How You Know You've Adjusted (Plus More Bird Pics)

We have now been in Moz for about 4 months now and I was contemplating how we have adjusted to life here...

10 ways to know if you have adjusted to life in Africa:

1.  You look in the shower for roaches before getting in without thinking about it.

2. You ask the dogs if they want "Cow Chow" at suppertime ("Cão" is dog in Portuguese) and you are used to seeing the dead lizards they leave around in various places.

Nap time after a hard night guarding (or chasing lizards!)

3. You don't even blink when the power goes out.

4. It doesn't seem normal unless something isn't working... the water, the car, the internet, etc.

Grover (the Land Rover) has been out of commission for several weeks while we wait for a part from South Africa

5. Most of the time you walk to the right side of the car to get in (it takes longer than 4 months to break that habit!).

6. It is a game to see what part of the house the termites and/or ants will show up next.  Another fun game is "whack the fly/mosquito"

Dave and his trusty zapper

7.You know that if you hear a plane fly over there is at least a 50% chance it is an MAF plane and you will verbally guess who is flying it.

8. Apologizing for bad Portuguese is the standard beginning of a conversation.

Practicing Portuguese with the neighbors

9. You don't even notice how the chickens crow at all times of the day, or how you will see them pecking at any trash pile around, or wandering into church, etc. 

10. You understand Africa time: when they say church starts at 8am, that means start walking from your house at 8am to get there.  If you show up at 8, you will be early. 



And now, some more fun bird pictures...sorry, still no lions or giraffes!

Brown-headed Parrots right here in our neighborhood!

Dark-capped Bulbul

A red-throated sunbird

African Pygmy Kingfisher

Dark-backed Weaver

Blue-spotted Wood-dove

Brown-hooded Kingfisher

Little Bee-eater

White-browed Scrub-robin

Blue Waxbill

Jesus Film at Mueda

We have been in a language training transition the last couple of weeks.  That along with frequent internet outages and vehicle repair projects, it has been difficult to post an update.  Sadly, our language instructor’s boss has reassigned him to teach a new couple that has come to Mozambique with their organization.  Sad because we have developed a good trust relationship with him and have been making great progress in language training.  An example of that relationship is the focus of today’s post.

Alberto, Dave, and Abel after their flight to Mueda

 In about our 3^rd week with Alberto, who is also a pastor of a local church, we learned that he is a primary contact for the Jesus Film project here in northern Mozambique.  During a break one day, Alberto was asking us how much it would cost to transport him by airplane so that he could show the Jesus Film in a remote village.  We told him that we could introduce him to our program manger and find out about the possibilities.  A couple of days later Jill had a visit with the spouses of our pilots.  One of them mentioned that it would be a great ministry opportunity if MAF could find a Mozambican pastor that we could fly to show the Jesus Film.  Jill shared that Alberto is already involved with the Jesus Film and has expressed interest in flying transportation.

 Once the idea was born, we asked Alberto if there was a particular place he would like to go that had an airstrip nearby.  He said that for a very long time he has tried to travel north to Mueda to show the film, but because of the cost and difficulties of travel, it has not materialized.  He said that when the roads are good, it is at least a 10 hour drive from Nampula to Mueda.  He said to make the trip on a bus (with all of his equipment) would also be expensive and the cost of meals and lodging would create a difficulty.  He explained that the costs associated with traveling to Mueda and showing the film would be about twice the amount he receives each month to show the film.  We mentioned to our manger about Mueda, and arranged a meeting between him and Alberto.  Because we do some commercial flights to subsidize the cost of mission flying, MAF has a special rate for flying national pastors.  When Alberto asked our program manager how much a round trip flight to show the film would be, he pulled out a calculator and figured out an estimate.  The cost?  Exactly the amount budgeted to him!  For this specific flight to Mueda, MAF was able to cover the costs completely.

Alberto's first flight on an airplane

So on Good Friday, April 6^th, Alberto, another pastor, Conrad (the pilot), and I, flew to Mueda.  Mueda is a small town in northern Mozambique, about 50 miles from the border with the country of Tanzania.  The tribal language in the region is Makonde, which is what the Jesus Film was shown in.  Mueda is historically significant to Mozambique as the location of the first battle in the war of independence from Portugal.  The airstrip is a remnant of the Portuguese military post where several battles occurred.  It is somewhat out of place in rural Mozambique, as an almost 8,000 ft long (long enough for smaller jumbo jets) well paved runway.  We were told that we were the first plane to land there in over a year.  Even though there was a nice big runway, the flying was not without challenges…a goat ran out across the runway and the takeoff had to be aborted!

Ride in the pick-up to the film location

Goat on the runway!

We were greeted at the airstrip by some of the members of the small church in Mueda.  We loaded our supplies along with about 16 of us into the bed of a small Toyota Pickup (totally African style!).  Our first stop was the Mueda church, where we held a short prayer service for the showing of the film.  After the service, we loaded back into the pickup to travel about 10 miles to the village of M’peme (also called Makondo).  The Mueda church has planted a small sister church in M’peme, and their desire was to use the Jesus Film to share the Gospel of Jesus with the village, in their mother tongue.  The Jesus Film is based on the Gospel of Luke and has been translated in over 1000 languages.

Mueda church that organized the efforts in M'peme (don't tell me your church isn't big enough to help another!)

Alberto’s supplies consist of a portable screen with aluminum pole frames, a small portable generator, a projector, a compact amplifier and speaker, and a DVD player.  His equipment has some bumps and bruises, which is easy to understand operating in the challenging African environment, but it is all functional.  Alberto is proud that he has kept his equipment going because several years ago the Jesus Film project sent equipment for seven teams, and his is the only set that is still operational.  It took Alberto about 30 minutes to get everything setup, and it was obvious he had done it many times before.  We setup in the front yard of a local church members house, which is on the main street in town.  As the equipment was setup, a crowd began to gather out of curiosity. Shortly after, when the sun set, there were several hundred gathered around to see the film.

Video of the arrival and set up for the film

Alberto setting up the projector to show the Jesus Film

  Since the film site was on a main street, there were several distractions during the film, but the impact was obvious when the crowd hushed multiple times when one of the miracles described in the Bible or an angel was depicted on the screen.  It is difficult to know true results from an event like this, but unquestionably the story of what Jesus did for us all, as told in the Bible, was shared.  Seeds were planted and it is up to the Lord to harvest!

Hands raised to indicate a decision for Jesus

 Alberto is already planning his next trip by plane to show the Jesus film.  Jill and I are excited that the Lord put us in Alberto’s path, and we are looking forward to being a part of his ministry here in Mozambique.  Alberto is also interested in having us partner with him, outside of our duties with MAF, to show the Jesus Film within driving distance of Nampula. 

(If receiving by email, click on the title to go to the blog site to be able to view the videos!)

Emergency Medical Evacuation

While we are learning Portuguese, we won’t be involved much in the flying ministry of MAF.  An MAF pilot doesn’t just fly airplanes.  If we are going to be tools of God to share the love of Jesus Christ, we must be able to communicate His love clearly…and that means learning new vocabulary, how to construct sentences, figuring out how to conjugate verbs correctly, etc.  

Our language tutor, Alberto with us during a lesson

That being said, one day Dave happened to be at the hangar when a call came in for an emergency medical evacuation and he got the opportunity to ride along.  A man who works at a titanium mine about 1 hour away (by air) had an extreme case of malaria and had gone too long without treatment.  MAF was called to come pick him up and transport him to the hospital in Nampula, where we are based. To make the trip by road, it would have taken many bumpy hours for him to get to Nampula.  

Patient being loaded onto the plane at the mine

 When the MAF plane landed at the airstrip associated with the mine, there was already an ambulance waiting.  The ambulance drove up to the plane and Dave and Dave L. (the other MAF pilot) pulled out seats to accommodate the stretcher the man was lying on.  The patient was already unconscious and was hooked up to an IV when MAF arrived.  It took about five or six people to delicately lift the stretcher into the plane where he could lay comfortably.  A Mozambican doctor sat in the seat next to the stretcher to monitor him on the flight and with that they took off and headed back to Nampula. At one point during the flight, the doctor seemed concerned about the patient and pulled out an oxygen bottle and rigged up a mask, however, when he went to open the valve, it could be heard hissing even over the noise of the airplane.  Concerned that the bottle was leaking oxygen into the cabin, Dave L. asked Dave to communicate to the doctor the dangers of the leaking bottle in the plane (without Portuguese, he had to use hand gestures).  After several attempts to fix it, the doctor was able to use it without it leaking. 

Arrangements had been made for an ambulance to be waiting at the airport when they arrived.  While in flight, Dave L. radioed the airport to make sure they knew to expect the ambulance to meet the plane.  After landing, the plane was parked at a far corner away from any other airport traffic, however, the ambulance wasn’t there.  Instead security came up to the plane and they learned that the ambulance was waiting outside the fence because no one had paid a fee to access the airport.  Dave L. tried to explain that the ambulance was needed immediately and that the fee could be paid once the patient was taken care of.  However, security insisted the fee be paid, so Dave L. had to go into the airport and pay the it himself in order to get the ambulance to the plane.  While he was gone, the doctor demanded that they let the ambulance in.  Seeing that someone had gone to pay the fee, security at last allowed it in.  

Patient being unloaded at Nampula

 Once the ambulance pulled up, Dave, the doctor, and the ambulance workers quickly worked to unload the patient off the plane and he was quickly taken to the hospital.  Afterwards, Dave L. took a moment to give a lesson in compassion, asking the security if they would they want the ambulance delayed until a fee was paid if it was them or a family member that had the emergency.

We never found out if the man recovered, however, it is most certain, that without the airplane, he would not have received medical treatment in time and likely would have died. 

Do Your Eggs Come With Feathers?

We have had several people ask us about what we eat and how we cook since moving to Mozambique... So far, nothing too adventurous (no monkey brains or chocolate covered bugs although Dave did eat some Octopus...), but there are a few differences we thought we would share with you.

As you may know, we never did cook big even when we had every imaginable ingredient available to us in the States... Sometimes a fancy meal was Velveeta mac and cheese instead of Kraft mac and cheese!  Until last week, we have had a single gas burner to cook on...we just bought a single electric burner and doubled our cooking capacity!  We are eagerly awaiting our shipment (which will have our oven and microwave) which should leave the States in mid-March (meaning hopefully June it will be here).

Our staple food has been homemade tortillas...they are so good and you can eat anything on them...beans, rice, meat, eggs...yum!  We can buy ground beef and cheese here but it quite a bit more expensive than back home.  You can buy frozen chicken, but we often see people carrying their live chickens tied to the back of their motorcycle, on the chapa, or just walking home.  Twice we have bought eggs (you just tell them how many you want) and they put them in a plastic sack to take home (no carton)...it was a miracle we got them home without breaking them traveling on the bumpy roads!

Little bananas and giant avocados

This batch of eggs came with feathers

 Different stores carry different items, so to finish your shopping you will probably go to four or five stores.  You can't get fruits and vegetables at the little shops, so you have to go to the central market or find a roadside vendor.  Most days, people come by our house selling vegetables...tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, green beans, etc.  They can be a little more expensive, but it is nice to avoid the hassle of the market sometimes.  Any produce we buy, we soak in water with a cap full of bleach to make sure we don't get sick.  We also boil and filter all of our water for drinking, cooking, tooth brushing, etc.

Water filter

You can buy beans by the kilo at the market

Fat free milk is a rare find

Top row is the cereal aisle...cornflakes anyone?

"Made From Real Mealies"

The cereal aisle here is definitely different than in the U.S.  You can get a little box, a medium box, a large box, or a family size box of corn flakes.  We have seen a few other types of cereal for sale in certain stores but they seem to be way more expensive.  You can buy one liter cartons of long life milk that don't require refrigeration until you open them... At at least 60 meticais per liter, milk costs about 9 dollars a gallon! 

Popcorn the old-fashioned way

We don't seem to buy near as much prepackaged food here..mostly pasta, tomato sauce, and little rolls of cookies.  Our favorite treat is an ice cold Coca Cola... save the bottles or you will have a hard time getting more! 

Waiting for the rain to stop to collect the rest of our laundry

Laundry detergent and bleach

Laundry is a little different for us too...the washing machine is located outside under a covered veranda.  When it rains, it definitely takes a long time to get your clothes dry, but we are fortunate to have a place to hang them where they can stay dry and out of the sun.  I don't care what the commercials say ...line dried towels are not soft and fluffy (maybe its because I don't use fabric softener)!



Our biggest challenge at the moment is water.  We have a tank that periodically gets filled by city water that gets pumped into the house.  We also have rain water running into the tank (and collect rain water in barrels to haul to the tank) to supplement the city water.  When the city water isn't running and it isn't raining, we can have water hauled to the tank to help get us by.  Unfortunately, our tank has a leak and after recently hauling water, we lost almost all of it in a couple of days.  Our big project for next week will be replacing the tank so we can consistently have water. 

The leaking tank in our front yard

For those that have asked, yes we do have a toilet (although many in Mozambique do not), and we have AC as long as the power is on...so nice to sleep in a cool room!

AC unit (top left) makes sleeping under the mosquito net more bearable