How we got to where we are…

In my last, very short blog, I said I would give more
information about our sudden move to Mozambique, and so I shall.

When Jimmy and Kellie, AIM leaders, were in South Africa
with us for debrief, they decided it would be best to move us to a
new location as soon as possible, and we agreed. We had reasons for
desiring to go somewhere else, but I’m not able to find the words to
express those at the moment, so just know that we didn’t leave
because we’d grown bored of South Africa and desired to go to a new
place.

When some of my team members and I got home from
dropping off the Swazi team at their base in Nsoko on Feb. 19, we
were greeted by Myles who told us he’d received a call from Jimmy got
a call, telling us what the deal was with where we were going.
Although we had expected to go to Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi
were choices as well. Zimbabwe fell through, but the contacts in
Mozambique replied positively on the same day Jimmy had emailed them
about us coming to serve with them. All of us instantly knew that
Mozambique was where the Lord wanted us.

As it turned out, there was a driver in Nelspruit who
could take us to Vilanculos…within 20 hours! We did not have to
leave that quickly, though, as we were given the choice of leaving
that day or a few days later. If we chose the first option, we would
have to buy 3 months of food, buy tents, pack our lives up, talk to
family and friends on skype for potentially the last time before
coming back to America, and I also wanted to tell our friends in
White River goodbye. With so much to do, I was definitely leaning
towards the latter option. While praying as a team about what to do,
the following passage came to mind:

A teacher of
the Law came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, I will follow you
wherever you go.”

Jesus
replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the
Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Another
disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

But Jesus
told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

~ Matthew 8:19-22

When Jesus tells us to follow him, he wants us to do so,
without hesitation.

This is what convinced me to die to what I’d prefer and
just go follow Jesus’ leading. Everybody else agreed that we should
leave with this driver the next day.

So we did.

After traveling for 22 hours, we finally arrived to our
new location. Jaco and Maria, our hosts, live in a house built out of
reeds with their two kids Maggie and Rudo right next to a lake, where
we frequently swim. God paints us beautiful sunsets over the lake,
too. We sleep in tents. Proper toilets and showers are in a separate
building, made in the same manner as the house. My first impression
of this place was that it reminds me of The Swiss Family Robinson,
which was one of my favorite movies as a kid, so I love that I’m kind
of living like them.

Something really cool that’s happening in my life is
seeing how God is carrying out some dreams that he put in my heart
even before this trip. One of those is teaching children. When I was
looking at the list of possible locations back in August, Uganda had
appealed to me because of the teaching ministry listed with it.
During our stay at the Iris Ministries childrens village in January,
I had the opportunity to tutor two of the kids there who were
struggling with school; however, we had to leave shortly after
beginning. Now, here in Vilanculos, Mozambique, I have started
teaching Maggie, Rudo, and a little Zimbabwean boy named Samuel in
the mornings. Only God could have orchestrated events in such a way
as to make this passion come to pass. God is good.

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!

Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints,

for those who fear him have no lack!

The young lions suffer want and hunger;

but those who seek the Lord lack no

good thing.

~ Psalm 34:8-10