NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

#1 Another picture of the result of the recent cyclone. Please continue to pray for our Mwinika friends!

The most recent news we have received says that the big town the closest to us is a mess. At least one or maybe more bridges are down between the town and where we live which effectively cuts our area off from the business centre. The roads are in a bad condition. Pray for those that are left without homes or anywhere else to go.

Our close neighbour and friend is very sick from malaria. He has been diagnosed as HIV+ and this may just push him into full blown Aids.

Please pray for him and his family! He has 6 children with his first wife. They are the closest we have to family under the Mwinika people.

He went to most of the teaching, but we are not sure if he has accepted Christ as his Saviour.

#1 The road to our house

From the news we are getting, there is some damage to houses in our neighbourhood and some collapsed. A friend of ours’ house collapsed completely. Please pray for our Mwinika friends, as they struggle to survived during this time while it is still too wet to rebuild. Rain continues, but the cyclone passed.

Our house is fine, but one of our office/school buildings is very wet (and built with unburned bricks…). Pray that it will stay standing! We may have to rebuild on our return since this building has already some damage from termites.

Picture: Photo of a collapsed building we took a few years back just after a cyclone passed through Central Mozambique.

A tropical cyclone, Funso, is storming over the part of the country where the Mwinika people live. Our partner, Phil writes:

I has been raining for days… literally. Strong gusty wind coming from the northwest for days on end with constant light rain. Incredible.

Lots of houses fell or have at least one side fallen. The new annex they built for the school here just totally collapsed. Our outhouse collapsed and am worried about the far wall of my office as it is soaked. Lord knows. Lots of trees down. The worst was last night.

I sent someone today to check on your house and they came back and said it was all fine. The rain was coming from the side where you have all the trees so I am sure that blocked a lot of gusts. Ameriku has been sick for a few days with malaria. The sun hasn’t come out in 3 days (therefore no solar power). If it wasn’t for the generator that your Oom Willie bought us we would be sunk! Be sure and tell him thanks for us again. It has especially been useful because all the batteries in the office have died so that is not cool. We will have to get some new ones when I get back from furlough.

If anybody shows up for teaching tomorrow (01-23) I will be surprised.

Another missionary friend, working in the people group next to ours writes:

Tropical cyclone Funso is still battering us and we’re struggling, but not as bad as the nationals. Wind gusts over 200 KPH. Flooding rains, power and internet down since Friday. Our rental (house) flooded but is still standing which we cannot say for many other houses. We and some friends are cooking 20 kg of beans to deliver through our neighbourhood to those who already lost everything. Please pray!

It sounds like the worst storm in years. Please pray for the Mwinika who’s houses have been damaged or totally destroyed and also for our partners who has lost some buildings and struggle to continue with the translation work because of loss of electricity (The closest place to get gas for the generator is 4 hours by bicycle away). The storm is also upsetting the teaching. Pray that the Lord will use this to draw people to Him!!

From: Nadia [mailto:nadia_hattingh@ntm.org] Sent: 21 January 2012 07:41 PM To: ‘myMinistry Blogs’ Subject: Work permit about to expire!

You may remember that Francois brought down our vehicle a few months back for repairs. Since it is a foreign registered vehicle, Francois has to take it over the boarder every few months – and this is what he did last week.

Arriving at the border, the expected expired TIP (temporary import permit) of the vehicle caused no problem! Even the importation of a warm water heater for team mates, went well – thanks to many prayers. The unexpected glitch come up his work permit… Since the renewal of our work permits in April last year, Francois has not been able to secure his. (Although Nadia and the Hendersons’ that were applied for theirs during the same time, was approved immediately). So all the time since then, Francois had to travel on temporary papers. Crossing the border this time, the immigration officer said that these documents expired, calling for Francois to return to the place of issue … alias the capital of the province where we work: about 1800km north of where he was!

He needed to either get the original document or the apply for another temporary document. Through a series of miracles he was able to fly that very day to this city and spent the whole next day at the immigration offices.

The bottom line is, after 9 months he still did not get his renewed work permit, but could only secure another temporary document that will expire after 3 months (end of March). If this document expire before he managed to get the work permit, Francois will lose his residence on the field and we will have to return to our passport country.

So, we want to call for serious prayer that he will be able to secure this work permit. Pray that whatever is preventing it, will be removed soon!

The world opens up for these Mwinika children as they see pictures and read about things they have never heard of before! Continue to pray for the literacy classes that Elin is teaching with a Mwinika helper.

This time of the year is steaming hot – more than 104F or 40C and more daily. Clouds building often, but no rain yet.

Mwinika children, sleeping.

A little Mwinika girl