A Very Busy & Fun Month!

Sorry for the delay in posting our blog! It’s a good thing February has 29 days, giving us an extra day to get a post done for February! It has been an extremely busy month for us. One of our supervisors had offered to help us out and drive our bags down to Johannesburg. This was to help us save hundreds of dollars in shipping or in overweight/excess baggage on any airline. So in one week we had to pack almost all of our stuff to send with him. It is always a very crazy ordeal to pack and move overseas. It definitely involves some strategy and creativity! He took 6 of our bags down to Johannesburg by car so…now we will only have 2 bags to check when we leave Nampula. It was such a blessing to have him do this for us! We are so grateful! From Joburg we will grab all of our stuff and make our way home with everything but the kitchen sink!


Despite the craziness in packing we have had a really fun time, especially with our kiddos out at the orphanage. Our church from Utah had graciously donated mattresses so that each child could sleep comfortably in their beds. The kids were so surprised and so excited to get these mattresses. It was incredibly fun to here all of their giggles and watch them take their mattresses to their room to try them out! Thanks again Holladay Baptist Church! Another really fun activity we had with our kiddos…an ICE CREAM PARTY!
Nothing could get better than this! We had lots of different flavors so that they could try all of them! It was really fun to see them enjoy a huge plate of ice cream! The room was filled with silence and smiles as each child was very focused on experiencing the new flavors! It was great! Thanks Momo and Popo for throwing this party for them! They loved it so much! Also, thanks Joey for having a birthday so we could have an excuse to eat this much icecream!

We have less than 3 weeks left until we leave Mozambique! It’s crazy! We can’t believe that our time here is just about finished. It has gone by so fast (slow at times, but mostly fast)! We are really excited to come home and see all of our family and friends! However, we are definitely going to have some difficult good-byes in the coming days. God has blessed us with some great friendships and we are not looking forward to these good-byes in a few weeks. It makes us cry when we think about it, so we are in a state of denial when it comes to these goodbyes!


Thank you for your prayers for our friends Joey and Lindsay! They made it here and returned safely to Port Elizabeth. We had a wonderful time with them! They were such an incredible blessing to us and they helped us out tremendously! While they were here we taught them the True Love Waits Program. They will be taking this program back to South Africa and sharing it with the youth in schools and church groups. So, they studied it throughout the week and then had their first opportunity to teach the True Love Waits material in a church out in the bush. We drove about an hour out of Nampula to a bush town called Netia . It was a great experience for everyone involved. Joey and Lindsay did a great job teaching and the people loved learning from them. In fact the church rewarded them with their very own pigeons to take home to eat! There were about 100 people who came to participate in the program…. some walking as far as 30 kilometers, just to hear God’s plan for their lives. This is always humbling to hear of how far people will walk to hear the Word of God. We take God’s Word for granted way to often.

This was probably the first time for most of the people to hear about God’s plan for sex within a marriage covenant. Sex is such a huge part of this culture and to wait until you’re married to have sex is almost unheard of. In Mozambique, both boys and girls start having sex at a disturbingly early age of 7 and have had several partners before they get married. We believe this rally gave them a lot to think about along with many challenges regarding their sexual behavior and their relationship with God.

While Joey and Lindsay were here with us, they had the opportunity to bond with our wonderful kids at the oprhanage and they helped us with a project that took a lot of hard work (which was rewarded with lots of ice cream.) In our down time we did a project with the orphanage compiling every orphan’s story and putting it into writing. The stories were composed of how they became a Christian, how their life was before the orphanage, how it is now, and the difference Christ is making in their life now. It was so amazing to hear the stories of each child (there are 52 kids). All we ever see are the smiles on their faces, but almost all of the children have a heart-wrenching story. We are so grateful to the Lord for giving us the grace and privilege to accomplish this project.Through these biographies, we would like to raise awareness for these orphans when we go home. The director of the orphanage’s vision is “to raise godly leaders for Mozambique for the glory of God;” we want to join him in this God-given vision and create a prayer network for these kiddos. We made prayer cards for each child so that people and churches can “adopt” them by praying and/or supporting them financially. We are so excited and can’t wait to see how God uses this to show His love and faithfulness to these orphans. Thank you so much Joey and Lindsay for coming and for all of your hard work! It was such a blessing for us to have you here! We love you guys and we had so much fun with you!

So we are wrapping things up here in Nampula. We are continuing to teach the discipleship program to the TLW team each week. We have also started to teach the TLW material specifically to a few who have stepped into leadership roles. These leaders are going to teach the program to other churches, schools, and communities. Please pray for this team (Choveque, Daniel, and Augosio) as they venture out in faith to teach their fellow youth God’s plan for sex and marriage. We are really excited for them to be leaders! Through the last couple of months we have seen their desire to follow God in all areas of their lives. It has been so encouraging!

Our prayer requests for next couple of weeks: 1) Our TLW team to be motivated and purposeful to reach their country for Christ, 2) Protection over them so that they will not become easily discouraged by our departure. They can do all things with Christ…not with Corey and Jenni! 3) Guidance as we prepare to return to the States. So many logistical details that are still unknown to us (car, house, $$$) 4) Guidance for our final 3 weeks here in Nampula 5) Our very sad goodbyes to our orphans, friends, and brothers & sisters in Christ.

Thank you for all of your prayers in these last 2 years. We have been so encouraged by them! See you all soon!!