Sunday, June 10, 2007

Putting Trash to Great Use!

Jenni is now 26 years old. We celebrated her birthday on the beach and it was really fun. We went to a tourist coastal town in Mozambique called Pemba (see pic) and we were able to kayak in the ocean and go swimming in a swimming pool while looking out at the beautiful ocean. Here’s a picture of Jenni enjoying the hotel’s buffet. The buffet was all you can eat and let’s just say that the hotel lost money on the Duncan’s!

Since we have been in Mozambique, we have seen how creative kids can be. Here are some examples: 1) The first picture is of a used milk carton truck. 2) The next picture is of kids flying kites…but these kites are actually made out of trash. 3) Most of the children that play soccer here make their soccer ball out of used grocery sacks. 4) Kids play checkers in the dirt with bottle caps. Who needs manufactured toys when you can just put trash to good use! We are always impressed to see the new inventions of the kids here.

We have been busy putting our material together for our new True Love Waits team. Our first meeting will be June 23rd. Please be praying for this day and also our Portuguese as we continue to learn a lot of new words every day. The vocabulary that is used in the TLW program is very extensive and includes medical, spiritual, and every day words. We look at the material seeing our weakness in the language and how little we actually know. We know that “His strength is made perfect in our weakness,” so we move forward knowing that it will have to be the Lord helping us to overcome this language barrier. We have been trying to sift through the material and identify all of the words that we don’t know and commit them to memory. As of right now, we have over 100 words that are totally unfamiliar to us, not to mention all the tenses that go with each word and conjugations that go with the verbs! We are also trying to memorize Bible stories in Portuguese for the discipleship part of the program. We are needing much patience through all of this, so please be praying for us!

We got some great news from our home church Holladay Baptist. We will be blessed with a volunteer team of 7 people!! Words cannot even express how excited we are to have them come. Please be in prayer for all of the planning details for our team and that the time they will have here will be a great blessing to the Mozambicans, them, and 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.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

look how long your hair is!! i've never seen it ever past your shoulders!! :) see you in a couple of months!
love you both! and i'll be praying for you two. xoxo!
-k2

Anonymous said...

Praying for ya'll this week! Great new about your folks from your church coming out!

Anonymous said...

i'm going to africa!! see you in 3 months and 5 days! yea! happy birthday jenni! your hair is 'supa' long! holy cow! i can't wait to see you two!...and lucky...so i guess 3..tee hee! :)
i love you!
k1

Anonymous said...

Corey,

I'm glad to see you are doing well out there! Hey, did you happen to see DA BEARS!!!! This season they will win the big one. Email me when you get back, I still live Las Vegas. nickr@performancesteel.com
God Bless
Nick Russell

Anonymous said...

Corey,

I'm glad to see you are doing well out there! Hey, did you happen to see DA BEARS!!!! This season they will win the big one. Email me when you get back, I still live in Las Vegas. nickr@performancesteel.com
God Bless
Nick Russell