A week ago we packed up our children and a trailer full of supplies and set off on an eight hour trip to the province of Zambezia to visit our colleagues who live in the bush. This family has lived among one of the people groups in Mozambique for the past six or so years, have learned the local language, and have presented the Gospel in that people group's heart language and continued on with discipleship and Bible translation.
We spent five days with them and thorougly enjoyed our visit. We were able to visit with the new believers in the community and Stefan had the opportunity to share with some of the men in the evenings. I went with my friend to visit some ladies in their homes and was so encouraged by their joy in their newfound faith. It was a privilege to pray with them and talk to them about how they are connected to a great community of believers accross the world. And at one of the homes I "got" to eat monkey--something I haven't eaten since I was a child in the Amazon jungle.
Our kids were delighted to be out of the city and played outside all day long chasing the chickens, playing in the sand, finding interesting plants and animals and...(definitely their favorite part of being in the bush)...making fires.
Each day the kids faithfully collected wood and built a fire to warm water for our "dip baths" each evening. And although they clearly took their task seriously, mostly they just had fun playing with fire all day long.
Christian kept an ongoing collection of frogs during our visit. However, the chickens and hogs that our colleagues raise for food also drew a lot of interest from all of our kids. Not to mention the goats and hogs and dogs wandering around from all of the neighbors.
Although our children of course do not speak the local language and the local children don't speak Portugese, children are natrually attracted to eachother and they were soon playing together as children typically do. At many times our kids were laughed at mercilessly since their mannerisms are so different and strange to these African children.
The kids also enjoyed all of the simple and fresh food we ate during our visit. Although we did bring a hefty trailer of supplies in for our colleagues, most of their diet consists of unprocessed locally grown food. Naturally food preparation and storage is a part of their daily living and everyone helped and learned from the food preparations.
Part of life here is, of course killing your own supper. However, up until now, our kids had not really experienced that first hand and they were very excited to be able to participate in preparing a rooster for dinner.
Christian, had no qualms about holding the tied rooster as preparations were made for it's demise.
In fact, the boys were pretty excited about their responsibility to hold the rooster while their daddy was to do the actual killing. Now, if you know anything about killing a chicken and if you know anything about my husband, you know what was about to happen and why Stefan was trying to keep from smirking as he explained to the boys to hold on tightly.
Stefan quickly and mercifully ended the poor rooster's life. And unfortunately, I have no picture of the chaos that ensued because I was too busy laughing. For those of you who don't know, chickens seem to put up most of their fight AFTER they have been killed or beheaded as their nerves continue to work for a short while. So about the time Stefan stepped back, the rooster's dead body began its mighty fight and the boys (predictably) let go in terror.
They ran around the yard after it screaming and when they finally caught up to it the look on my fearless son Christian's face was priceless.
Cohen eventually braved picking up the rooster again and held it up proudly. Least you think this experience was traumatic for them in any way, they were eager to kill their own dinner again on another day. But I do think they have a healthy appreciation that even a rooster's death is not merely exciting entertainment...if Christian's white blood-spattered face was any indication.
Speaking of entertainment...on our return trip to Nampula the trailer hitch broke (again and in a different place than our last trip). We were stranded in an isolated community for two and a half hours while we looked for help. And if you wonder what a girl's to do with four wound-up and exhausted children out in the middle of no where while her sweet-heart is trying to fix a trailer hitch...well, that would be a good question.
Mostly we provided entertainment for the community by...just being us. According to the one or two men who spoke Portuguese, the villagers had never seen white children before. So they all crowded around staring and laughing at every expression or movement our children made. As for our children, they were not so thrilled about having their pale skin caressed or their their hair pulled by strangers....or having to use the bathroom behind thin grass with everyone peering at them. But they survived (as their parents--who had the same things done to them as children in South America--told them they would). And eventually help came and we made it home to Nampula later that same night.
And although their daddy and mommy enjoyed a nice hot SHOWER...the kids were already wishing for a dip bath with water they had heated themselves.
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