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!!!