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!