“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!