NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

What a huge blessing is the quad bike we received from George Bergsig (one of our supporting churches)! For the first time since we arrived here in 2005, Nadia is able to visit Mwinika friends far and wide despite her physical limitations. She is even able to give the sick and old lifts! The bike is perfect since it manages the small footpaths where no vehicle can go very well. Thank you Lord!

On this photo: Nadia, MayeApete (her cane ) and our Jack Russel. Believe me, we make quite a site here in our village! Whenever people ask (and they do!) we are able to witness how fellow believers bought it so that Nadia can visit her friends daily.

It still amazes us how a small scrape can turn into something huge (literally) here in the bush! Francois got a nick on his thump while working to fix our vehicle… before he knew it, it was infected and he had pain all the way up his arm. We are treating the wound now with antibiotics and keeps it wrapped up. Slowly it is getting better.

Remember to pray for our health!

This month old baby’s mother developed sever mastitis and by the time she arrived here on Sunday afternoon, she started to show the first signs of malnutrition. Her mom was trying to feed her a weak solution of water and cassava root (dried and pounded to a flour). Some cassava has small amount of arsenic acid and, as could be expected it caused the baby much discomfort. Because of a donation last year for a baby who had Aids, we still had some baby formula and could help this mother and her baby. However, there are thousands of babies on this continent – even just on this peninsula – who does not have help nearby and who dies before they are a year old.

The average age for women (2000 stats) is 37 years old.

This country has some of the highest infant mortality rates.

Their needs are so much! However, more than anything else, they need Jesus. Pray that they will meet Him – soon.

The rest of the first half of the 2000 or so km back home went pretty much without any incident. We are still amazed about the progress and growth in this country – especially in the South. As we drove further north, things become more and more rural and toilet facilities for example deteriorated with each day. Still, this is a beautiful country and driving up the coast always provide some awesome scenery! [cid:image001.jpg@01CD2188.BEAFBEF0] [cid:image002.jpg@01CD2188.BEAFBEF0] All went well, until we were close to the Zambezi river on our 3rd day on the road… Shortly after passing a very busy north-south, east-west crossing, our friends had a flat tire. It was a weird break on the side of a brand new tire and at that time we were still driving (mostly) on (mostly) good paved roads. Francois changed the tire and while he was busy, a man passed our vehicles talking on the phone. Francois caught part of the conversation… “no, let’s leave it. There are two vehicles now”… We then realized that the tire was probably slashed by someone while our friends were waiting at a filling station a little way back. (A common “practise” in a neighbouring country, but not in Mozambique). At that time, we made a quick detour to buy something in town and our friends were waiting on their own. The perpetrators must have thought that they are a soft target – an elderly couple in a SA registered vehicle, obviously packed to the brim. However, we came away from this incident with “only” a tire less.

Again, the Lord protected us from possible disaster! Thank you Lord! [cid:image003.jpg@01CD2188.BEAFBEF0]

The rest of the 3rd day’s travel back home was less comfortable and very tiring. The road quickly deteriorated from then onwards. Those of you who know, will agree that one of the worst kinds of roads to travel on (especially with a trailer) is a paved (tar) road that got “holy”! Just as we would pick up speed, there would suddenly be pot holes, some huge, and usually clustered together, that we could only negotiated at crawling speed. Unfortunately, no matter how careful we drove, we often hid that first pot hole with a bang, before we would be able to slow down enough (near standstill) to get through the rest of the “obstacle course”. [cid:image001.jpg@01CD2188.E0649750] A road that we calculated to take us 2 hours, took 4 and as the sun set and it started to rain –bathing everything in a beautiful silvery light – visibility became limited, the kids tired and hungry after more than 12 hours on the road and the road – worse… It was then that I (Nadia, who was driving our vehicle at that stage with Francois in the vehicle with the trailer) started to feel a odd wobble every time we went through a pot hole… It felt like the wheel was loose! I prayed as Ida and I sang praise songs to keep the kids from thinking of being hungry, with my nose to the wind shield, wipers all the time whooshing, trying to see the next pot hole before it “got” us! [cid:image002.jpg@01CD2188.E0649750] It got so bad, that I could not hide the fact anymore that something was seriously wrong. With every pot hole it got worse and so we crawled along at near walking pace, hoping that the guys will quickly caught up with us. Franco prayed for “wings for the trailer” and our protection… Finally the guys caught up and Francois took over the driving of our vehicle. We crawled along until we arrived at our overnight stop.

Looking in under the vehicle Francois saw the most astounding thing: the steering knuckle arm attached to the left front wheel was hanging on with only one bolt left (of 4) and that one very loose at that! (Francois could unscrew it without any effort by hand). With some spare bolts at hand, Francois tried to fixed the problem the next morning. We continued with our trip.

It was our 5th day on the road (the first was only from 17h30 to 23h00) and we were very ready to get home and unpack! The worst part of the trip was ahead – road wise – since soon after Quelimane we hit a very damaged gravel road.

Three hours from home the steering knuckle arm attached to the wheel broke loose and Francois lost control of the vehicle. (Our friends were some distance behind us and praise the Lord, not in danger). The vehicle veered right, crossed the road and we started to tear into the bush heading straight for a tree. Francois was pulling the hand break (pushing the floor break would have rolled the car), but we were still moving fast. Then, we believe, the Lord intervened because we were braked by a rock hard ants nest, dragging the vehicle to a standstill and veering us left of the tree. We still drove into the tree, but only with the right front side of the car at a low speed. [cid:image001.jpg@01CD218A.FFED2EF0] None of us were harmed and we thank the Lord for intervening! Hitting that tree at the speed we were going could have caused serious injury or even death. We certainly would not have been able to drive away… Yes, that’s right! Again we saw the Lord’s awesome protection! [cid:image002.jpg@01CD218A.FFED2EF0] A truck full of men saw the accident and were there to help us even before the dust settled. They helped to dig the rocks out so that we could move the vehicle back onto the road. The car was limping with the steering arm dragging on the ground, but the engine was unharmed. [cid:image004.jpg@01CD2313.2987F860] [cid:image010.jpg@01CD2313.2987F860] A little ways outside Quelimane, we stopped to tow a truck to start it again after they asked for help next to the road. Francois last word were: “We motorists are in this together! We help each other…” When they heard about the accident (through this truck full of men that continued on its way), they came to help us – mechanic and all! This guy new exactly what to do and right there, next to the dusty road, the vehicle was fixed so that we could continue on our trip! Imagine… [cid:image011.jpg@01CD2313.2987F860] In the mean time, by driving to a place where we could pick up a signal, we phoned Phil (our partner) and he came to get us. By the time he arrived, our car was able to drive again, but because Francois was still not sure how secure the car was, the kids, Ida and I left with Phil. Kobus and Francois (in the two vehicles) slowly followed and were at the Hendersons house by midnight (where we slept the night).

We saw the Lord providing for us in the most amazing ways, over and over again! Thank you for your prayers, we believe that it was answered!

[cid:image001.jpg@01CD2313.84A2E070] Finally, on Monday 16 April, we arrived at our home after spending the night at the Henderson’s house (thanks guys!!!). Elin continued to provide meals for us during the first days, as we and our friends from Parys tried to make a home of boxes and spider webs in our house again. The Hendersons were able to clean most rooms of the house before we arrived, but the two rooms in which we stored our stuff were locked… We looked at it this way: It could have been much worse! [cid:image003.jpg@01CD218B.F21B7970]Photo: Part of a wall in our school building collapsed during the February cyclone, but we only discovered this on our return since the cement “shell” on the outside is still standing! A week later, our house is starting to look livable again and we can start to tackle the offices and school building. Hopefully we will be settled soon and able to start back into the work here.

We have been receiving many visits between unpack and cleaning from our Mwinika friends and were even able to do some visits ourselves (thanks to the quad bike! ). It is great to see all the familiar faces again!!

We will soon write to tell you more about how the work here has progressed. Sufficient to say for now: there is a group of believers in April 2012, were there was still none a year ago… Praise Him!

We made a detour to the main town of our province to get Nadia’s yearly work permit renewed (that expires the end of April). Normally the process takes at least 2 days, but because of the delay that morning (trying to fix the car) we were not able to be there early morning and by now it was already Friday. Fridays means: leaving early and working slow, normally leaving any “hard” work for next week!

We arrived only an hour before the offices close that Friday afternoon and realized that it would take a miracle to just even get the process started! If we could not get the permit renewed that day, we had to either wait until the Monday or come back to this city within the next two weeks – a 5 -7 hour drive. We prayed and saw the Lord do another miracle: Nadia’s work permit was processed within an hour on a Friday afternoon! Wow!

Please pray for Francois’s permit. He is still struggling (after more than a year) to get his renewed. [cid:image001.jpg@01CD2189.2B1D5070]Photo: having a meal with our team mates at a Chinese restaurant (waiting more than an hour for our food is standard!)

We crossed the border into Mozambique sometime around 20h00 the Tuesday evening. We were fully packed… Two vehicles and a trailer that included groceries galore (compliments of the Parys and Clubview believers!! Thanks guys!), a dog, AudioBible players and a quad bike… All of above and more could have caused us much hassle and tax money. We however do not believe in smuggling (that figures, right! ) and Francois dutifully declared everything and its uncle at the border. After a quick chat about what is our personal belongings, “consumable” and what is for work, the official decided that we could go through. They checked the vehicles and trailer and within an hour we were done! Wow, praise the Lord!!

We arrived at a guest facility (for people doing what we are doing) late that night, very tired, but very relieved to have at least that part of the journey behind us.