Our 40/40 Adventure

We are back! 40/40 is over and we have returned to Nampula. Thank you so much for all of your prayer support! We really appreciate it and we know God was faithful to answer them! 40/40 was an excellent experience for us and we are so grateful that God blessed us with the opportunity to go. It was definitely not what we expected, but it turned out to be so much better than our expectations. Bear with us as we try and summarize our 5 week journey!

Our journey began with us traveling from Nampula, Mozambique to Lusaka, Zambia. We stayed in Lusaka at a Baptist seminary dormitory for 13 days where we went out with our Zambian assistants (local pastors and members of the Baptist churches in Zambia) to “engage Africans”. This was a lot of fun as we were able to go out into the local communities and talk to them about several different aspects of their culture. We talked to them about health, medicine, missionaries, church, etc. This was very informative for us as we learned so much about how they live and how they think. It was also really neat for us because many of these encounters led to us being able to share the gospel with them. It was such a wonderful experience to share this Good News and other Bible stories side by side.

After only being there a couple of days, Jenni’s assistant became very ill and was hospitalized. Because he was ill on a weekend, there were no doctors to treat him. Jenni went to visit him and found him being treated for Malaria….but he did not have malaria. Her assistant had a severe stroke. Jenni felt so helpless. She tried so hard to convince the nurse there to reevaluate the patient’s diagnosis and treatment. Then she tried to have the family get him transferred, but that would go against “the culture” and cause further problems with relationships with the medical staff. A day later, Jenni’s assistant died. It was so sad. He left behind an 11 year old daughter. It really made us realize the desperate need for good medical care in this part of the world. We take it for granted in the US, that is for sure. So many people die here, because either they do not have access to a doctor, or they are completely misdiagnosed, or the physician doesn’t work on nights and weekends, or the people care more about what the medical staff would think of them if they got a second opinion than they do about their dying relative, or they simply cannot afford treatment. Whatever the reasons, the situations here break our hearts.

After 13 days in the city of Lusaka we headed out for bush camp for 13 days. We went to a rural town in eastern Zambia called Petauke, so we could experience the rural side of Africa. This was a lot of fun and a good experience as well for us. However, it was a big difference from life in the city to life in the villages. In our bush camp we faced some delightful challenges: we stayed in tents, pumped our own water at the well, used squatty potties, took some bucket baths, washed our clothes by hand, killed some gigantic spiders and scorpions, and listened to the “demon drums”, etc. It was kinda freaky. We were told that these drums were played loudly to worship the evil spirits. Every night we would hear drums and it always seemed like they were getting closer. We had to keep thinking that “greater is He who is in us than he that is in the world,” and pray that one day those same people could be drumming for Jesus and not evil spirits. Our time in the bush was definitely an unforgettable experience.


We didn’t really eat anything too bizarre during our time in Lusaka and the bush camp. We ate nshima every day, with a variety of other things. Nshima is an African staple and is eaten throughout most of Africa. It is a combination of ground corn meal and water and is eaten for nearly every meal, every day except breakfast. It isn’t terrible, but it isn’t exactly wonderful tasting either! There were some termites available in town, but thank goodness they were never offered to us so we didn’t have to partake. The strangest thing we ate was some capenta which are little dried fish with no meat (only bones, scales, and eyeballs!). It tasted like trout, only completely different. We ate these at the end of our time at 40/40 during our homestay. For our homestay, we stayed with a young Zambian couple and their 1 year old daughter (Here is a picture of Corey holding her.) They live in a district town. This was a lot of fun for us as we got to experience how an average Zambian family lives. Jenni learned how to make nshima amongst other African delicacies, while she also taught them how to make some American dishes. She was taught how to cook with only coals, one pan, and no cooking utensils. We realized that people can live so simple. We were humbled and felt guilty for thinking that we “need” so many things to live. This homestay taught us that we don’t need as much as we think that we do.

We did have a funny experience that is just too good not share. While we were at our homestay, we got to experience both bucket baths and squatty potties which in themselves are kind of funny. Anyway, one day as we were taking a bucket bath, Corey set his hat upon the ledge which separates the squatty potty from the bucket bath. Then he accidentally knocked the hat over onto the squatty potty side. He couldn’t see where it landed, but only hoped that it didn’t fall into the 3 meter deep feces hole. Thankfully it had not fallen in, but instead it landed perfectly on the hole which was still pretty disgusting! We gave it a good wash though and Corey continues to wear it and represent the first place Utah Jazz everywhere we go.

When we completed our 3 night homestay, we traveled to a resort for a few days to debrief our experiences. We were so happy to see steak and not nshima! After we finished with 40/40 we were blessed with the opportunity to visit Victoria Falls. If you’re ever in Zambia or Zimbabwe, we highly recommend visiting this magnificent piece of God’s creation. We will post some pictures and thoughts of this a little later. Also, we wanted to share with you all a note of praise and thanksgiving to God. While we were at 40/40 we found out that we will have some new supervisors, Eddie and Janice. This is a big answer to prayer as we have been without leadership for awhile. Eddie and Janice will be moving up to Nampula in February and we are so excited to have them as our new leaders. Now we are back on track planning medical clinics with a sports ministry. God is so amazing!

Here are some prayer requests: Please continue to pray for God’s leading and direction in our ministries. Please pray that God would help us to be disciplined in our walk with Him. Please pray for spiritual refreshment and safety as we travel to South Africa Dec27-Jan3 for a prayer retreat. Praise God that he was merciful to our stomachs during our time in Zambia. Other than a 2 day stomach flu, our stomachs did amazingly well.
God Bless You. We love and miss all of you so much and pray that you have a blessed Christmas!

Off to Zambia

We want to start this blog off by thanking our wonderful families and friends who have blessed us with many packages. We have realized how much we miss and take for granted the things that we can get so easily in the States. This past week we received several boxes of Lucky Charms (for Jenni) and packages of beef jerky (for Corey) and many other US things which we have enjoyed greatly. We also received the new Chris Tomlin CD which Jenni has worn out already. It is a great CD! We highly recommend it for everyone!

Lately, it has been SO HOT. We think we’re going to burn out our A/C in our room! It has been working overtime for us! It’s very humid here and the sun is so intense. We think we might eventually melt, especially since it is only going to get hotter.

Well, we’re wrapping up our language study this week and that’s kind of scary since we are far from communicating effectively. We had another funny experience with our language class this week. If you remember, we learned how a “castanha” can be a chestnut or donkey poop. This week we discovered a false cognate that we thought was pretty funny. The word we learned was “constipaçao”, which sounds like constipation. So we thought our language teacher was telling us he had constipation, but he really had a cold. Just a little difference!

We have had many interesting experiences here in Nampula. Last week, we had been asked to help a family in one of the churches that needed help with transporting a baby that had just died. A pastor had asked us if we could transport the baby from the city hospital to the family’s house (about 40 kilometers outside of the city). It was a lot different from what we’ve seen in the States. There was no casket, no ceremony, nothing like that. A family member of the baby’s mother just held the baby wrapped up in an African cloth (capalana) until we got to the mother’s house. We were able to witness another huge difference in the way people live here compared to America.

Next Monday we will be going to Zambia for a 5 week training. This training will teach us how to live AFRICAN STYLE. (ie, living in the bush, learning about African culture, how to go to the bathroom in a hole in the ground, how to wash our clothes by hand, etc.) We think that it will be good to actually live how Africans live and gain a heart for them and their way of life. After our training, we are going to visit Victoria Falls and take a much needed break! We are so excited about this! It is one place we definitely wanted to see while living here in Africa. Also, while we are there, we are going to jump from one of the highest bungee jumps in the world! It is about 100 meters and you jump from a bridge that looks over a river. It should be fun. OK… if you know Jenni…this would never happen unless we were the final 3 on the Amazing Race!

So you probably won’t hear from us for about 6 weeks or so. We wish we could have some access to family and friends, but we don’t. That is the way of life for Africans, so we will have to get used to that part as well.

Please Pray For : 1) Our stomachs while living in the bush. We are nervous about it because we have had some “stomach issues” for some time now, and we really don’t want to experience these issues in the bush! Also, the mosquitoes are really bad now that it is hot, so pray that we don’t get malaria! 2) Safety as we travel to and from Zambia. We return Dec. 11th 3) This week we will say goodbye to some missionaries for a little while as they go on furlough. Please pray that God would raise up new leaders for our team. 4) Please pray that we wouldn’t take too many steps back in Portuguese since we will not be immersed in it for 6 weeks. Pray God would protect our memories from losing to many words!

“The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” Job 1:21

In our last blog, we wrote about being able to work at an orphanage. We were so excited about this opportunity we felt God had given us. It just seemed like the perfect fit for us. However, we recently found out that we would not be able to work there as our primary ministry. This was very sad and disappointing for us, because we were really looking forward to working there. However, we will still be able to work there on our day off! We know God is still in control though and His plans cannot be thwarted. Whether or not we understand why He took this away from us, His name is still worthy to be praised and we are excited to see what He has for us!

Last week we were able to see Choveque’s (our house worker and friend) wife get baptized. It was our first time to see a baptism since we’ve been here. It was really cool because it was in a river and it made us feel like we were in Jesus’ time. There were hundreds of people who were there to either watch the baptisms or to be baptized. After every baptism, the people broke into a chorus in Makuwa. It was a great cultural experience for us.

We now have a couple of weeks left of Portuguese classes and needless to say, we are a little nervous about this. It is coming along…just not as fast as we would like. We do have a funny story to share about our language learning. Last week our teacher asked us if we had ever eaten a “castanha”. Neither of us had ever heard this word before and so we looked it up in the dictionary. The word had 2 different meanings. First, it was a type of nut, which is what he was talking about. The other meaning it had was donkey excrement! We had quite the laugh! We told him NO to both definitions! We now know to be very careful when someone offers us “castanhas” because someone could either be giving us chestnuts or donkey poop!

We have another story which is just too good not to share. We have recently been eyewitnesses to the eating of a grasshopper by a native Mozambican who happens to be our language teacher. We both agree that it is the most disgusting thing our eyes have ever witnessed. Last week Luis caught a grasshopper (not just any grasshopper, but a very large one) and said he would eat it. So…we threw it into some water to boil it and put a little bit of salt into it…and 10 minutes later…Bon Appetite! It was thoroughly disgusting!

Here are some prayer requests for this week: 1) Please pray for the meetings we will have this week with the pastors here. Pray that God would give us vision and direction for the ministries we are here to lead. 2) Pray for our last weeks of Portuguese. We need discipline in studying and divine intervention with memorizing 3) We will be leaving in 3 weeks for a training in Zambia that we are nervous to attend. We will give more information in our next blog about it, but please pray for our health and safe travel during the 5 weeks we will be away. 4) Pray for us as the heat of Mozambique has started to “zap” all of our energy!

Nothing is too hard for the LORD!!!!

God’s promises are as true today as when they were spoken and given to us in His Word, yet why do we fail to proclaim these promises and actually believe them? So often we find ourselves wavering in unbelief. Also, it is so hard sometimes for us to believe in God’s grace. We always think we have to earn it or do something in order to receive it. How is it possible that we are made right with God through the death of His Son? Oh how much higher are God’s ways and thoughts than ours. His love for us is amazing! With that said…we are very excited to share with you this post. We never thought this would be possible, because it just seemed too good to be true.

We were recently victims of unbelief yet God proved to us this past week that nothing is too hard for Him! As we came to Mozambique, many of you know that we have struggled with some of the ministries that awaited us. There had been some miscommunication about us working in an orphanage. We found out that we were not here to do nursing and sports evangelism, but facilitate some other ministries that were here. We thought we would be helping these ministries, but our primary focus would be at the orphanage. So we really struggled with this miscommunication, because we longed to use the gifts and skills that God has gifted us with to share with the people here. So as the months have gone by, we have waited on the Lord with anticipation. However we thought there would be no way for us to work at this orphanage as our primary ministry. By God’s grace, we found out this week that we would be able to work at the orphanage on a regular basis and not just in our spare time! Our focus will be to minister to these orphans on a daily basis! We are so excited about this and we are praising God for this incredible opportunity and for answering our prayers in this way! We believe that He worked a miracle for us! We were encouraged by this verse this past week and it really leaped off the page to us: Ephesians 3:20 “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is in work within us to him be the glory...” God made this happen in His power for His glory and we are so excited that He did!

We feel like it is such a perfect fit for us as we will both be able to use the gifts God has given to us! Jenni will be able to utilize her nursing skills, teach English, and share the love of Christ through her gifts of encouragement and mercy. Corey will be able to play sports with the orphans, teach them how to play the drums, and be a servant to the orphans in many other ways. Our hope is to build relationships through these avenues so that we can share the love of Christ with them and start Bible studies. We are looking forward to seeing how God will continue to work at this orphanage. We have already been able to work there a couple times and Corey has been teaching them some of the basics about drumming.(We tried posting pictures of this, but blogger would not allow us to post more than one.) This has been so much fun and such a blessing as Corey has really missed playing the drums. Jenni also had the opportunity to minister to one of the youth who had some health issues. Please pray with us about this exciting opportunity and that God would receive glory and that He would work out all the details that we are still unsure about.

Here are some prayer requests for this week: 1) Pray that God would work out the details of us working at the orphanage. Please pray for our leaders and the decisions that they need to make regarding our work there. Pray that God would protect us from worry as we wait on these decisions…we want to keep our eyes on Him and keep praising Him for this miracle! 2) Pray for God’s wisdom and direction with our other ministries that we are here to help. 3) Pray for patience in learning the language. We are almost to the end of our formal language learning and we are nervous to have only 4 weeks left. We have so much to learn in such little time!

Memorable experiences

This past week was very encouraging to us as God put us into complete awe of Him and His works! We had the chance to visit a Christian orphanage where we witnessed the hand of God. It was such a neat experience! God totally has His hand on this orphanage! The director told us many stories of how God has delivered these orphans from the power of Satan. It was so refreshing and encouraging to hear these incredible acts of God. He has blessed this orphanage with a leader (Victor) who is passionate about Christ. Victor wants to see these children know and love God with all of their hearts. It was also so wonderful to talk with him about the opportunities of being able to help there one day a week. It was such a “God thing” as he asked Corey about teaching the kids how to play the drums (they actually had an American style drum set there). Then (without him even knowing Corey is here to start a sports ministry), he asked if he could play sports with the kids as well. He also loved the idea of Jenni helping to be a nurse there and to care for the kids when they are sick. We are so excited to help out at this orphanage (even though it’s only once a week) and we know that God has blessed us with this opportunity! We look forward to sharing more about this in the future.

Recently, we had our first goat eating experience and to our surprise, it was really good! It didn’t “taste like chicken,” but it was a mix between beef and pork. Anyway, one of our night guards (Filipe) invited us to a party celebrating the dedication of their baby to the Lord. It was really cool because Filipe’s wife wasn’t able to bear a child, yet they fervently prayed that God would give them a child. God answered their prayer and gave them a beautiful baby girl, and they named her Precious Grace. After the baby dedication they had a party and this is where we ate the goat. We had a great time at the party and we were so humbled by their hospitality. His family spent over a month’s wages to provide food for us and the 20 or so people that attended. Even afterwards they asked us if we wanted to take home the leftovers. Filipe and his family truly have giving hearts! This is a apicture of the goat before we ate it. Filipe brought it to our house on the back of his bike. It made us laugh so hard! We still shake our heads in unbelief that people put live animals on the back of their bikes, on the handle bars…really any free space will be taken by something alive!

We also had a date night recently which was a lot of fun. We went to a nice restaurant and had a great time (This picture is of us outside of the restaurant). However, we have found out that there really isn’t much to do here in Nampula. You can’t really do dinner/movie here or dinner/bowling or anything like that. We can do dinner and then a movie on the laptop! We’ll take it though. We also have been playing a lot of games. We have found that we are both bad losers! We have really enjoyed all of the time that we get to spend together, and we feel so blessed to be together every day!

Here are some prayer requests for this week: 1) Grace to learn the language. It’s coming along slowly but surely. 2) God’s direction and clarity with the ministries He has placed us in. 3) Wisdom and discernment with our giving. Everyone has “a need” and a request for us to fill that need and we need God’s help to know who to give to and when! 4) We are revising some of the True Love Waits material and we will be meeting with the team next Wednesday to do this. Please pray that God would help us know what to revise so that we can minister more effectively to the school aged children here in Nampula!

“So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12

These past couple of weeks have been very sad and sobering for us, which has led us to write what we are going to write. On August 1, Corey found out that his friend, Chris Mitchell died. It’s hard to describe the feeling you have in your soul after hearing that someone you love has died. So many thoughts and feelings go through your heart after this happens. There is sorrow that hurts to your core, yet there is also a peace and comfort if that person is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Death is such a sobering reality. Whether we think about it or not, the truth is that we are all ordained to die. This is where the reality sets in: where will we spend our eternity? The purpose of this is not to scare people or to frighten people, but so that we might search our hearts and seek the face of God. Are we reconciled to God? (2 Corinthians 5:20) Are we storing up treasures on earth or are we storing them up in heaven? Are we living as if earth is our home? Are we loving people like we love ourselves? Are we making the most of every opportunity that God gives us? (Ephesians 5:15)

God has burdened our hearts to share with you and the people in Africa of his saving grace. We can know without a doubt where we will spend eternity! (1 John 5:13) Heaven is a wonderful thing to think about and yet God gives us a chance to have a little bit of heaven here on Earth. We can enter into His presence daily through prayer and by reading His Word, and we can be witnesses of His glory through the sunsets, beautiful mountains…everything declares the glory of God! (Psalm 19:1) We can live an abundant life and have freedom in God and no longer live for the things of this world. This abundant and free life can only come from Jesus! (John 10:10) Every person on this Earth is a sinner and has a desperate need for a Savior. Because we all have an appointment with death, we must truly search our hearts. The Bible says in Romans 3:10-12 “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 6:23 “for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.” Have you received this precious gift in Jesus? Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 10:8-10 “...the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” Ephesians 2:8 “For it is by grace that you are saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.” Romans 5:20 “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

These verses are good news (Gospel)! But, they are only good news to those who repent of their sins and trust only in Christ to save them from their sins. For those who do not repent and believe, they will experience the torment of hell for all of eternity. Hell is a very real place. (2 Peter 2:4-10, Revelation 21:8) The fact is that we all deserve hell. Praise the Lord that He loves us so much that He would be gracious and merciful to us by providing His one and only Son to die on the cross for our sins! May we live every day of our life seeing what the Lord has saved us from…our eternal separation from Him.

Our prayer is that any of our friends and family that have not seen their need for a Savior, they will do so now! Our time is short here on Earth and we never know when God will choose to take us, which is why there are warnings given throughout the Bible. “Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). These words in Hebrews chapters 3 & 4 are repeated 3 times: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…”

We will never be able to do enough, say enough, be “a good enough person”, or live forever in happiness in heaven without the saving grace of Jesus to wash us “white as snow.” (Isaiah 1:18) Our sins separate us from God (Isaiah 59:2), but when we receive the gift of His grace in our lives, we can live not only eternally with God, but every minute of everyday! This sweet fellowship (1 John 1:3) is something worth living for! In Jesus you always have a Redeemer, Provider, Friend, Father, Calmer of Storms, Great Physician, Healer, Sustainer, Peace Giver, the list could go on and on and on! Everyday you search for these things in the world and the world will never provide them… “Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.” (John 14:6) May Jesus be in all of our hearts and the only reason to live for now and for eternity!!!!

Our trip to Malawi

After 2,375 km (1500 miles) and a total of 31 hours of driving like we were on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland and 36 mosquito bites (32 on Jenni and 4 on Corey), we are back from Malawi! What a trip! We had a great time in Malawi, but we’re happy to finally be back “home”. Before we made it to the meeting at Lake Malawi, we got to stay at a Tea Estate. It was so wonderful! It was so beautiful and peaceful there. We had a relaxing time there just enjoying the tranquility of the place. Here are a couple of pictures of what it looked like there. It is not your typical Africa scenery!
After 2 days at the tea estates, we headed to the hotel where we would be attending our meeting. The hotel where we stayed was beautiful and we felt so blessed to be able to stay at such a nice hotel. We weren’t roughing it by any means. However, we didn’t really get to enjoy the scenery to much since we were in meetings all day, but it was still nice to stay there. Our meeting was about the persecuted church and it was very meaningful to us (while we were in Virginia we had the same training and this time it was even better). It was a good reminder of what our brothers and sisters in Christ go through around the world. We really loved hearing all the stories about how God is working all over the world. It reminded us of John 3:8 when Jesus compares the Holy Spirit to the wind and how you see its effects but you don’t know where it comes from or where it’s going. We don’t know why or when or even how God works sometimes, but we definitely can see the effects of His working in the world and in His Church. We were so blessed and encouraged to hear story after story about how God is working around the world and in places that seem hopeless. He is so much greater than we can ever imagine!

In the little free time that we had, we got to enjoy some kayaking on the lake. This was so much fun until someone told us about a story of how a hippo tipped over a boat while on a river that flowed from Lake Malawi. After this story, we watched something similar on National Geographic and let’s just say the rest of our kayaking time we were a little tense from thinking there were crocs or hippos under us! Here is a picture of us next to the kayaks.

Overall, we really enjoyed our trip. The end of our week was sad, as we said goodbye to some fellow Mozambican missionaries, Harvey and Jen. They went back home to the USA after serving here for 2 years in a city called Angoche. We were so blessed to spend some time with them while they were here and it was amazing to hear about how God worked in their lives and used them mightily. We miss and love you Harvey and Jen!

Thank you for your prayers while we were gone. God definitely was merciful to us as we drove! Thank you God! Anytime you go on a trip with these types of roads, it’s a miracle that your vehicle is still in one piece.(and us too!)

Here are some prayer requests for this week. Please pray for: 1) Protection against Malaria (since our chance of getting it is increased from all the bites we got in Malawi.) 2) Continued patience and endurance with the language. We realized we took some steps backwards by not using the language for 10 days. 3) Clarity for the ministries that await us!

Why did the chicken cross the road?

We have learned that chickens, people, and many other living things cross the road not only to get to the other side, but for a pure adrenaline rush! This adrenaline rush comes from running as fast as possible in a last minute decision to get to the other side. It is amazing that we haven’t hit anything! Besides avoiding chickens crossing the road, we are continuing to learn Portuguese every day. It seems like we will never be able to communicate effectively although it’s encouraging to look back a month ago and to see how much we have learned.

One thing we were able to do this past week was attend a 4th of July BBQ with the American missionary community in Nampula. It was so much fun! We got to eat some grilled pork chops that were amazing! Pork is very rare here. Tender, juicy, yummy meat is a very rare thing to come by. We also played volleyball. Basketball would have been better (except for those who would have experienced the Corey Crossover), but volleyball was still a lot of fun.

We also received our first package from the Krafts, which was an awesome blessing! It was so exciting to receive a package! We didn’t even have to pay duty on it and it was in one piece (normally they open the package to see the contents and charge you for it.) Thanks again Kraft Family!!

Another thing that was really cool this past week was that we learned a new song. Our house worker taught us a song in the Makhuwa language. This song is about searching the whole world over and discovering that there is no one like Jesus. We really love this song! Once we got the tune down we tried it out on the guitar and sounded out some chords. We hope to someday sing this song with the Makuwa people at the church we are attending (pictured here). We have been attending Nampula Baptist Church. We like it there and we think we will like it even more when we know what they are saying!!!!

This will be our last post for about a week and a half as we are heading to Malawi to attend an annual meeting with other team members. We are excited to be able to see another country, but the downside is a full 24 hours of driving on awful roads. It will be an adventure!

Here are some prayer requests for this week. Please pray for: 1) Traveling mercies on our trip to and from Malawi, 2) That we will retain everything that we learned so far in Portuguese and that this 10 day trip will not set us back in our learning, 3) Clarity for the ministries that God has called us to in Mozambique.

Fala Portugues?

“What do the Duncan’s do everyday?”is probably a question most of you ask, right? Well, we are in language 3 hours a day/5 days a week and the other hours are spent cooking meals or still unpacking our bags. We have now realized that learning a language isn’t as easy or fun as we hoped for! It takes soooo much patience and perseverance. We do try to make it as fun as possible by learning numbers with Monopoly money or labeling everything in our house! We have a personal tutor named Luis (he is 4 feet tall and very funny!). He has taken us out to the market to help us learn our fruits and veggies. So it isn’t too bad, but our brains hurt everyday as we are now trying to form real sentences. aka “The book is on the table”…we are really expanding our vocabulary!! However, this past weekend we were also able to sit in on a True Love Waits session. This took place at a local school and involved about 40 youth from different areas of the city. As the youth were asked about cultural practices regarding premarital sex, our hearts were broken with the sad response of “kids start having sex at age 10.” It was good for us to gain a Mozambiquan perspective as we are still forming ideas regarding the True Love Waits program. Our goal is for these children to commit first to a relationship with Jesus Christ and then a commitment to abstinence. Please pray for this ministry as we are taking it into the school system and that we will declare the truth of the gospel boldly at these meetings.

We were also able to go to the coast for some downtime. Here are some pictures of our little weekend getaway we had with the rest of our team. We went to the beach and had so much fun! Our days consisted of snorkeling, eating, and relaxing on the beach. The beaches are beautiful and the water is so clear. The star fishes are gigantic and colorful. It was amazing to see the many different creatures of the sea that the Lord has created! This is definitely a place we plan on visiting again! Also, whenever any of you come and visit, we will take you to this place.

Here are some more prayer requests we have for this week. 1)Pray for the meeting we will have with our True Love Waits team as many changes are needed in this established ministry 2)The hearts of the children we minister to…that God will change their hearts to seek Him through the True Love Waits program. 3) Minds that absorb Portuguese and good memories, 4) Patience and endurance as we study the language 5) Safety as we are now driving in absolute chaos, and 6) Protection against Malaria and all other water/food borne illnesses…we have experienced some pretty bad GI problems lately.

Our first bush experience

We have been here for almost a month and now we can say that we have had our first “bush” experience! A week ago we had the chance to go out with some of our colleagues to the “bush” to do Bible storying. Bible storying is an awesome tool to use in oral cultures (such as the Makhuwa) because most of them are illiterate and they learn best by listening. Jenni and the other missionaries took turns telling stories chronologically from the Bible. We had a translator who spoke English, Portuguese, and Makhuwa. She did an amazing job translating in 3 languages for 2 straight days! The village that we visited was in the middle of no-where. It took about 2 ½ hours to go 100km to get to the villiage because of the awful roads. The drive alone was exhausting! I guess we can’t complain since some of the ladies that were meeting us there had to walk 6 hours or more in their bare feet without food or water! It was really humbling to see how these people live. Most of them live in mud huts with straw roofs with no electricity or running water. However, they are equipped with the finest squatty potty’s in town (aka hole in the ground)!
We really enjoyed our time with them. Even though we don’t speak any of their language (Makhuwa), we were still able to bond with them. Corey played the African drum with some of the ladies and as he played they danced and sang songs. It was really cool. They kept trying to teach him how to play the African beat (which is VERY different than anything he did in America). The Makhuwa love to dance…so we both danced with them and made fools of ourselves! We were all laughing really hard! We learned through this experience a cultural difference…when they laugh at you, it means they like you. However, in the States when people laugh at you it is usually because they are making fun of you or you’ve said something funny. People here just laugh at random times and sometimes it makes you think you’ve done something but really they just like you and they are happy.

We were able to meet with the AIDS and True Love Waits teams, which are made up of native Mozambicans. It was good to be introduced to them and we look forward to working with them once we get the language down! We will actually get to observe a True Love Waits rally this Saturday as they are hosting one at a local school here in the city. We are very excited for this! Also, last week we were able to meet some of the orphans we will be working with. Most of these orphans have lost their parents due to AIDS. We hope to form close relationships with all of them!

Here are some prayer requests that we have for this week: Please pray for 1) Minds that absorb Portuguese and good memories, 2) Patience and endurance as we study the language and adapt to a new culture, 3) Discipline in every area of our lives, 4) Safety as we are still learning to drive in absolute chaos, and 5) Attitudes that reflect Christ daily.

A Very Sad Day

Cheyenne Duncan 1/2006-6/12/06
Today was a very sad day in the Duncan household. Our precious puppy Cheyenne died after being hit by a truck tonight. For all of you dog lovers, you know how easy it is to love a dog and to make it part of your family. Even after only having her for a few weeks, we really loved her and she brought us great joy! She had such an awesome personality and was so fun to play with. The thought of not having her around anymore makes us very sad. We will miss our doggy very much. Please pray for us.


Here is a picture of our puppy playing with a ball. Thanks Karissa for buying her some balls! She loved to play with them!

Living in Nampula

Sorry for the delay in posting…we were not able to get an internet account until now!!! It is hard to know where to begin with this blog post, as we have experienced so many different feelings and emotions since arriving in Mozambique. It didn’t take long to experience some major culture shock. For those of you who have been out of the USA, you will know what we are talking about as driving just isn’t the same as it is back home. Driving is a near death experience every time you get into a vehicle. I think we could go on 60 Minutes or Dateline and tell them of how we “saw the light” every time our driver went into oncoming traffic to pass the car in front of us because they were supposedly going too slow. We use the word slow very loosely here in Mozambique as we do many other words. Also there are thousands of people walking on the side of the road. This probably wouldn’t be so shocking except for the fact that they like to cross the road at random times, usually at the last possible second so they can get as close to being hit by a car without actually getting hit. It has been said that driving in Mozambique is like a video game! Joking aside, it is pretty scary! On our first day here, we witnessed the car in front of us hit a little girl head on. It was awful. Also, we never thought driving on the right side of the car and left side of the road in a manual truck could be so hard! We need your prayers as we learn how to drive in this chaos!!!!

Well we are finally here in Nampula, Mozambique! This is where we will be living for the next 2 years! So far it has been challenging getting used to so many new things. New language, culture, home, food, people, dog (we have a “watch dog” named Cheyenne, she’s really cute), climate, etc. God has been very faithful though in helping us with our culture shock each day! We are very blessed to have such a wonderful team of missionaries that has shown us so much love! We had such a warm welcome from all of them. Many drove hours to spend a week with us to show us around and orient us to this foreign land that has become familiar to them. For Jenni’s birthday (June 1st) the team gave her a party with cake, ice-cream, cookies, and homemade pizza. We spent the evening celebrating by eating and playing card games. They went all out to make it very special. They even gave gifts (an African skirt, basket and some candles…there are some really funky smells here!!!) They truly made us feel so welcomed and loved. So far our team has taken us around the city to get familiar with everything. As you can imagine everything is VERY different than home. We are very overwhelmed with all of the new things we have to take in. Our brains are suffering from information overload.

We are excited to start learning Portuguese. We began our language study this past week with one of the native Mozambicans. So far it has been challenging since he doesn’t speak English. Eventually this will work to our advantage as we will be forced to speak the language and not use English as a crutch. We will be in language study for about 4 months and then hopefully by then we will be able to communicate effectively with the people here. Please pray for patience and for our brains to absorb this quickly!

Besides the driving, eating has been kind of a challenge. We haven’t really eaten anything strange (yet) but what we do eat has to be made from scratch. This is hard because it takes a couple of hours just to prepare a meal. Also, if we want to have salad or vegetables we have to soak them in bleach water for 20 minutes before we eat it, and then rinse with special filter water. There is the option of going out to eat, but that takes just as long because there is no such thing as fast food in Mozambique. One thing we found interesting about the food here (when we eat out) is how they serve french fries with everything. No matter what you order, if it’s steak, shrimp, or chicken, you will get some fries on the side.

As we said before, we do have a dog whose name is Cheyenne.

She is supposed to deter people from breaking in, but if that ever happens, I doubt the intruders will haveany trouble with our dog. The only thing she might do is pee on them. Every time she gets excited, urine flows from her like a river. She is really cute and we are really enjoying having a puppy and loving on her and playing with her.

Even though it has been crazy thus far, we are excited to be in Mozambique. We are looking forward to actually working with the people and ministering God’s grace to them. Some other things to pray for right now would be: 1) pray that we would have the same attitude as Christ Jesus as we adjust to the language and culture. 2) pray that God will glorify Himself through the AIDS/True Love Waits programs that we will work with after language school, 3) a vision and strategy for a sports ministry and 4) previously mentioned patience in language and driving!!!

Most importantly….Pray that we would praise God and place our hope and trust in Him…and in Him alone! This is our prayer for all of you as well. Sorry about the lack of pictures. This 1 picture took about 1 1/2 hours to post. We will try to post some more later. We love you!!!

We are here!!

Hello from Mozambique AFRICA!!!
We have finally arrived after several days of exhausting travel!!! Right now we are in Southern Mozambique (Maputo) and we are being taken care of by some other missionaries...they said the next few days will be full of rest and relaxation and then a little orientation. As we arrived, we had a huge greeting from the missionary family at the airport. We made it through customs without having to pay any money. (thank you Lord!!) They like to charge foreigners for everything that they bring in, but the missionaries helped us with the language barrier and told them we were poor missionaries and the 8 gigantic bags that we had were for us to live in country for the next 2 years.
It was Corey's birthday yesterday...the big 28!!! We celebrated at a restaurant with the other missionaries...one lady even made him a homemade cake (all from scratch!) Then we took a 4 hour nap, woke up ate dinner and then back to bed for another 12 hours!!!! I think we are caught up now! This time change is a rough one! We are 8 hours ahead of Utah. We will be heading to Nampula on Tuesday morning. Thanks for you prayers. We are so grateful to the Lord for finally arriving safely in Mozambique! We will try and post pictures later.

The time has come

Yes it is true! We will be on a plane tomorrow heading to Mozambique! We are so excited to finally be leaving! Please keep us in your prayers as we will be traveling for about 36 hours from the time we leave SLC. We will try to update the blog as soon as possible once we arrive in Mozambique. Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support! We can’t wait to share with you what God is doing in Mozambique!

Last week of the MLC

This week is our last week at MLC! The time has gone by soooo fast! We feel like we just settled down here but now we are getting ready to pack up our bags and head back to the SLC. We have really enjoyed our time here and God has taught us so much! We can’t even imagine not going through this training prior to going to Mozambique. We feel much more prepared to go than we did before coming here. So now it’s on to the SLC and CA to say some PAINFUL goodbyes and then we are off to Mozambique.

This past week here was really neat. On one of the days we went as a group to Washington D. C. with the main purpose of sharing Christ there. This went really well as God provided us a couple of opportunities to share with people. The day started off with us going to the Mozambique embassy to drop off all of our visa stuff. (FYI, we should have them about a couple of days before we leave hopefully, so please still keep this in your prayers!!!) After we did this, we wanted to try out an African restaurant. We had no idea how to get there, but someone pointed us in direction. Well on the way to the restaurant we stumbled across a Krispy Kreme Donut store. “AHHH Krispy Kreme,” said Corey’s belly, so we decided to stop for a little treat.


The man at the counter noticed Corey’s UTAH UTES t-shirt (go UTES!!!) and immediately started conversing with him about basketball. After much small chat, the man asked a very profound leading question. “Isn’t this world so dark?” Jenni answered him, “Yeah it really is, and why do you think that is?” We spent the next 30 minutes sharing with Trenair about the darkness of this world/man and the need for LIGHT, that LIGHT being JESUS CHRIST! He was so receptive to the gospel and was excited about the Good News that we shared with him. We gave him a handout with more information on Jesus and Trenair asked that we pray for strength for him. We are very glad that God led us to talk to this man.

As we left Krispy Kreme, Jenni’s belly was screaming hunger and since we still couldn’t find the African place, we stopped in at an Indian Restaurant. (Ymmmm…Indian Food!) Since we were eating such a late lunch, the place was empty. The waiter (Edwin) that we had was from El Salvador and talked with us the entire time that we ate. As we were leaving, he followed us outside and started sharing about his Christian grandma in El Salvador. He said that he was raised to believe in God but couldn’t pursue that life right now, because that would mean he couldn’t do the things that he loves right now. He did however say that he would want God in his life later. This led into a long conversation outside of the restaurant. We got to share the gospel and the urgency to live for Christ today and not wait for tomorrow! Corey was able to relate to this man as they are the same age. He also shared about the difference that Jesus has made in his life and that he would never want to go back to the life that he had before Christ changed his heart. As were leaving, Edwin said that he was going to take a break and think about all that we had discussed and read the handouts that we had given him about HOPE and LIFE in Jesus.

In summary, we are humbled to be used in such ways by the Lord and are truly grateful that He led us to these 2 men (by using our cravings and hungry bellies!) This is just a taste of what God is doing here. Sharing the gospel side by side….Life could not be better!

For the next 2 weeks we need your prayers as we leave all of our family and friends…it is gonna be rough!!! Also, please keep Trenair and Edwin from D.C. in your prayers.

Here's a picture of us outside the National Archives in Washington D.C. where we were able to see the Constitution.

One month away!!!

We can’t believe we have been at the MLC for over a month now! The time has just flown by since we’ve been here. And in one month from today we will be on a plane heading towards Mozambique! It’s craziness! We’ve been praying, thinking, and talking about this for so long and it’s amazing to think we are only one month away from leaving!

The MLC has been going good. We are still busy as ever and it doesn’t look like it will be slowing down any time soon. Last week we had security training which was kind of stressful but really good to learn. We’ll have to tell you all (or y’all as some would say) about it sometime. We were also taught how to teach Bible stories chronologically. This was really cool because it requires us to memorize large chunks of Scripture. The reason we have been taught this technique is because some of the people we will be working with are illiterate. So this way they will be able to hear the stories of the Word and hopefully put them to memory. We’re really excited about this! Another thing we learned about this past week was the persecuted church. They told some incredible stories of how God is working around the world! They have encouraged us by showing us from the Bible how normal persecution is. In America, we are not accustomed to persecution to the extent of giving our lives for the gospel or living in fear of the government coming to put us in jail for our faith. It just seems like American Christianity is so different from what the rest of the world faces.



Hopefully, everyone had a good Easter! We had a good time on Easter even though we did miss our families. However, thanks to Jenni’s mom we were still able to do a little Easter egg hunt of our own in our tiny apartment. We also have enjoyed the abundance of yummy Easter candy! We were very much taken care of by friends and family! Thanks! Also we were able to attend a sunrise service here which was really cool. The director of orientation led us in the Word and it was a beautiful morning! We loved it, despite having to get up so early!
Jenni made sugar cookies for everyone here…she really missed her Kitchen Aid, but thank goodness her mom sent a small mixer in the mail. This helped to save some time and muscle. I guess this is one adjustment we are learning early to make since we can’t take our Kitchen Aid to Africa!! Our Easter dinner was not the traditional ham, but we did partake in a wonderful Mexican dinner consisting of tacos, rice, and beans!

Well, we only have 2 ½ weeks left and then we’ll be back in the SLC. Please continue to pray for us as we finish up. Pray for our Visa…we still do not have one. It is a very complicated process to get into the country. Pray that God would work out the details and that we would rest in Him and His perfect timing. Pray that we would walk closely with God and that we would be renewed continuously in our walk with Him. Pray that we would not neglect the disciplines of the Christian faith. Thanks for praying for us! We love you all!

Shot Day at MLC

A picture of my sweet wife after she's been given a shot.
Our arms hurt so bad. This was our 2nd day of shots with
one more to go. Our arms are bruised and they hurt! Jenni
only had to get 4 today and Corey had 5. Out of our whole
group, Corey has to get the most shots each shot day!

Jenni stickin it to me (aka giving me my shots)
Jenni is a nurse on the medical team here at the MLC
and helps give everyone their shots.

Corey and Jenni at the home of Thomas Jefferson.
(our 3rd president, just in case you didn't know)

The view outside our window. It is beautiful here!

Life from the SLC to the MLC

We know most of you thought this day would never come….but here it is! We have finally updated our blog!! We know it’s been way too long but we’re going to try to keep it up to date from now on.

So as you can imagine, a lot has happened since we went snowshoeing. Well… here’s a brief description of what has gone on in the last couple of months. We quit our jobs, tried to throw out a bunch of random crap that we had not even seen in a couple of years, packed our house and moved it to San Jorge (what I really mean is Victoria packed our house and we just helped her…Victoria you are a saint!), bought everything for Africa and packed it all away, spent time with our precious family and friends, sold a car( we will always love BIG BLUE), still trying to sell another, visited mi amore, Erin, and Brandy in Dallas where it rained/poured for 3 days straight, and now we’re here at the MLC. It has been a crazy couple of months!

We can’t believe we are actually here at the MLC. It seemed like a distant thought just a few months ago, but now we are here and have been here for about 2 weeks now and so far it has been an extremely busy 2 weeks. So you’re probably wondering what we are actually doing here and what we will be doing for the final 5 weeks of our stay. Well, first let us tell you about our setting. The MLC is located in a remote place in Virginia and it is beautiful!!! It’s a small campus amongst many trees with a small lake beside it. The picture we posted is of the view we have just outside our window in our room.

Now to what we have been doing since we’ve been here. Every morning begins at about 6:30am when we get up to dive into God’s Word and then off to class. Our classes start with a discussion of our assigned readings, which has been the book of Acts. It has been really refreshing to read through Acts because we haven’t read it a long time. We just finished chapter 6 where Stephen is preparing to be stoned(unbeknownst to Stephen). What amazes us in Acts is the boldness of the apostles. They are a great example of what it means to obey God instead of man and to seek His approval instead of man’s.

We have also been learning about discipling new believers and to use God’s Word to do it, not western culture. That is something that they have really emphasized because what we view as church here in the states is not what it is globally. It should be a place where believers gather to glorify God and edify each other, and a lot of the time that has nothing to do with big buildings, choirs, etc.

We have been in classes all day every day. And although it has been busy, it has been a really cool experience so far. One thing we have really enjoyed is hearing how everyone has traveled the same road as us. How they have quit jobs, sold houses, cars, etc. to serve God overseas. We have loved hearing of how God has called each person here. Also, every speaker/teacher has been on the mission field, so the presentations have been so wonderful. We love hearing the perspectives of everyone that has already gone before us!

Our favorite session so far has been on “Spiritual Warfare.” It was a 3 day intense session given by the president of the IMB. It really raised our awareness of the enemy and how he works to deceive us and give us such a self-centered attitude. We were challenged to deny ourselves in every way and to always put others first. We are so glad that this session was at the beginning of our training. We have already been under intense trials through all of our preparations in the last year, but God has been Sovereign and brought us through and will continue to do so. We feel prepared for the battles that lie ahead, as God refines us by fire!

Well that is just a tid-bit of what life is like @ MLC. It’s time to go to bed now…we have to get up early!! Thanks for reading our update and thanks for all of your prayers. We are so blessed to have all of you in our lives!

First time snowshoeing!

This is a picture of my beautiful wife and I snowshoeing for the first time. If you've never done it, we both highly recommend it. We had a blast. We did this while we were at our small group retreat in Idaho.

We're on the bandwagon!

So we did it. We finally jumped on the blog bandwagon. We felt left out when others would talk about them and we just felt something was missing in our lives. Just kidding. We just thought this would be a good idea to set up before we leave the stompin grounds of the SLC. Please be patient with us as we are working day and night to get this site up and running. Keep us in your prayers as we are anxiously awaiting the final word on Wednesday on where we are going.