Upper Zambezia

Leadership Training in Gurue.




Baptisms in for Gurue church.




Receiving their certificates of baptism.



Greeting Brothers,

I need to start of by saying “thank you” for your prayers. We could feel, and see them being answered as we moved through Mozambique. The travel up was very long, but uneventful. We arrived in Makuba for our first program. Makuba in a new church plant started about six months ago. We met with the leaders and had a time of prayer then talked until night when we showed the Jesus film. There were about 450 people that came to see the film and about 80 people that responded to receive Christ. Please be praying for those people. The next morning we had a church service and there were about 60 people in attendance. Ricardo (an ECC trainer, and church leader in Intaca) brought the message and more people responded.

After the service in Makuba, we traveled to the Ile district to a zone called, Parie. This is also a new church plant of about 4 months. We were greeted very warmly (as normal), with food and a large group of people. We had a time with the leaders of the church, and then prepared for the Jesus film. There might have been 350 people that saw that film that night. A group of about 50 responded and we had a short time with them before packing everything back up to travel to another village in the same district, the zone is called, Elope. This is a new church plant of about four months. Leaving the first village at nine at night then traveling through the mountains on trails that had not seen cars since the Portuguese were there, we will say the progress was slow. The last few km had never seen a vehicle, and the village was very exited to see a vehicle in their village. They had worked at cutting down small trees to make it possible to see the Jesus film in their village. After getting the equipment set up, we had a time of sharing, then moved right into the film. There might have been about 300 people there, and about 50 responded to accept Christ. We, from Maputo, are accustomed to warm or hot. Temperatures in the 60’s are freezing. So the team and I spent most of the time huddled around a fire while the film was being viewed. It was cold enough to see your breath.:) The next morning we had a church service. There were about 70 people in attendance. Juka brought the message. The joke for the trip was, hoyo, hoyo meu mundo makueros, meaning, welcome to my world brothers. They are accustomed to knowing the tribal languages that they minister in. While there they all had to work through interpreters and they had a little taste of my world. There are also huge cultural differences in this area that are very different then theirs from the south of MZ. So it was fun seeing them in some of these situation I find myself in on a regular basis. It was a great joke, and we had many laughs over it.

The following day we traveled to Gurue, and started right in with the search for property. The Lord provided the property the day before our departure, and I’ll attach some photos.
The training in Gurue was great. We had time with our own denomination and we also had training open to all churches. In the open training there were 42 church leaders or pastors that attended a three-day training seminar. Of the 42 people there was 9 denominations represented, everything from Zion (African Independent), catholic, Apostolic (African independent), and many evangelical.
The plan for a training center in Gurue was shared with this group and there were pastors that showed so much joy. One of the pastors, in tears, shared how this area need trained church leaders. He went on to say that, there are many churches with leaders with no training and lots of false doctrine. He and many in the room that night shared that they have been praying for years, and they felt this to be the answer to their prayers.
The Gurue and Sururua churches are doing very well. They are increasing in numbers and the church body is growing spiritually. There were another 6 people baptized the Sunday before we left to return to Maputo.
God is so good to us always. Of course there are many hard things that happened during this travel, but our God is bigger then them. Praise be to God!


In Christ,
Nathan Glancy
Director ECC – Mozambique

Church info (new):
Makuba:
This is a medium size city for MZ standards. The church is located in a “bairo”, a neighborhood with no evangelical presence. There are other evangelical churches in the city, but none on this end of town. The leaders say there are 31 members (not including kids). It was started less then six months ago through the Leadership training work in Gurue. Dinis (the Zambezia coordinator) has made trips to Makuba to do disciple ship training with the church, and the leaders have been attending the leadership training. Antonio, the leader of the church had heard about this training that was being offered in Gurue and wrote a letter that was delivered to Dinis requesting help. This story goes on and on, but I’ll stop here. The church leaders names are Antonio Nakwatiana Modera, and Bernardo.

Elope:
This church is located in a very small village in the district of Ile. There are no other evangelical churches here, and I asked some of the people if they had ever heard the name of Christ and they said, “NO”. It started about four months ago from the training in Gurue, and Dinis. The new leader of the church in this village kind of knew Antonia (from Makuba) and Antonio shared with him what was happening in his life. The body there had been working through the discipleship material and the Lord is changing their heart and minds. There are 31 members in this church also. The church leaders name is Rafael Whakosha Prego.

Parei:
This is the newest of the three new church plants in Upper Zambezia. Located deep in the mountains, the church body is a beautiful thing to witness. There was no evangelical presence in the area. The leader is a Novo Apostolica (Africa independent church) convert. He shared his testimony with the leadership group and there has been an incredible transformation in this mans life. The church is working through great discipleship material and the leaders are attending the leadership training in Gurue. The body is made up of 26 members. The leaders names are Raimundo Sliaca, and Adre.



Makuba church



Antonio, a leader at the Makuba church.



The Elope Church located in the Ile district.



Raimundo, the leader of the Elope church.



Adre, a leader at the Elope church.



Parei, church located in the Ile district.



Rafael, leader of the Parie church.



This is a cultural head covering I've seen every time we've have baptized in Upper Zambezia. At least one of the women, afterward, would wear a head cover, but all of the women change into white afterward.



This is the land that was purchased. The man in the front right is the owner that sold us the land. from back to front, and left to right the names are; Juka, Paito, Raul, Dinis, Richard.