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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
