An Unforgettable Year

This past Saturday May 26, marked the completion of one year of us being in Mozambique. It’s so crazy to think we have already been here for a year! It has gone by so quickly for us….the days just seem to run together. May 26th was also Corey’s 29th birthday! Can you believe he’s almost 30? Yeah neither can he. We had a fun day celebrating and eating American goodies. All Corey wanted was a Pepperoni Pizza and Betty Crocker fudge brownies! Our friend Choveque also gave him some homemade African cookies (biscottis).This Friday on June 1, Jenni will turn 26. She will be closer to 30 than to 20:). We will probably be spending her birthday at the beach! A big blessing for Corey this past week has been to watch the Utah JAZZ games at another missionary's house. Even though we can’t see the games live, we pretend that it is live and cheer them on regardless! It has been fun to stay connected in this way, as Corey really misses watching US sports.

We have less than 10 months left here in Mozambique (since our organization counts our 2 month training as part of our 2 years of service.) Our plan is to return to the States on March 21, 2008. In our first year here, we have experienced so much and we have been so blessed to see and experience what we have thus far. However, we have definitely been through some trying times as well. We have had to deal with a lot of disappointment, much more than we could have ever expected. However through these trials we still know by God’s Word that all things work together for good for those who love him (Romans 8:28) and that the work of the Lord is never in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58). Even though there has been a lot of disappointment and struggles, God has still blessed us in many ways which we could have never expected. He has given us some wonderful friendships which we believe will continue even when we return to the USA. He has blessed us with many “little things” that can make a big difference in the life of another person. He has allowed us to experience some things where we could see His mighty power (i.e. our near death experience on the airplane). We have grown spiritually and have learned to lean only on God and His Word. He has taught us things that can only be learned through hardships and so we are THANKFUL for this first year in Mozambique. To sum this up we have been living out Romans 5:3-5 “…we exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; perseverance, proven character, and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” It has been a time that we will never forget and a time when we can look back and see the faithfulness of God in our lives and see first hand that His hope doesn’t disappoint; instead this hope helps us to keep our eyes on Him and to continually grow to be more like Christ!

The past couple of Sundays we have been visiting different churches recruiting those who would be interested in being a part of our True Love Waits team. So far we have been getting a lot of interest, but we’re still a little unsure as to how many of those who showed interest will actually come to our meetings. We will start having meetings next month where we will do some discipleship studies so that we can all be grounded in the Word and exhibit a commitment to the program. After a few months of Bible studies, we hope to start teaching the team the True Love Waits program to them so they can start teaching it to their fellow church members. We are really excited about this!

This past week we were able to help out one of our night guards, Elicio, as he went through a very sad and difficult time. His wife had a miscarriage after being 7 months pregnant and had to have an emergency c-section to take out the dead baby. This was so sad to see because he had been praying that God would give him a baby girl for a long time (he has 2 boys). To see him go through this was very sad. After his wife stayed 2 nights in the hospital, we went to pick her up and take her home. It was sad to see her in so much pain. The roads here are not exactly smooth so as we hit every little bump/pothole (which there are a lot of here in Mozambique) it caused her much pain. When we finally got to their house, Jenni was able to teach them some medical things about how to care for someone who has just gone through this type of surgery. Although it was a sad time, it was neat to see God give Jenni an opportunity to care for her and teach Elicio the nursing things he needed to know to properly care for her. Although this was a sad time, we felt blessed to be able to help this family out in their time of need and to pray for them.

We love every opportunity that God gives us to love on the people here…especially at the orphanage. Corey is still teaching drum classes, while Jenni plays with the children. There are some new kiddos at the orphanage that are just adorable. They love to play and smile. They have all started to call Jenni “Mama Jenni” and if they aren’t careful we will make that come true! We want to take them all home with us! The orphanage has definitely been a little haven for us!

Prayer Requests: 1) For God to give us the grace to get a better grasp of the language as we prepare to teach True Love Waits Team. 2) For God to help us make the most of every opportunity that we have here. 3) For God to raise up leaders who will want to continue the TLW program when we return to the States. 4) For God to give us witnessing opportunities to a Muslim family we have become friends with.

Flying Solo

This past week the Lord had us in different countries experiencing different things and although we really missed each other, this past week was a blessing for us both. As we mentioned in our last blog update Jenni was required to attend a women’s meeting in Nairobi, Kenya for encouragement and refreshment in the Lord (what about us guys…don’t we need encouraging and refreshment?…oh well maybe some other time). Thank you so much for your prayers on her behalf! Although it was a fearful time, God was faithful and got her through it! She had good flights both ways and arrived back in Nampula safely. She actually happened to be at the airport as anxious families were waiting on news of the airplane that had crashed in Cameroon. It was very sad there as you can imagine. Here is a picture of the first snow that we’ve seen in Africa! From the plane, Jenni saw the famous Mount Kilimanjaro.
Also, thank you for your prayers that she would be encouraged! It was so encouraging for her to be with other believers who share some of the same struggles and to hear the word of God preached to her! The conference was focused on being content in the Lord even when things don’t go the way you expect or want them to go. This was something we needed to hear as things here certainly haven’t gone the way we thought they would. Regardless of our circumstances, we should find joy in the God of our salvation who is still worthy of all praise! The key verses in the conference were Philippians 4:11-13. It was a wonderful conference!

Back on the home front, Corey was as bored as ever as he was missing his wife! He kept busy though by catching up on the exciting administrative things that we have to do every month for our mission. In the midst of these things, God gave him an awesome opportunity….He got to help our friend Choveque rush his wife Fatima to the hospital to have a baby! One night Corey received a text message from Choveque saying his wife was in a lot of pain and they needed transportation to the hospital. So Corey quickly drove out to his neighborhood and found his wife lying in the middle of the road in great pain. He rushed them to the hospital and upon arrival the nurse said Fatima was ready to have the baby. Rather than sticking around to see the delivery of his baby and comfort his wife, (you know the things I thought dads do everywhere in the world) Choveque said that he was ready to go home along with his mother-in-law who was with them. It was so strange, but it is such the norm here. Men couldn’t enter the room even if they wanted to. The women don’t have their own rooms and there is no privacy among the other women…not even a curtain. It’s actually kind of sad because the women have to birth their children alone. As you can imagine, it was quite the cultural experience as Corey was able to see the Mozambican traditions in birthing children.

With all that said, everybody went home to sleep and early the next morning Corey returned to the hospital to see the new baby. He found out that Fatima delivered within the hour that he dropped her off at the hospital. After only 12 hours in the hospital, they let Fatima go home with the baby. Corey drove them home and spent time with the family. It was a lot of fun to see Choveque’s other 2 children (Janifa and Todo) welcome their new baby brother. Choveque is our best Mozambican friend so it was a great blessing for Corey to share in this special time of their lives. Here is a picture of Choveque & Fatima from a couple of months ago...we will post pictures of the baby soon.

In other news, we had another meeting with our True Love Waits team where we feel like some progress was finally made. Our supervisor was able to see the difficulties we have been encountering and concluded that if we continue to work with our current team we would remain at a standstill in this ministry. So…we are moving forward and starting fresh! This is both scary and exciting for us. It’s scary because we don’t have a whole lot of time to get the program on track before we leave. However, it’s exciting because we can bring together a group of people that hopefully will just have a passion to reach Nampula for Christ through this program. We are excited to see how this will turn out. At the women’s meeting, Jenni was able to meet other girls that serve in various African countries doing the TLW program. It was great to explore new ideas for a fresh start for our new Nampula team. We are excited to see what God is going to do with this ministry!

1) Please pray for God to raise up strong leaders who will want to take charge of the True Love Waits program and see it thrive for God’s glory as their only motive. Pray that He would bring these leaders to us soon. 2) Please pray for our language to continue to improve as we will have the task of teaching biblical truths to our TLW team. 3) Pray for people from Holladay Baptist Church to be led by God to minister in Mozambique this fall. Pray for the planning and preparation of this mission trip as it is already under way!