Back in Africa
On June 29th I left Portland for Africa. The trip lasted three days as I flew from Portland to Frankfurt, Germany, and waited 10 hours and then took another flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. In Johannesburg, I left the airport and was able to have a nice rest, lunch and visit with friends in the Regional SIM office. Then at 5pm, I was again at the airport for my flight to Maputo, Mozambique. The flight is only an hour, but the flights into northern Mozambique only leave in the early morning. So that makes scheduling difficult. I was able to get a few hours of sleep before we were again at the airport for the last flight. Saturday morning at 11:30 I was back in Lichinga. It was good to be back in my African home again.

Ladies' House
When I left for the states I left Lori by herself in our house. Since then we have had the privilege of having two other ladies stay with us. Careen is with YWAM, she has been full time here in Lichinga for many years, but is involved in teaching a YWAM course on Frontier Missions. The students are learning about missions and then after this four month course they will all be part of church planting teams. It is really exciting to see Mozambicans involved in missions. Our other visitor is Peg, a doctor who is involved in some community health projects and most of the time is out in the villages. From time to time she really needs a break and a telephone to do e-mails. Stopping by our house you will sometimes find only one person, but tonight we are four.

Back to Work
Over the first weekend I called Steven who has been so helpful in doing my job while I was on Home Assignment. After talking to him and his desire to do some other things, I decided that I needed to go the 300 kms, to Cuamba to take up my job again. Not only was I able to catch up with the Wheatley’s, I also caught up with the Kock family and Margy. Then I left to visit the Talbott family who live about 350 kms from Cuamba. By the time I got to Marrupa I was beginning to remember that I had only been back a few days and my sleeping was still a bit out of sink. I waved them goodbye and headed home a new way. Lichinga, Cuamba and Marrupa are situated in somewhat of a triangle. The Lichinga-Marrupa side is being repaired. Part is wonderful and the other part I had not traveled on before. I had heard from several people that the road was passable. I guess I really like the adventure of new roads, and because it was passable, I took off with my passenger, who had been over the road about three weeks before. Since I had never been over part of the road I had guessed from an old map that the unknown part was about 100 kms. The first 40 kms was graded and we traveled along fine. Then we reached the untouched part, crawling along between 10 and 20 kms an hour. We reached one place with a deep ditch on one side and a stalled pick-up using most of the rest of the road, add to that an incline and rocks, I prayed a lot, my passenger guided me, and after some time we passed. I asked what the rest of the road was like, he said that there was only one other bad part; a very sandy hill, I did have 4 wheel drive, didn’t I? I have been stuck before using 4 wheel drive, so I was not looking forward to the sandy hill. We continued on our slow pace, sometimes going through grass 10-15 feet high on both sides of the road and meeting above the car. We finally found out that the un-graded part of the road was only 20 kms. But had taken us over an hour. Thankfully the sandy hill was on the part that had been worked on and we had no more problems. Since my passenger had been on the road just three weeks earlier, I asked him how much further we had to go. I knew that we had gone 60 of what would be maybe 100 kms. He said we were “close.” Oh, the African term of “close”! It usually means that it is a lot further than you want it to be. So “close” is a word to make you feel closer and be encouraged. Each time I am deceived and think that I am near, but a long time later I arrive. The 100 kms turned out to be 115 kms. And I don’t plan on going that road for a few weeks yet. Perhaps by then it will actually be passable. The 315 kms took 6 hours. Converted into miles, that is about 30 miles an hour.
After being in Lichinga for a few days, I took off to visit the Saindons who only live 100 kms away. We had a nice visit in the quiet farm.

Party
How much of a reason do you need to have a party? Margy was going to be 60 years old, good reason for a party. The idea was to have a surprise party, so we had a Mozambique Advisory Committee meeting on the day that got most of our team at the right city, then some others traveled for just the evening. She was blindfolded and taken around town and then back to the party spot. What a surprise for her, first the party and then all the people who had come just for her!

I think that you can tell that I have hit the ground running. In between traveling I have been able to get some things done in the office and unpack my bags.

Praise:
Safe arrival back in Lichinga

Safety in all the travels I have
been able to do this month

A welcoming home to come back to

No troubles with my car

Pray:
July 25-31 is the national conference of the United Baptist Church,
this is the church that sent us all home in 2001, they have asked to have a
meeting with SIM during the conference, pray for Steven and I as we attend the
meeting.

In August I will continue a Theological Education by
Extention course on the Church leader and his job which I started in March and
they didn’t continue while I was gone.

Please pray that I will be
able to balance my time well.