5am?!

Waking up daily at 5am has serious benefits! For example, I get up, have some coffee, eat breakfast, and read a book or read my Bible or pray. By the time I'm finished with my morning routine, it's not even 6:30. But there are some disadvantages to our new routine. Like last night - I'm a night owl by nature but I couldn't keep my eyes open past 8pm. I was literally in bed and asleep before 8:30. I guess you could say we are adjusting well. We go to bed early and get up early. It's very different from life in the States, but we are putting the pieces of our new life together.

Jadon on his first day of school 

We have started all of the routine matters for our little family, including school for Jadon. Thankfully God knew our plans to move here and get started on this project, and we arrived just in time for the new school year to commence on Wednesday, Sept. 9th. Jadon will be attending Rapale Christian School, run by a fabulous team of Zimbabwean teachers. He has also been approved to enter 1st grade rather than kindergarten! It was not cheap to get him enrolled but God is providing and I'm thankful for my husband who harped on saving, saving, saving before we left the States. And, if we were paying for private school in the States we would probably be paying per month what we paid for a whole term. Due to us not having a vehicle yet, we have been able to pay for the "school bus" to take Jadon to and from school each day.

My nieces (Grace & Mary) & nephews
(Emmanuel & Gabriel) 

We are now searching for a car as well. We can get around fairly easily with local transports called Chappas, which are basically large vans with 80 people packed inside. Sometimes the sliding door hangs open because there are too many people to close the door! I'm going to go off on a quick tangent here - if you're like me and you have had your cute little Lexus with leather seats in the past (before totaling it, ehemm), the good Lord will humble you when riding Chappas and trying to get around here. It's fairly easy to get around but everything comes at a price. For example, I've held other people's kids, sat next to chickens and even had a goat strapped to the roof of one. And the roads are so bad, it feels like going four wheeling for the first 10 minutes of the 15 minute ride to town. All this to say that EVENTUALLY we will need a 4 wheel drive vehicle with some clearance from the ungodly pot holes that may or may not swallow a small truck.

Riding in the back of a chappa with about
 15 other people

We are still living with family and we are trying to make a plan for our next move. We have a friend we were going to be living with but she was very sick. She will be home soon so we will need to decide if we should move in with her or stay with our family. At least with family, we feel comfortable and know what we can do to be helpful in the house. We will likely stay with family until we are able to move into our own place, on our land. We will continue to pray about it and would appreciate your prayers, too!

We have already submitted our building plans to be made into accurate and official plans for construction, and we should see the first draft either today or tomorrow. Once we have the final draft, we will submit copies of our passports, a letter from the secretary where we purchased our land, and the building plans, and the rest will be God's hands. The government officials will be the ones to determine the cost of the leglaization, and the length of time before the governor signs off with his apprival. Some individuals have waited months for this process to be completed and others have waited years. Some have paid heavy, heavy fees and others have paid next to nothing. We are praying that God will see our efforts and He will multiply them by moving things along in His timing. We know we were prepared for this exact moment by the Lord, and we are trusting Him to bring us into the next phase. Please pray alongside us for God's hands to do what is needed.

Other than the basic adjustments, we are all doing extremely well. Jadon enjoys his cousins, loves all of his new aunties & uncles, and none of us have been sick yet. Thank you for taking the time to read this - we are humbled daily by your support and love. Please done forget us in your prayers!

With love from Moz ~ The Olaniyi's

Back in Moz...

Touching down on the tarmac with the orange sun hanging in the afternoon sky, I opened my eyes and felt excitement mixed with extreme fatigue. Jadon didn't sleep more than 1-2 hours on our longest flight, about 14 hours, and he slept only about an hour on our last flight of about 6 hours. We practically crawled off the plane, and I begged the hostess to help me get my carry on bags off the plane while I carried Jadon. Walking down the steps onto the tarmac, I felt like I was home.

We walked inside the airport and filled out customs forms. The first thing out of the gate keeper's mouth was "Tem Yellow Card?" Basically, he was asking to see our vaccination for Yellow Fever. We have never been to a country where yellow fever was a problem, so we never received the vaccinations. We somehow communicated in broken Portuguese and English, and he was trying gives us trouble because we landed for about an hour in Ethiopia. He finally let Jadon & I through, into the capital city, Maputo. We collected our bags and headed for the security scanning where we could finally get out. Philemon had flown to Maputo a day earlier than us, with a member from our board of directors so he was waiting for us at the gate. I have never been so glad to have a husband.

One of the ways I knew for sure that I was in Mozambique again was when we were trying to leave the airport. Phil had tipped the "officers" so he could enter the area where they were scanning our bags and getting us through customs. As soon as he showed his face, the problems started. Everyone knew immediately Phil is from Nigeria and they believe that he has come to Mozambique to take what he wants from their land. Phil explained why we are in Mozambique and no one wanted to hear it. Because we didn't pull out our money right away, they went through every single bag we brought, asking questions and asking why we brought so many clothes. People here are so skeptical of foreigners here and I can't say that I blame them. Foreigners have taken advantage of the Mozambicans for many, many years, and I believe it breeds this attitude of skepticism. And, unfortunately, everyone wants something from us when they see we are from the States. Bribery is nearly impossible to avoid here. I pray every day that when we give a bribe it's for something good.

We stayed one night in Maputo, with amazing friends we have known for many years. Our friends, the Manvicks, are truly family. Jadon calls their 3 children (David, Victoria, and Divine) his cousins. We enjoyed spending some time with them and they really helped us IMMENSELY. They have always been there for us when we can't get flights to Nampula or we have too many bags or we just need to rest. We had so many pounds of luggage this time that we would have been forced to pay nearly $400 just to get all of our bags to Nampula. But Mr. Manvick knows how to ship items by bus, so we shipped almost all of our bags for about $80.

After staying 2 days in Maputo, we flew to Nampula, and we were welcomed with open arms. We were supposed to move in with our friend, Mama Chade, but she was having an emergency surgery in the northern part of the country. We decided to stay with our family, Phil's cousins, until she comes home. Jadon has immediately inherited 4 siblings, 2 boys (Immanuel - age 11; Gabriel - 5) and 2 girls (Grace - 10; Mary - 8). We are settling in well, and we are so thankful for family!

On Monday, 8/31, we received all of our luggage 2 days after arriving in Nampula, and God really watched over our bags. We weren't missing even a single sock or pair of shoes. We started putting everything in it's place, shuffling things around in our room, and trying to make everything work.

We have also started meeting with the officials who have to write up the documents for the land we purchased, and the secretary over the community where our land is located, has been very fair and helpful to us. He has agreed that the community needs this project and we need to get started as soon as possible. We also gave our building plans to another official today, who has to make the plans into official documents, and then we can submit the paperwork for approval. Once the paperwork is submitted, we will wait. This is when I believe God will do His thing. He will get everything done in His time, and it feels that now may be that time.

Please continue to pray for us we move forward, and please don't forget that you can always give monthly! You can set up auto giving or one time gifts through Paypal on our website: heartfortheneedy.org. Thank you all for the support and love. We are so grateful!