Travelin' Sundays

The quiet buzz of my alarm gently wakes me. I quietly reach down and turn it off so I don’t wake up the sleeping beauty right next to me. The house is still dark, quiet and cool at 4am. I feel the lack of sleep start to creep up on me as my eyes threaten to close again. And then I remember: It’s a traveling Sunday!

Travel weekends are the adventures & fellowship I crave.  Once a month, we pack up the car with our breakfast & lunch, pick up our trusty local pastor-friend-mentor, Antonio, and we hit the road by 5 or 6. We watch the beautiful Mozambican sunrise and experience the city coming to life as the day begins.

The church singing 

The car travels over the wide crevices and potholes that make up the “road.” The shaky movements of the car and constant dodging of axel-breaking holes never hinders us from talking, laughing, and more often than not – singing.

We all tried our best to chat with our broken language skills

After a few hours in the car, I am SO ready to get to Namale. We love to hear the special songs they always sing, the clapping and dancing, meet the new babies born since our last visit, chat with the families who are having difficulties caring for their children, and, of course, meet the orphaned children in the community.

Village life is the best, seriously. At times I feel like I could give up the comforts of the “city” – bread, grocery stores, running water, electricity, etc. The people are simple. Life is simple.

Everyone works together, everyone eats together, and no one is left to suffer alone. Each church community we visit has a small farm where they grow beans, maize, various green vegetables, and often raise chickens & goats. This particular community has been working on raising pigs…but more on that later.

Phil encouraging the church 

We enter into the small mud church, singing, dancing, greeting the people who have become family. They ask Phil to share the message for the day, so Phil starts. He encourages the church to have faith, to be joyful always, no matter our circumstances. We discuss the local traditions of visiting the curandeiro (like a witch doctor) when they already know that their faith can change more than a mere man.

One man in the church shares courageously about his child, who was very sick. He took the child to the curandeiro and the child became worse. He prayed for God to heal his son and a few days later, he recovered. He encourages everyone in the church to pray first, and put the cultural norms aside.

After more singing and dancing, we pray and church is over. Jadon sees some of the youth catch a pig, and he runs to see what they are up to. After a few minutes, Jadon races back & reports the youth are killing the pig for us.

We eat roasted & boiled pig, along with the local type of xima (pronounced ‘cheema’). We eat until we are FULL. Even Josephine enjoys a little xima and a little pork.

Jadon organizes races with the kids while the adults play a few games, too. After we eat & play, we meet two different families with challenges. One family lost their father, and the mother is left alone with 8 children. The oldest child is 22, married, and helping with a few of the kids. 

We meet another child who has a mother, but she can’t walk and has no means of caring for her son. She has other children who are older who help her, but her youngest has some kind of learning disability and they have essentially left him to fend for himself. His name is Estonio. He is supposedly 8 or 9 years old, but looks like he could pass for 5 or 6.   

The last child we meet is a small girl with a distended belly hanging out of her shirt. They explain her name means “to suffer excessively.” They recount her story – she suffered from the time she was in her mother’s womb. She has passed through many times of famine, lack of water, and both her parents have died. She lives with her grandma, the mother of her mommy. Her grandma explains she can’t care for the girl – even food has become a challenge.

Phil & I consult each other and agree that both Estonio & Milenea need to be taken to the children’s home. We discuss all the parameters of what we do, how we do it, and how we work closely with the social action officers and follow all of Mozambique’s laws regarding caring for children in need. 

A new friend - she loves Jadon

We agree that the family with 8 children is coping for the most part, and may just need encouragement to continue. We agree to help with the small things – pencils, books and clothes for the kids in school – on our next visit.

As we pack up the car to start the journey back to Nampula, the community offers up fresh beans & cassava they’ve grown in their farm. The let us take the rest of the duck they cooked at lunch, too.

Estonio & Milenea enter into the car reluctantly, but as soon as Jadon sits down, they quickly copy everything he does.  After a few giggles, a squabble and more giggles, they seem to settle in quickly.

Phil coordinating the races

On the ride home, the kids all fall asleep. As we are an hour from home, Estonio begins to speak Macua and Antonio begins laughing. He explains that Estonio says the houses have fires inside when he sees the lights on. He’s never seen lights in a house, let alone at night. He begins to talk about all the strange things he sees – other cars, large trucks, sacks of cement, the speed of the cars, and the car itself. He keeps referring to me as the “ghost” in the car.

As we drop Antonio off, the children begin to understand they are alone in the hands of us – foreigners. They begin to worry a little bit, start talking quickly, and looking around nervously. But as we enter into the house and see the other kids in their PJs, playing with Legos, ready for bed, they quickly appear much calmer.

Jadon racing in his group

The first night in a strange place is always a restless night, even for me. We were prepared for both kids to not sleep or have a difficult time sleeping, but after weighing them, having a bath, and taking their de-worming medicine (we give one for the belly, another for the bladder) they settled right in. Or, so I thought.

After about 10 minutes, Estonio comes out of the boys’ room, crying. He doesn’t want to be in the dark, and later with the light on, he still didn’t want to sleep in the boys’ room. So, he falls asleep on the rug in the living room, on the floor with a sheet. He looks peaceful and quickly drifts off.  

The kids have now been here for 4 days, and each day is becoming easier and easier. Estonio has tried to run away a few times, but he always comes back. He usually gets out of the gate and realizes he doesn’t know where to go from there. Today he ran into the house of our neighbor and the neighbor put him over his shoulder & brought him back.

Milenea - 8 years old 

We’ve discovered that if we just let him wonder for a while outside, he does well. So he’s been playing in the sand, helping the guard plant some tomatoes & greens, raking the ground for the guard before he plants.

Milenea, on the other hand, blends right in. She is so content playing with the other kids, spending time with adults or our staff, and she loves to play on the carpet with JoJo. She wants to be helpful, but doesn’t like it when Estonio says mean things to her.

While the last few days have been a little rocky, I’m reminded that we all were once Estonio: afraid, angry, worried, annoyed, frustrated, trapped, cornered. I’m reminded each time he runs or throws himself on the floor or throws his dinner plate, he needs help. He needs consistency, he needs love, and he needs correction – boundaries.

We’ve all felt the things he is now feeling, but Estonio has a bright future. He’s never had instruction from an adult. He was treated like a street boy and he adapted to that way of life. He looked out for himself and didn’t have to listen to anyone.

Estonio - 7 years old

Considering all that each child has been through and seen, I’m proud of their progress in just a few days. With a few more days, and a few more weeks, they will adjust even more and begin learning Portuguese. They both speak hardly any Portuguese, but they are already trying to speak. They are listening to our broken Macua phrases and trying their best to understand us.

I’m thankful for this work and for the lives of these babes. They don’t need a white lady to swoop in and save them, but they need a loving home where they can feel safe & secure, and have all their needs met. We are not saviors and I pray we never have that complex.

This work is hard, wearing, and often painful. I pray that we remember we need our Savior more than anything at these times. Without him, this week would have been impossible. While we expect the behaviors we’ve seen, it’s a whole other ballgame to live it.

Pray for us, pray for Estonio & Milenea and for the other new kiddos coming - we're still waiting for at least 3 more in the next week or so. We’ve got our work cut out for us, but it’s all possible thanks to the One who is really in the driver’s seat.