Still Here and Smiling

I often walk around for a week saying to myself (often out loud) “I need to write a blog” but then when I sit at my computer I have no idea what to write! So here I sit on another beautiful day in Mozambique not quite sure what to tell my faithful readers. Let’s start with a story (or three)!

Just over a week ago I had the opportunity to lead a group of 18 people on an outreach into the bush bush. It was an intense outreach and yet God still showed up and we still got to experience his goodness. You must know as warning the stories that follow are not common and if you want to come to Africa do not let these stories stop you!! As we arrived in the village and started setting up our tents one of our team members felt a sharp pain on her thigh, upon investigation a relatively not small spider came away from the source of the pain. Redness started spreading up her thigh. We had 3 nurses and other medical professionals with us and when this happened everyone came to my tent looking for me. My reaction inside was “WHAT, a SPIDER bite, I am a STUDENT I do not know what to do”!!! So I ventured out with a first aid kit, praying for help under my breath. We were 4 hours away from the nearest medical care and outside of cell phone reception. Prayer was the only thing that I could do, we prayed intensely and we watched the redness stop spreading and it even receded a bit, the swelling went down. I drew a circle around the bite and we watched for the following days... She is now totally fine.

The next night I was sharing stories from the back of a truck, as I spoke my translator had two jobs, one was to translate and the other was to remove giant flying bugs that were landing on me! He picked them out of my hair and off my shirt, THEY were HUGE, but I kept sharing and it was good. I have a bunch more stories about removing bugs and spiders from my body and off of others on my team but I do not want to gross you out too much... okay only one more bug story...

Around 5:30am on our final day of outreach I was feeling a slight tickle on my face... I opened my eyes to find ants crawling all over the wall of my tent. The smaller ants got through the mesh and were crawling over my stuff, my clothes, my body, and my face!!! I did not freak out as they were not fire ants, I simply got changed and evacuated my tent and gathered myself. Then I packed up all my stuff and continued on with my day... I never want to wake up with bugs on me EVER AGAIN!!

Over all I am doing well, learning how to give up control and just letting be. I have moments of missing home but other than that I absolutely love being here. I am leading another team on outreach next weekend. I would appreciate your prayers over myself and my team. Wisdom is highly valued and needed on these trips.

Thank you for loving me

Candace

“If you don’t quit, You win!”

Some of my Favourite Things...

So I have been here 7 weeks now and I have realized that I have been silent in the blogging world for too long! This week I would like to share a few of my favourite things about being here in Mozambique.

Since my last blog 80+ westerners have arrived for our missions/cultural school. I have the joy of leading and staffing in this school. One of my favourite things is living in community. I lived in my house by myself for a month, it was sort of lonely. Now I have 5 ladies living with me and they each bring me so much joy!

I love swimming in the Indian Ocean... and then climbing in giant trees with my friends and stuffed monkey named Cheeky.

I love going to the village of Mieze with the medical outreach nurse. I find myself playing for ages with a little boy with cerebral palsy.... he is just TOO cute, his name is Omari. He is just starting to walk so I am actually helping him develop his leg muscles ;)

I love worshiping God in community everyday

I love helping people adjust to this lifestyle

I love the chicken shack!!

I love the Joy that I live in.

I love teaching about HIV and AIDS to over 100 villagers in Mieze

I have also fallen in love with sitting with people with AIDS. I love to hug them and pray with them and learn Makua from them. I think that I could spend my whole life just hugging these ladies with HIV.

I also love the fact that beautiful sunsets happen EVERY single day!!!!

I think that I could keep going for ages and ever but instead I think that I am just going to post some pictures of a few of these things and carry on with my day.

Blessings on you and all that you do!!

As my eyes are opened...

I know that I often write about my experiences and adventures here in Africa, and that in telling these stories I reveal that I am greatly enjoying myself... and I am!  But there is a part of my everyday life here that I have yet to find words for.   Every day I come face to face with extreme poverty.  I am surrounded by amazingly precious people who are in circumstances that I cannot imagine, yet I am here witnessing it.  I am a problem solver but I cannot solve poverty.  I also face every day my own affluence.  I also cannot solve this.  I am a student; I live off student loans and the love of those around me... but I am rich beyond measure.   Every Sunday we open our kitchen to anyone who is hungry.  We feed close to 2000 people lunch every Sunday.  This has been happening for years.  The first time that I was here in 2006, there was often riots on Sunday because the people were so afraid that there wouldn’t be enough food.  Now there is order and lines and hand washing, the people know that there will be enough food.  But today as I was helping to serve these precious people, I realized the beans that my hands were covered in are most likely the only source of protein that these people will eat for the whole week.  Today, as I did dishes and served food, my heart broke (again).  Oh how I wish I could provide for all these people.  What also touched my heart today was the joy that I witnessed in the people.  As I went into the masses of children to pick up dirty plates many of the kids would follow me laughing and playing... I could not have found all the empty plates without their help.  As I took that pile of plates I did not just leave it on the counter but took it right to the massive sinks and did the dishes... the smiles on the kitchen staffs faces could not be matched... I wash plates much slower than them!  Every day this culture and these people are impacting my life.  I hope and pray that I can love them well.  That is the reason that I am here, to love the one in front of me.  What does real life love look like in this kind of poverty?  

Well the day is ready to begin, I am sure it will bring with it new opportunities to love people.  I wish that I had the words to truly convey what I experience here.  Please continue to pray that I will have wisdom and strength to face each day.  Also please pray that the people that I interact with this week would experience God.  Thanks for reading my thoughts.

Blessings and Back Rubs

Candace