Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Sunday in Local Church

At the beginning of this month Stefan took another team out into the districts. This team came from FH US and was working on the FH magazine "6:8" and included writers and a photographer. They were gone for about a week visiting FH Moz's work in various communities.

Typically, whenever Stefan is out in the communities on a Sunday, he is asked to preach at a local church. It is always a neat opportunity for Stefan to minister to these churches as they so desperately crave biblical teaching. We are always blessed by the dynamic worship that characterizes these services. The following are some pictures (taken by the photographer who was on the team from FH US) of a Sunday service in the town of Gorongosa.

The congregation.

Some lay ministers.

Children and women singing and presenting a "special" piece.

Kids sit at the front of the church together.

Although Stefan preaches in Portuguese, out in the districts, a translator is often necessary because many of the people only speak and understand the local tribal languages (in this area it is Sena).

Bibles are usually scarce, but when you do see one (in this case belonging to a pastor), it is humbling to see how well worn and read it has been!

Women and small children usually sit together. Babies often sit through an entire service clinging to their mother's backs in a "capulana". (BTW, the services are typically 3 hours long!)
Stefan has a unique gift for being able to communicate biblical truths to a wide range of audiences, blessing local pastors who have had seminary training on down to the simplest of local farmers who may not have any education and limited understanding of the Bible and who God is.

A captivated audience.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

First Meal

Christian is six months old today!

Here are some pictures of his first "meal"... something similar to rice cereal that we found at a local store. We began giving him this cereal about two weeks ago. He didn't seem to take to it very quickly...and after the second day, I decided to taste it myself. And that was when I discovered that it was, in fact, moldy. So Christian's first experience with cereal was the taste of mold because (despite having vaguely printed expiration dates on some processed food here), there really is no guarantee that the food you buy at the store is safe to eat. We had planned on making our own baby food anyway, due to the exorbitant costs. But this experience sure sealed the deal.




So now we have these wonderful pictures... to forever remind us of nearly poisoning our baby with his first foods. Sorry, Christian!

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Oasis Retreat

I've spent the last two days running around on the beach after Cohen who, as you can see, is getting a little bit to courageous for his two-year-old britches!

Stefan was asked to speak at a conference/retreat for the British mission agency Oasis who also is headquartered here with us in Beira.

The retreat was held at "Rio Savanne"--a local getaway about an hour from Beira by car. Here are Stefan and Christian waiting for the boat to take us accross the river to the penninsula where the retreat was held.

The area is a prime location for local fishermen.

Our accomodations... We were really happy to have a tent which gave us somewhat more control over potential guests that wanted to join us for the night (We had a run-in with some rats in our bed in the middle of the night last time we went to Savanne...but that's another story...)

Stefan spent the days in meetings with the group...

.. and participating in their team-building activities.

The boys and I just hung out...

and ran around the beach.