Email Pains and Preaching Gains

Yeah, that’s right. I’m now a preaching man. But first things first, I wanted to let everyone know that I’ve been having some email issues here. I didn’t realize it until last night as I was talking to my mother that nobody has been receiving emails from my Yahoo account. Really sorry about that, I HAVE been sending them. I fixed the problem now, so I’m resending everything that I already sent from the past six weeks. Should have it all done within a day or two.

Okay, now about my “preaching engagement”, first I’ll tell you how it came about, then I’ll tell you how it went. So this guy who works as a guard here at my building wanted me to come visit his church. Everyone here is very relational, so I wasn’t too surprised, and I told him of course I’d like to go visit his church. So a day or two later he comes to me and asks if I can go next weekend. “Yeah, not a problem,” I reply. So then he tells me, “Great, I told them you’d come – oh, and you can teach about whatever you want.”

So I didn’t feel real comfortable with that at first. I told him so, and he responded with “Don’t worry about it, you don’t need to speak well, God will help us understand.” Well how can you say no to that? I felt sheepish that I had even fussed about it…

And it went really well. It’s amazing how God can work. Last week as I was figuring out what to say and what words I’d need to say it, everything began to click with this language. There was a marked difference in a few days time in my ability to understand others and hold a prolonged conversation. I’m sure people don’t really enjoy listening to me talk, but that’s not the point. The point is that they can understand what I’m saying, and vice versa. I can work on my accent later.

So I went to this small church for my first ever Portuguese preaching excursion, and it was perfect. They were all so excited that I was there that it wouldn’t have mattered if they could understand me or not – there was so much nodding, clapping, and amen-ing that they practically preached to themselves :-)

It was an awesome day, and one for which I’m incredibly thankful. Oh, and the best part is this: after I finished, the church was small enough that they began discussing what I had been talking about. They actually HAD understood my message, and they were talking about how it applied to them. How cool is that? How awesome is God? And that’s my preaching tale – thanks for the prayers, they worked.

I’m including a few random photos here, some faces of Mozambique. These are the people that I’m here for, and whom I’ve come to respect and appreciate in a way that I can’t describe just yet. This last one is for all you in the lone star state, thought you’d like to know that you’re represented over here-

After a Month

So I’ve been here for over a month now, what have I been doing, right? My full-time job is still language training and I’m studying Portuguese (officially or unofficially) just about all the time. My weekday daylight hours are spent studying with Luis and/or applying what I’ve learnt. By the grace of God I seem to be doing pretty well with it and I’m able to flounder my way through most situations. This is good, because somehow I got roped into PREACHING next weekend in Portuguese. My goodness, please pray for me…

Yesterday I made my first visit to a real rural church here in Africa, and it was one of the most singular experiences of my entire Christian life. I went with two other missionaries and a local pastor, and when we arrived you would have thought we were celebrities. Everyone was so happy to see us and so honored that we visited them – I felt truly blessed to be surrounded by so much gratitude and joy. I love the people here.

Now for a bit about the area where I’m living:

This is the city of Nampula, population ~500,000. Yeah, that puts it around the same size as the city where I grew up but anyone from Grand Rapids can tell you it’s not quite on par for size. There are half a million souls packed into and around a city with one stop-light – not much bigger than Lowell, for you Michiganders. Of course, most people live in bairros (I guess you could call them suburbs, but with much less order) around the city and just come into town for the amenities. Like water. Note the mountains in the background, though. Not bad, eh?

These first two photos were both taken from a pseudo-mountain on one side of the city. This one is looking in the opposite direction. All around Nampula there are these groupings of rock formations; it was the first thing that struck me when I was flying in. It’s flat land… big rocks… flat land… big rocks. The only geography I’ve ever seen like it was in the middle of Australia. It’s pretty cool.

Last weekend we had a team meeting in Nacala, which is a port city – meaning that our meeting was really held at the beach. Well there isn’t any sand, as you can see here, but there are some small but pretty cliffs and some great snorkeling. The water was nice and warm (by anyone’s standards except Aunt Sue’s, who doesn’t like to go swimming unless she can poach an egg in the water) and the fish were plentiful. We took some underwater photos with a teammate’s camera, so hopefully I’ll be able to get those posted before too long as well. This second photo is of some fishermen rowing by as the sun was setting, after what I’m assuming was a hard day’s work.

A few prayer requests:

- May God continue to assist me in my language learning, that I will be able to communicate effectively with all those around me.

- May the Lord bring across my path those in Nampula who are eager to hear about Him.

- May I find opportunities daily to exemplify God’s love to those around me, and may I be strengthened daily in His Word.