THE WORLD AS WE SEE IT HERE!

Sorry it has taken us so long to blog. The last two weeks have been full with wonderful and exciting things.

First off Last saturday was Emilys 7th birthday in which she had been looking forward to and asking if we could decorate a week ahead. She had two amigos(friends) over and enjoyed her time with them. She even received some presents from family back in oregon. Along with phone calls all night long from Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunties, Uncles and cousins. Thanks to everyone that called. We all got a chance to talk and enjoyed it so much. Its always nice to hear a familiar voice filled with love.

Second we visited a village last week about 40 km from Maputo and it was beautiful. It seems so far from the big city, with grass reed huts and veggies growing all over. We are wanting to do a church plant out there. Juka, one of the ECC coordintors went and talked to a couple of people about starting a bible study, while Nate, Raul, Jorge and I talked to the little kids that were there. The village has only one church called Apostolic, part bible teaching and part tribal worship. As we left the village we were crossing a very small bridge and these 4 men were on the bridge. Juka asked Nate to stop so he could talk with them. Juka talked while Nate listened. The guys were very nice and receptive. Juka told him we would be back on Tuesday to talk about possible bible studies. Please pray for this city "TENGA" and the poeple there that they would be open to us coming and starting a church.

Thirdly Dinis, the man who is going to be going up north, is having his labola today. It is a sermony where the man goes to the womans house and they figure out a price for the bride to be that the man has to pay. This is new to Dinis since they do not do this up north. Each tribe is different. Nate is with them right now as they are working this out. It is an interesting process. After all that is taken care of they go have a big party celebrating the formalizing of their dating. Dinis will be leaving after seminary is finished at the end of November and will leave his girlfriend behind. Please pray for him as he gets ready to go up and share the gospel up north and as he is away from his girlfriend. His prayer request from yesterday was to be firm in the word of God and Gods protection & vision.

Finally the weather here has been crazy, with tons of wind, rain and lots of huge storms. The weather is still hot but we just added some more excitment. The girls are doing great as they just finished up the first 45 days. They both got great grades. Nate and I are filling our time with language study and ECC meetings. It has been good but a little tiring at times. Please pray that we get an adequate amount of sleep and that the language keeps coming.

We love you all and you are all on our minds frequently. The Lord has blessed us here and it is due to your prayers. We cant thank you enough.
Love Deanna

LIFE IN MOZAMBIQUE

We are going on our third month and so much has happened in this short time we have been here. Life is definitely different here and some days it wears us down, but the hunger for the Lord that the people here have makes us forget about all those things. But not a day goes by without excitement and laughter…. Our power has been going out frequently and usually during a time of eating or in the middle of cooking dinner. We went two days without showers during the 103 and 109-degree days, yes we stunk! I sent our empragada to the wrong house; the English, Portuguese thing gets a little confusing sometimes. Emily gave me a fat lip during prayer time. Nate and I watched a grub worm cross the street while little kids were yelling at it to go away(I have never seen such a huge worm). I saw a dung beetle take off and land on a huge pile of dung…. These are just a few of the funny and exciting things we have enjoyed here. It is a wonderfully exciting place where never a dull moment is found.

Just a little side note about how our ECC team is doing. All is going well with the material we have been working on. They are excited about what we are doing. Carlos, one of our ECC workers was reading his material one night by candle light and he was so tired that he fell asleep and his book caught on fire along with his chair. I don’t know if he thought we would be upset but we all just had a good laugh and we got him a new book. The way they are dedicated and how they take what we are doing so serious is exciting to see.

Please be praying for the ECC team and all the material we are going through that they will understand it and know how to use it to help others. Also pray for us that we stay healthy.

Thank you all so much for all you do and have done for us.
Love Deanna

ECC???

Greeting Family,

All is well in Mozambique! We have been very busy but God is good. I have had a few people ask what exactly do we do here. So I thought I should better explain what it is we are involved in. My official title is ECC Director. ECC (Every Community for Christ) is responsible for outreach, evangelism, and church planting. There is currently a team of 10 people that we work with in ECC. On a weekly basis we have on average a prayer service, a couple bible studies and of course Sunday service at all of our ECC churches (currently 4). There are three other church’s started by OMS that are “established churches” not under ECC direction an longer.
We help train the ECC teams for discipleship of others in the churches. We meet together as a team 3 times a week each time with a different agenda, but all have to do with training and multiplying.
The large scale outreach events are held once a month. So far as you can see on our other bloggers we have shown the Jesus film and had a concert with time of preaching. These events are always fun and have always impact my life as well.
The evangelism is mainly door-to-door. We have material to give out to those that can read and spend time if allowed to share scripture with them and invite them to church. The teams evangelize in villages were we have churches.
This year we have the goal of 10 new churches and a goal of moving north. Please be praying for a meeting this Friday where these details will be discussed.