call from Dwight saying their flight had been delayed. We hoped it wouldn't be delayed too much since there were 4 legs to their journey, 3 connecting flights yet, and much more than an hour or two would mean missed flights.

At 5:00 p.m. I got a call from Dwight asking if I could come pick them up because their flight got cancelled outright. Thankfully, they were able to rebook the same flights for the following day. So on Tuesday, we got to repeat all of Monday's activities...more or less. That was a rather tiring and stressful day. And funny enough (although not funny in the really funny sense), as it turned out we could have had Dad's birthday dinner on his real birthday date after all.

So that sort of brings me to today. Today I accompanied Mom and Dad Lagore to attend church at Heimdahl. This is the small country church that conducts the Global Care A Thon that raises funds to assist needs in several different countries...SAM Ministries' school child feeding program in Mozambique being one of them.

It was snowing and cold outside, but warm and friendly inside!

After the service, we got to enjoy each others' company around a good pancake brunch in the church's basement. I also got to meet some of the youngest "walkers" from last year's walk a thon. All these girls, and yes even this littlest one, participated in raising funds to feed hungry children far away.

What a privileged position I'm in. Not only can I watch the school children in Moz enjoy their platefuls of good food (and see their bodies become the stronger and healthier for it), I also get to see the smiles and eagerness of those who play a part in helping to make it all possible.

Thank you, Father.

And Happy Family Day everyone, wherever you are.

PS: Any recent news I missed can be found here, on the website's blog.

Getting There

There was a bit of a panic one morning last week. We were just finishing our routine morning meeting with staff when I caught a quick movement out of the corner of my eye. One of the guys had something on the end of a stick that he held stretched w-a-a-ay out in front of him, as far as possible, and he was rushing to dispose of whatever it was. It must have been pretty dangerous, so my curiosity was piqued.

“Wait, wait! What is it? Let me see!”

The guy stopped mid-step and turned around ever so carefully. There, on the end of the stick, was no snake, no furry, ogley-eyed spider, nor anything too horrid at all for that matter. It was a plain old chameleon. A fairly frightened one at that who was moving as quickly as possible toward safety!

Unfortunately for the chameleon, his species are programmed for disguise, not speed. And so his attempts to “scurry” were quite pathetic. At best, he swayed backwards and forwards repeatedly, in super slow motion, as his front foot reached forward, poised for eventual touchdown.

It’s pretty safe to blink, even several times, when watching chameleons walk. You won’t miss much.

They're quite harmless, but many here believe they’re deadly poisonous. I reached for the stick to rescue the little fellow and to relieve the guy holding him. As I did this, an animated discussion broke out as we shared our differing ideas about chameleons and the possible danger they pose. Some voiced concern that chameleon eggs on cassava leaves could easily be eaten by accident and poison a person. I was more concerned about the level of cyanide poisoning in the leaves themselves. They thought I was funny. I thought they were funny. We all had a good laugh.

The chameleon thought it wasn't so funny at the time but it could be later, after he’d reached safety. If he could just put that foot down and actually get there.

I think Raimundo (holding the stick) and I have similar thoughts about chameleons.
He doesn't seem too worried.

While we were having some fun but also challenging moments at home base this week, Dwight, Rick, Joao and Pastor Ricardo spent just shy of 2 weeks picking their way over dangerous highways and bad dirt roads to visit, teach, and encourage pastors and people in remote areas. I traced their path as best I could (below). The round trip covers approximately 1200 km.


Need I say why I don't accompany my husband on these trips? Conditions are rustic and besides, there are dangers along the way too. Who knows, maybe one day I'll muster the needed sense of adventure and go along. But not yet. Thankfully, Andy and Dwight took some great photos which I'll share here.

Rick, Heather & Co. hauling a trailer load of orphan gift packs for Chiriza and Chueza.
Good thing they were well wrapped on the bad, dusty road!

Crossing the Chiri River on the "ferry".
These bigger rivers are know for both hippo and croc attacks.

While Dwight drove, Pastor Ricardo "manned" the phones.
Dwight's phone is a busy one. Apparently Pastor Ricardo's is too.

Graduating pastors in Guro

Lunch with the Community Leader in Mutarara

Unique Christmas Gift packs, carefully shopped for and put together by Rick, Heather, Pastor Mariano and others, were distributed to orphans in programs in Chueza and Chiriza.

Awaiting gifts and lunch.

Gifts are so fun!

Grannies and elderly women who also receive help.


The Chueza church runs a garden to provide vegetables for orphans in its orphan feeding program. The walk there is several kilometers long.



Desperately needed pots for cooking were delivered on this trip as well.


Fresh produce from church garden in another area called Baue.

Follow up for the women's literacy program is also provided on these trips. Here, one of the remote women's class teachers receives supplies.

Here, a woman receives a certificate for completing a course in leadership training.
I love seeing the women involved like this.

"Work-for-food" project in Sinjal.
Bricks made will be sold to generate income to purchase more grain.

Checking out a possible remote base in Sinjal for the mission.
A place to call home while so far away from home would be ideal on these remote location visits.

Who knows...maybe I could be lured off on one of these crazy trips after all? There may be a few dangers and some adventure, but it would be a great experience. Maybe one day I'll get there.

Smiling

I wasn't there as Andrew and Suzanne got to work putting some finishing touches on the health post at the mission school this week, but from the looks of it, it was quite the event.

First, a line on the wall had to be measured for the blue latex paint. Latex paint has a shiny finish that helps keep the walls clean. Very important in a rural health post!

Nice to see people smile as they work :)

Then there was the tedious job of puttying the windows. First, you have to "moosh" the putty with your hands until it gets soft. When it's soft and pliable it's easier to work with (hence the term "like putty in my hands"). Then you push it into the corners along the glass and smooth it with a putty knife. Not as easy as it sounds, but in my opinion it's GREAT fun. And if Andrew isn't enjoying his putty session, he's hiding it well under that smile.

And just to make sure the jobs get done right, a throng of school kids gather to keep a close eye on things. Such excitement over the new healthpost!

Suzanne busy with the task of putting the blue latex paint very nicely where it should be. I'm guessing that in between strokes with the brush, there were a few headache pills passed out and wounds bandaged as well.

And after more than a year of planning and construction, the moment of truth as the bridge is tested for the first time. Many hours of hard work went into getting things to this point and I bet the guys were smiling pretty big as they drove over this ravine for the first time ever!

Hard work pays off.

I got to do a bit of smiling this week too, albeit not until I had put in some hard work as well. I launched into several promotional projects that involved video editing. At the time I thought "this can't be that hard..." but since I'd never done it before, I was in for a surprise. It took many hours of selecting and cutting and pasting and exporting and inserting and reviewing and then re-doing the process again.

At one point, I moved a bunch of video files from one hard drive to another in order to create space for more video files (they're real space hogs!) ...big mistake though. Turns out they wre "source files" and the computer couldn't find them, so I had to start all over again. Yeah. I definitely wasn't smiling right then!

But finally, after much work, I burned my first little production. It's a humble start, but it's a video update nonetheless so here it is:



And last but not least of the smiles this week was when I was in the office meeting with Patti Green (SAM office administrator, below)...

and a lady with a beautiful smile arrived. She said she wanted to give a special gift to the work and asked "Which program needs help the most?" Well, I took the opportunity to tell her that the infant milk program could sure use some help since it currently has more babies in it than ever before.

She thought this was a good plan and smiled beautifully again. We all smiled.

And I think God was smiling too.