Mozambiquean President BEST in AFRICA

Chissano applauds Mozambicans

Chissano wins leadership prize
Chissano named as UN envoy
Moz's 30-year-rule evaluated

Maputo - Former Mozambican president, Joaquim Chissano has attributed the good governance award he won on Monday to the people of his country for their contribution towards peace in that former Portuguese colony.

Chissano said: "It is an honour to me and it is also an honour to the people of Mozambique for their contribution to peace and good governance."

The award illustrated that the world appreciated efforts implemented in bringing peace to Mozambique, he said. On Monday, the Mozambican government said the award showed that the world appreciated Chissano's efforts as a peace broker.

After it was announced in London that Chissano had won the award, Luis Covane, government spokesperson said that the prize was a way of showing appreciation of Chissano's contribution to peace - not only in Mozambique, but on the African continent and throughout the world.

Chissano awarded $5m

Covane said: "This is proof that Chissano did not only bring peace to Mozambique, but to Africa and the whole world."

Chissano was awarded $5m Mo Ibrahim Good Governance award on Monday at a ceremony attended by former United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan.
The prize money would be distributed in batches of $500 000 for a period of ten years.
Chissano's name was earlier punted in the UK media as one of the favourites, a status he shared with former Tanzanian president, Ben Mkapa, Burundi's former president Domitien Ndayizeye and Namibian former president Sam Nujoma.

Chissano who ruled Mozambique between 1986 and 2005 was accredited for having steered the poor southern African country from a muddled phase of prolonged wars into one of democracy.

Chissano voluntary stepps down

He brokered a successful peace deal with rebels who had waged a 16-year-old civil war, which resulted in the destruction of the country's infrastructure.
Chissano voluntary stepped down from power and his skills as a peace broker had since been tested in hotspots like Burundi and recently in Zimbabwe.

The former president was the first winner of the award, which was launched by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation - an organisation created by the Sudanese mobile phone millionaire, Mo Ibrahim.

The full list of the former presidents who were short listed for the award included Mathieu Kerekou (Benin), Azali Assoumani (Comoros), Domitien Ndayizeye (Burundi), Henrique Rosa (Guinea Bissau), Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya (Mauritania), Sam Nujoma (Namibia), Benjamin Mkapa (Tanzania), Abass Bonfoh (Togo) Gnassingbe Eyadema (Togo), Bakili Muluzi (Malawi), France-Albert Rene (Seychelles) and Abdiqassim Salad Hassan (Somalia).

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Thank you all for reading this blog and coming back time after time. Thank you to all our supporters, prayer partners, friends, family ..... well and all the others we love so much.

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Bless you all - we love you!

PS (Did I mention that this dog is not a personification of Alta!)

Two wheels makes us go even further!

Just look at that face!! He would make Valentino Rossi (GP motorbike champion from Italy - for those who don't know) jealous! Thanks to Piet van Rensburg and his family from Stellenbosch who made it possible for us to use the motorcycle for mission purposes.

As the price of fuel keeps rising in Mozambique at nearly R10 a liter it is essential that we keep moving. The field motorcycle helps us to save fuel but also will help us to reach areas where a vehicle can not go.

I visited some school kids where we are about to build our new school and they were absolutely overjoyed. Valentino Rossi (now you know him), on the motorbike, wasn't too pleased as he was not the centre of attraction anymore. We had fun and the motorbike surely helped! Thanks again to Piet van Rensburg for seeing the need and kept on pursuing until we got the motorbike across the terrifying Zimbabwe border.

We had a huge uphill battle bringing the motorbike over but thanks to the fighting lion in Alta we did so by the grace of God.

If you wonder what to read .....!

I sat with a group of Mozambiqueans a week ago listening to someone teaching the topic: "Choices ...... we are the product of what we choose." Well the discussion touched on issues like we are sometimes poor, live in houses that was not meant for us because if we chose differently we could have more! A lack of choosing make us what we are? True or not?

Honestly I was annoyed with the topic. Happiness and being rich comes from the inside FIRST. Well, that is a choice - ain't it. Well .... the Mozambiqueans replied: "Does it mean I have not made the right choices in life because I am poor (I have no money) and stay in a mud hut? Even today I had a great conversation with a Mozambiquean about what we understand as someone being poor or rich! One thing is for sure ....... the Africans view on being poor or being rich is totally different what we in the Western world understand and want to teach!

Ok .... had to get that out of my system ..... here is something different: If you are wondering what to read next try this one - UNchristian!

THIS IS WHAT IT IS ABOUT:

Christianity has an image problem

Christians are supposed to represent Christ to the world. But according to the latest report card, something has gone terribly wrong. Using descriptions like “hypocritical,” “insensitive,” and “judgmental,” young Americans share an impression of Christians that’s nothing short of . . . unChristian.

Groundbreaking research into the perceptions of sixteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds reveals that Christians have taken several giant steps backward in one of their most important assignments. The surprising details of the study, commissioned by Fermi Project and conducted by The Barna Group, are presented with uncompromising honesty in unChristian.

PS Have some great news on our new school - helped by Faith in Action! Will share shortly.

Living with LESS!

Everywhere I go these days, big is in. My combo meal is super-sized (I mean try to open your mouth big enough to get a Steer Burger or Big Mac in there), my 4x4 double cab is third row, and the TV of my dreams is 62-inch plasma. We all are big eaters, big spenders, and big wasters.

Even our churches are into big, owning big malls and even bigger coliseums in order to accommodate big crowds and enable big growth. Like the population at large, we Christians seem to have a growing acceptance of the bigger is better credo.

But all this growth might be creating some big problems.

Our society and systems seem unable of handling the never-ceasing expansion of want and need. Our souls are groaning and the planet is buckling beneath the damage of growth. Landfills are full, the air is thick, and we cannot drink from many of our streams.

In light of our growing problems, maybe the church should give small a chance. I propose that ministry leaders are just the ones to help Christ followers exchange big for small. After all, leaders are supposed to help usher others toward something better (not just something bigger), so maybe we should start ushering folks toward living lives that are less hectic, less cluttered, less selfish and less toxic. And maybe instead of a big ad campaign advertising "LESS!" we should start living with less ourselves. Instead of the pulpit, maybe some personal choices would help slow down the growth, bring some sanity to our lives and make the world more livable.

Touchy subject I know .....but ever though on simplification. So what does living and leading with less look vir you? Kids sometimes know best - I always look what they draw and it always seem so simplistic .... maybe we can learn from them ...... and those in Africa which we serve.

Snake time in Mozambique with soaring temperatures!

As our summer arrives ...... so does the snakes. They love the sun ..... and during night time they love moving around as all the S-prints show when you go out the next morning. The local Mozambiquean is brilliant in surviving in the bush when it comes to snakes. They call snakes - "njoka". Whenever you walk with them in the bush they would quickly stop turn their head and say "njoka". You wait for a minute and sure enough you see the snake!

The snake above is a puff adder and we have plenty of them this year. It emerges at dusk, lying in cover and ambushing prey. It has effective camouflage. If disturbed, it adopts a strike posture and usually warns by giving a deep, hollow hiss; once heard, it is not easily forgotten. It strikes readily. The venom is cytotoxic, often causing extensive swelling and pain. 100 mg of poison is fatal in humans. Death usually results from kidney failure and other complicatons caused by the extensive swelling.

By saying all this we need your prayers once again. Eunice is our co-ordinator in the womens ministry and works very close with Alta. She has been bitten by a puff adder a few days ago. With not having a lot of medication on the base and no snake serum Alta had to phone Dr. Tielman Marias who is always on standy for a medical crisis. He quickly told us what to do and propably helped us to save a ladies life yet again. Thanks Tielman .... again.

The following prayer requests please if you remember for the next month:

• Health issues - it's malaria time, snakes and all the other tropical diseases


• Steven Francisco - just lost his baby yesterday


• Schoolboy killed in accident;


• Our dealing with the local communities that the Word of God will touch them through His Holy Spirit;


• All the work on the mission base.


• For Nat Zook who has been with us for about 2 years who is leaving us for the USA.

Blessings to all of you ..... and YOU ALL are constantly in our prayers!!!

Any comment?

Evangelicals of all types are taking notice of the emerging church/missional church and its variations.

Its rise to prominence is owed in part to the rejection of the evangelical church by many sons and daughters of Boomer evangelicals. At a recent Up-Rooted gathering, we talked about the real or perceived shortcomings in evangelicalism the emerging church is responding to, and the strengths and weaknesses of that response. Scot McKnight and Wayne Johnson were a part of that discussion, but here is part of my response to the question.

I believe one weakness in evangelicalism that the emerging church is responding to is evangelicalism's excessively rationalist approach to truth and salvation that birthed a stubborn "we're in/you're out" mentality. There has been an impulse in evangelical fundamentalism towards

(a) an intolerant judgmental exclusivism,

(b) an arrogant, even violent, certainty about what we do know, and

(c) a hyper-cognitive gospel that takes the mystery out of everything.

Many of us grew up with this. This was most obvious in the way we made hell the selling point of the gospel. We said if you do A and B, you’ll be pardoned from sin and escape hell.

Those who do not do A or B are going to hell. We built an apologetic that defended this to prove to people outside the church they were doomed. It came off arrogant, coercive, unloving, and indeed antithetical to the very nature of the gospel. In a world of democratic pluralism, the gospel's witness became shut off, dispassionate, and downright sectarian. It became impossible to represent such a gospel as "good news."

Brian McLaren (Secret message of Jesus and writer of Adventures in missing the point) talks about this in New Kind of Christian when he says:If we Christians would take all that energy we put into proving we're right and everyone else is wrong and invested that energy in pursuing and doing good, somehow I think more people would believe we are right.

What do you think?