PLEASE BE PRAYING

Greetings All,

I wanted to put a blogger together to allow focused prayer for our up coming trip. The team is made-up of Ricardo, Nelsen, Able, Carlos (a Nazarene pastor), and myself. This trip will be full. The schedule is as follows:

27/11 Depart Maputo
28/11 Arrive in Makuba, meet with leaders and people to be baptized
29/11 Baptism service for Makuba
29/11 Arrive in Ilhe district – meet with leaders from the area & people to be baptized
30/11 Baptism service in Lilope
01/12 Baptism service in Perey
01/12 Travel in the evening to Gurue
02/12 Depart for Sururua, visit members door-to-door, meeting with leaders, meeting with church
03/12 Attend service in Sururua then leave for Gurue
04-06/12 Vision casting for VCPM (village church planting multiplication) then pastoral training seminar for IEPV (our denomination in MZ)
07-09/12 Training seminars open to all denominations
10/12 Attend service in Gurue church then depart for Nampula Province
11-12/12 We will conduct survey work in collaboration with Carlos (the Nazarene pastor). He is originally from this area of MZ.
13/12 Depart for South
14/12 Arrive in Panda (Inhambane Province), meeting with local government to request property for our training center to be established in the coming months.
14 or 15/12 Prayerfully arrive in Maputo

For geographical reference Makuba, Ilhe District, Lilope, Perey, Gurue, and Sururua are all located in Upper-Zambezia Province.

Please be praying also for my wife and kids as I’m away.

In Christ,
Nathan

WORK TEAMS

We have had a great time with work teams in the past 4 weeks. A team from our home church, Salem Evangelical Church www.salemec.com, arrived first. During which our nephew and niece, Daniel and Amy, were here visiting. We were able to build new friendships and watch as God used their time here in making a difference for eternity.
The physical work that was accomplished was much. In their time here we were able to construct a church in Sao Damaso and work on a well in Tenga, the church that was constructed last year by the Salem Evangelical Team. It’s always such an encouragement to have a group from our church here with us. During the time they were here we celebrated Emily’s 9th birthday. She was so happy to have so many people here to help her celebrate, especially her cousins. At the end of their time with us, each person on the team was asked how this trip changed their lives and it was amazing to here the testimonies of each person. Some of them know they are called to be missionaries and are working towards that call in their lives. We are excited to see how the Lord leads them. When the Salem team left so did our nephew Daniel. As it was hard to say goodbye, we still had, our niece, Amy here so that made it easier. We are so thankful for the time we were able to spend with him.

The second team we had was from Valley View Evangelical Church www.valley-view.org. Steve Straus, the pastor at Valley View, led this team. We worked with Steve at our home church before coming to Mozambique, so it was nice to have our friend here with us. We got a literal wake up call the night before we were expecting the team to arrive. At about 9:30/10:00pm Nate was in bed and I was getting ready for bed when we heard someone outside yelling someones name, when I looked out the window I saw Steve and his team standing outside our gate with all their luggage. I guess the airlines in Jo-burg told them they wanted to send them that night instead of the next day. We know the Lord was watching over them because even we wouldn’t try to get a ride from the airport and we speak the language. During their time here we worked in many different ministry areas. We helped with the work at the seminary, worked on the well in Tenga, and worked on the kitchen in Khongolote. On the day they left they went around and talked about their time here and the way the Lord spoke to them. We enjoy hearing how people are affected by their time here because it helps us see Mozambique in a new way. As we said goodbye to this team we also had to say goodbye to our niece who had been here for 9 weeks. It was an extremely hard goodbye but we wouldn’t trade that time with her for anything.