The clock must be wrong …

The date on my computer is wrong, and has been for quite a while now. It keeps telling me that it’s already July, but that’s impossible – it’s only a few weeks since we returned to Mozambique, and that was in January. So, at worst it must be March by now. Mind you, an awful lot seems to have happened in those few weeks. I have this nagging intuition that the computer might be right, and somehow six months of my life has flown passed unnoticed. Of course, we all know how unreliable intuition can be.

Famine relief is a surprisingly complicated task

The simple fact of us being able to return to Mozambique is a minor proof of the existence of God.

After ten months of support raising, we had only half of the support we needed. The probability of raising the remainder within the allotted time seemed vanishingly small. But our God is the God of the improbable. He used the generosity of many individuals within our home church (Figtree Anglican Church) and of the church corporately, to provide everything we needed within three weeks! So, instead of another round of support raising, we were able to return to Mozambique as planned at the beginning of January.

We returned to a place of need. Cuamba had had its worst harvest in twenty years, and people were hungry. Every day, people would arrive at our gates, often with a desperate air about them, and we would help them as we were able.

We also distributed grains into three needy areas, which gave us first hand experience of the complexities of famine relief. In order to avoid riots, lists of needy people were drawn up before the maize arrived. How those lists are created is part of the complexity -- who decides which names appear on the list? What do you do when you see people in obvious need who are not on the list, while all the local chiefs, the chief of police and the administrator have all been classed as "needy"? What should I do when I see that a local pastor, his wife, his mother and his school-aged son each appear as separate people on the list? What do you do when there are three sacks of maize left, and fifty ill-tempered people who haven't received anything?

In one place, people hissed and shook their fists at us as we drove away. In another, they cheered and made speeches thanking us. Yet, they were only 100km apart: same language, same tribe, completely different spirit. Life is inherently complex. Distrust neat sound-bites. [Compare journal 31 January with journal 7 February]

One of our churches in happier, more unified times

Nothing stays the same. When we returned to Australia last year, I expected it to be different – and it was. But I hadn’t expected Cuamba to be different when we returned. But it was.

When we were here last time, we worked primarily with the Igreja Betania church. The plans we’d made for our ministry this term had been formed with this church in mind. We imagined that we’d return and continue from where we left off: good relationships, defined role, plans for the future. However, things are rarely simple.

This church split while we were in Australia. Our team leader Steven plus several influential leaders from other churches tried to bring the two sides together but without any success. Since returning, I have tried to work with both sides of the split, but it hasn’t worked out very well -- to be honest, they were some of my most spectacular failures :-)

Even after talking with several people on both sides, I don’t understand why the split happened. It was clear there was no gross sin involved, nor any deep theological issue at stake. At best, I’d say there was a personality conflict, but even that is me putting my own explanation onto things – no one has actually said that. When I asked why the split occurred, people gave me a description of the events that happened. When I asked about motives, they told about events. Maybe if I understood the culture better, knowing what happened would be enough to explain why it happened – but I don’t, so I’m still mystified.

After a month of praying, we decided that we had to withdraw from both halves of the church – at least for a time. We didn’t want to be seen to be giving approval to either side, especially when we still had no idea of the cause of the division. This of course radically changes the details of all the ministries we had planned. It also left us without a home church. But we’ve since become involved with a nearby Assemblies of God church, and we’re feeling more and more at home there. [Journal entry 3 May 2006]

Couples rarely look happy on their wedding day

Marriage is treated lightly here. Even within the church, marriage is simply moving in with a person and divorce is moving out again. Brothers and sisters often have the same mother but different fathers. This leads to neglect and abuse, when the current “father” is unhappy about supporting three or four children that are not his. Because of such situations, we’ve wanted to run courses about marriage, explaining God’s plan and helping people to honour marriage as a life-long commitment.

After several false starts, we finally ran our first marriage course in the town of Mandimba at the end of May. The course ran well, though not at all how we expected.

We had organised a very nice timetable: start at 10am, morning and afternoon tea breaks, finish at 5pm. When we arrived at the church at 11am (already an hour late), there was not one person there. The building was locked and completely deserted. We eventually started at 3pm, with five people. By the time we finished at 6pm, there were more than 40 people there, of whom 15 came forward at the end for repentance and prayer. The talks and studies were well received, and did seem to have some impact on people.

This was the first time that Nicola and I had gone out to do ministry together, and I must say, I liked the experience. It was nice being together with her, especially when everyone else was off elsewhere, or had reverted to talking in Makua or Chechewa.

We also had the nicest accommodation that I’ve ever had while out on assignment. One of the church members has a nice cement house with guest accommodation – plastered separate room, double bed, mosquito net! He runs a good quality bar/restaurant in town. He even served us huge tiger prawns for dinner on Saturday night -- good for Nicola, lousy for me :-)

Paul described himself as the worst of sinners. I think I'd describe myself as the worst of prayers. I have no trouble putting aside time to read and study the Bible, but my prayer time is the first casuality of time pressure. However, God recently convicted me that prayer is our only real weapon in the fight here, since our enemies are spiritual. Plus, when we pray, God acts. And He can do more in five seconds than I can do in five years. If we want our time here to show any fruit, we have to pray.

Praise God that He has:

• The hunger situation has improved immensely.
• Jenni Larter has agreed to be a home schooling helper for all of 2006, and that she is working out well in that role within our team.

Please pray for:

• A blessing over our ministries. Over the next few months, we will be teaching in the Bible college (Eschatology and Gospel of John), running more marriage courses, showing the Jesus film in other areas, visiting villages churches, preaching, running Bible study classes, and teaching our children.
• A blessing over our time. We always seem to have more things to do than time to do them. Pray that we will have wisdom and determination to use our time well, and that we will guard time to spend with God, each other and our children.
• A dedication to prayer.

With love,
Phillip, Nicola, Joshua, Drew and Isabella