ON MY WAY TO RWANDA

As you might know or not know - I am on my way to Rwanda in a few weeks to participate in conversations with African Leaders on the Gospel of Reconciliation and Justice in Africa. I have met some awesome people in Rwanda. I would love to share on a close friend I have met in Rwanda.




Meet
Jane Kanyange







She is unassuming, incredibly compassionate church planter. And, like Jesus, you will find her most often hanging out in bars and in the company of prostitutes.

Her community, Remera is like any other red light district the world over – bars and brothels, drugs and crime, patrons and pimps. They are selling sex, numbing hurts, belittling others and creating a community rife with trouble and heartache. This one happens to be in Kigali , Rwanda
Jane leads a church ( Prayer Palace Church ) among bars in Remera. Her congregation, which has grown to over 1000 in just few years, is an eclectic mix of former prostitutes, former clients, former madames and brothel owners, addicts and pushers and those who have finally come clean.

When they worship they dance – not because they are particularly Pentecostal but because they are free – free from drugs, free from sexual addition, free from the slavery of prostitution. Transformation is happening in the lives of those most churches would consider untouchable.
Transformation has not only come to individual lives but it has started to come to the community as well. Jane tells the story of bars and brothels that have closed as the owners, workers and clients have come to faith. She tells of a radical reduction in crime and the hope that comes from job creation. And today the two biggest buildings in the area are churches and the biggest crowds gathered are those of the faith community. The red light district is changing!
What is most astounding is the compassion with which Jane speaks of her congregation and their community. There is no hint of condemnation.

Surely she has understood that Christ came not to condemn but to seek and save the lost. According to Jane, the Kingdom of God breaks addictions, prostitution and invades the Red-light District everyday.

WORLD MALARIA DAY TODAY!

We all know them and we all hate them - the mosquito, specially the female mosquito. She is lethal. Today is World Malaria Day and we have to think of all those people in the world that died because they had no treatment available - specially in third world countries like Mozambique.

“Malaria remains a major threat for 3.2 billion people in more than 107 countries throughout the world,” says the Red Cross. Malaria is the most important parasitic disease in the world. It kills 3,000 children every day and more than one million each year. The majority of these deaths occur among children under five years of age and pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa. The clinical disease burden is especially high among these two groups as a result of immature and weakened immunity respectively.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED:

You can help us. $100 would pay for 20 long-lasting insecticidal nets for 20 pregnant women and their smallest children, providing protection for up to 4 years. Let us know if you are willing to become a partner to make a difference.

Thank you for caring!

SPIRITUAL FRIENDS - the gift you should really be seeking!

There is an old Celtic saying: "Anyone without a soul friend is a body without a head." There are not many Celtic sayings about what people without success are; the Celts didn't seem to be terribly interested in success. But they were pretty big on friendship.

I've been thinking about this because I just got back from a once-a-year weekend with four of my oldest friends. We've been friends for over thirty years.

Mark is the smartest of us. He does philosophy professionally. None of us argue with him, because we're afraid that if we did, he might prove we don't exist.

Tommy is the WD-40 of human relationships. He makes any group he's a part of better, more human, and deeper, because of his ability to draw out whatever is inside of you.

Kevin is a charmer. Girls were drawn to him enough in college that we used to hang around just hoping for a chance with some of his discards.

And Chuck is my oldest friend, whose sense of humor can be described only as demented (and I mean that in the most complimentary way); a doctor who drove an ancient car he named Waldo and begins each day in prayer at his practice and makes us laugh till we cry with the same stupid material he's been using for 30 years.

We meet each year at a cabin up in the hills. We have developed certain rituals: we walk certain paths; we grill a huge salmon dinner on Saturday night; we talk and pray for hours before a fire Sunday morning; we smoke cigars and watch the sun go down behind the Pacific; we laugh until we cry at things an eighth grader would find sophomoric and unsophisticated. We mark our lives by this annual meeting. We speak of our marriages, our families, our dreams, our scars, our depression, our therapy, our victories, our brokenness, our knowing God. We are a circle in which everyone matters, and we never know what will be said next.

I do not understand very much about friendship. I think one reason I value it so much is that I went a long time without it. I did not have a real friend my own age (outside my sister and my cousin Danny, and they were both more or less obligated by genetics) until my sophomore year in high school. I was lonely without even knowing it. It would have been beyond my self-awareness, or maybe pride, to name it.

And then one fall, I was in two classes with this kid named Chuck. One month I did not have a friend, and then I did. I don't know how it happened. I just know it changed my life and gave me a deep hunger for this thing called friendship that has never gone away. Then I went to college and again spent a lonely freshman year, and then a guy named Kevin opened a friendship gate and I was inside another circle.

Years ago I was wandering through a bookstore in Pasadena and picked up a book on spiritual friendship by a monk named Aelred who lived centuries ago. And I loved it, because here was someone who was enchanted by friendship and never got over it—who loved it so much that he said, "God is Friendship."

A friend, Aelred said, is someone to whom you can entrust the secrets of the heart. He said that sometimes you may think of someone as a friend but they are really only useful to you (like people in your pyramid sales group). I sometimes think that relationships between pastors and folks in their churches are like this. It's not that friendships cannot develop between pastors and attendees; they do, and I've enjoyed a few myself. But there are dynamics of role and confidentiality and the desire for success that often complicate them.

A friendship, like falling asleep, is something you cannot enter into by sheer willpower. I can open myself up to it. I can pray for it. I can look for people (Aelred actually recommends putting potential friends through a probationary period) and invite them out for coffee. Then maybe we find common ground. Maybe we make each other laugh, or find the same books interesting. Then we find that we are somehow loyal to each other, want good things for each other, are willing to speak difficult truth to each other.

But I cannot make this occur. Friendship happens, when it happens, as a gift. It comes like rain or sunshine or Cinnabons; a delight and joy and bonus that makes the world a better place. I think, maybe, that when you come right down to it, friendship is pretty much what the Church is about. And the human race, for that matter. And—this is beyond my theological competence—maybe the Trinity, too.

I need to work and grow and hone my abilities and add value to the world. But mostly, I think, I need friends. My friends are those people, those few and mysterious people, who love me for no reason at all. Which is the only really good reason to love.

John Ortberg is pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church (California)

Women on fire ..................!

No not literally on fire ...... but on the run and no stopping them now. We were privileged to have received 5 sowing machines on which the ladies are currently being trained. Usually men work with sowing machines in Mozambique but ladies are now also being trained. After mastering the art they will

• make clothing to sell which will help them to make a living for their families;
• help in producing clothing for our orphan program who consist out of more than 500 kids;
• help with the training of others.

Our new WASHING MACHINE!!

I sincerely love Africa. Really I do! I am born an African and I choose to be an African! But .... oh boy when things go wrong on this continent they really go wrong. Ok .... I'm not talking politics, macro economics, war, poverty or even Zimbabwe today.

Because we are totally in the middle of nowhere ..... in the bush ...... if something goes wrong it really does go wrong in a big way. For example ..... if something break it does take a huge effort to get it fix. If you need parts .... well another story all together. If you know me well you would know that I am technically very (extremely) challenged. Engine parts just doesn't make sense to me at all. Really .... I can look at it for hours and still it looks weird. I mean how do they get all these bolts and things in their weird places? All of this does have a huge impact on my marriage. My wife figured out after 12 years that I am technically challenged. She just throws her head up towards the sky, roll the eyes (you know .... as only women can do) and walks away mumbling something that only species from Venus can understand.

The last two weeks on the mission was one of those situations. We had a huge electrical fault on the generator which meant .... no power, no electricity, NO WATER. We had to drive 40 km just to collect some water so we could wash. And my wife ............... she got a BRAND NEW WASHING MACHINE to figure out. (I shouldn't laugh .... here it is!!)

STEPS TO USE YOUR NEW WASHING MACHINE:

STEP 1

Bring out washing into the open. Make sure you have a patch of grass to prevent further stain. Your wife will obviously not think this is funny!
STEP 2:
The washing machine itself. Make sure all the goodies are in place. Use washing powder that would be fit for a cold wash. Have plenty containers around. Make sure you have blocks under the wheels of your washing machine - you do not want to do "washing on the run"!

STEP 3:

STEP 4:
Start the process. Wishy washy. Make sure again that water levels are up for the task. You will see a wheel borrow on the side - important if you have to run with washing to the line. Basic rules still apply - whites with whites and coloured clothing separately.

STEP 5:

As husband get OUT OF the way. Watch from a safe distance otherwise you might just end up doing the washing on a Saturday.

Well let me stop here. It was a tiring day watching my wife washing. O goodness I need a holiday ...... and my wife too. As we say around here - TIA (This Is Africa!)

Many blessings!

Where millioniares go hungry! A 16-year old's plea ...

ZIMBABWE - one of the wonders of the world, Vic Falls

'Due to the current stringent economic conditions, the light at the end of the tunnel has now officially been turned off!' This is not an inaccurate summary of this countrys situation. Like so many things about Africa we can see them coming, but who will do anything meaningful to prevent them? How many others countries have a leader who starves his own people jsut to keep himself in power?

ZIMBABWE - 2 minutes before sleeping (in the good old days!)

I recieved the following letter this morning from a friend:

Dear World,

I am a 16 year old person living in Zimbabwe.

I think the time has come for a more direct appeal, and so I am writing to you, the world.

Maybe, just maybe, there might be someone out there who can help us... It's tough here now. The inflation rate is so high that if you don't change money within 6 hours you could get half the amount of foreign currency that you would have originally received. We're starving now; people die around us.

In the last year alone at least ten people associated personally with my family have died despite the fact that they were only middle-aged. Other people don't make it to middle age. They don't even make it past childhood. Our once-proud nation is on it's knees. We flee or die. This beautiful, bountiful once-rich land has become a living hell. We have dealt with it until now; we have made a plan. That was the Zimbabwean motto: "MAKE A PLAN".

But now we can't make a plan. We're too tired, too broken, too bankrupt. We can't afford life, and life does not cost much, not really. We cannot afford to eat, we cannot afford to drink, and we cannot afford to make mistakes, because if we do we die. We don't have the capital to support ourselves, and those few who do, have to deal with the horror of watching their friends and family fall into absolute poverty as they cannot afford to help them.

We're waiting desperately for a great hand to pick us up out of the dirt because at the moment we are outnumbered by Fate herself, and so we close our eyes and pray. We have fought for too long, and have been brought to breaking point. We simply stand, heads down, and bear it. Our spirit has gone; we are defeated. After a valiant struggle of over fifteen years, we have been broken.

There is no will left, no spirit. Like a horse that has been beaten until it cannot fight anymore; we are the same, and, like that horse, we stand dusty, scarred and alone, with dried blood on our sides and lash marks along our flanks. Our ribs too stand out; our hide is also dull.

Our eyes are glazed, our throats are parched, and our knees struggle to support us so that we stand with splayed legs to bear the brunt of the next beating, too dejected even to whimper... This is my plea. The thought of picking ourselves up again is sickening; one can only take so many blows before oblivion is reached, and we are teetering on the rim of the bottomless void. One more push will be the end of us all...

There must be someone out there who can do something. There must be someone out there who cares! We are a destroyed nation, and the world sits back and watches, pretending they cannot hear our cries.

I appeal to you all...HELP US!

A 16 YEAR OLD ZIMBABWEAN...... ZIMBABWE - Kariba Lake

Nat got married - pics at last!

If you don't know Nat Zook - he has worked closely with us and the mission for the last 3 years. He is a man with one of the biggest servant hearts I have ever had the priviledge to meet and to work with! (Although he did most of the work - lol!) It is also approriate that he would meet his future wife on the mission base in Mozambique. Salena was also a volunteer for 6 months on the base where they met ..... and later decided to get married.

Here is some of the photos! Nat got married middle March 2008 - so this article is looong overdue. Sorry mate ..... but the photos are great!

And the bride - Salena.

Could not place more than one honeymoon photo - lol! Congrats Nat & Salena - may God bless you both in a way that will leave you breathless. We all love ya dearly. By the way - all your Mozambiquean friens say "Parabem amigos .... parabem!"

First Aid Education to all .....

If you are in Africa ask any man or lady on the street: "What do you think is the biggest need for Africa?" They will answer in a choir - "Training off course!" It was great to watch women, teachers and kids as 6 qualified nurses trained communities the basics in First Aid by using games and other methods that Mozambicans could relate to.

Hard work, some exams at the end .... and the result. Each of the Lady Monitors working with out ladies literacy and training received their First Aid Certificate. Proud - abso - beautifully - lutely! (If there is a word like that around!) Our teachers also received their certificates after completing the course after hours. "What makes this so wonderful", one of teachers proclaimed, is that "we can now help our neighbours and friends if they feel sick." The Health system of Mozambique is still struggling and even after more than 16 years of war the country is still struggling to provide basic services to the local population - specially those staying in rural areas.

We believe in helping people holistically so they can help themselves and endeavours like these surely hits the nail fairly and squarely. Well done!

To serve is our joy!

We have been soooooooooo privileged to have had so many visitors from so many different cultures and countries with one common denominator - TO SERVE people who are not still some of the poorest in the world, but still have little or no opportunity to help themselves. BUT GOD loves them dearly and HE has a great plan - HE has been sending so many to help us and to serve the people of Mozambique. Some of the photos will show you just how wonderful they are:

These 6 nurses from the University of Canada worked and served on the base for the last month. They stayed in tents and survived the bush! Here they are with Alta just before they left ..... heading back home!

Polokwana also visited for a few days and brought an awesome team to serve the communities and more specifically the churches in our area. The Women's Ministry was not overlooked as they made sure that Eunice (Women's Ministry National Coordinator) received a brand new bicycle for her work in the bush.

The whole Polokwane team in my garden! They brought so many gifts for the community that we were all overwhelmed. They brought a huge trailer (and I mean huge) -95 boxes of clothing, seed, food, shoes and other bare necessities.

Offloading some of the goodies for the community. Simon (Pre-School teacher) watches as many toys were amongst the gifts. Our pre-schools seriously needed some toys. Johan Pieterse is a pastor in the Polokwane Congregation.

One of the Polokwane ladies pray for one of our widows in the community. After the team left the whole community said it as one: "Can they please return ... they have touched as like no one before." Many thanks to all who come from so far to be a blessing!

An educational lesson from .........

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

If you can read this - Thank a teacher!

36 000 Plates of food!

That's a lot of maize, beans, cabbage, tomatoes, carrots, salt, curry - and more ingredients to serve yearly to more than 200 bush children. Without our kitchen at the school we would have struggled to make sure our kids get at least one good meal a day. In times such as these where crops are not doing too well because of the severe flooding in our area many of these kids would not even have a good healthy meal a day!

Thanks to the help of so many good people it is possible for kids to enjoy a good day at school. The feeding and health program presented at the school already showed its fruits. Our school, as you already know by now has been shown as the school with the highest pass rate and highest percentage average in our area.

Our kids also participates in our meals by carrying water to the kitchen so that our chef, Fernando, can cook for them.

BASE NEWS

• Dwight and Lynn just left for a month heading to Brazil - all quiet;
• All our groups, nurses and co-workers left after a busy time on the base;
• By the way - Nat Zook - got married in March and we wish him and Salena just the best for the next 98 years!
• I am off to Rwanda soon - will keep you updated;
• New "more permanent" missionaries, Rick and Heather Neufield, will arrive in August.

PLEASE PRAY

• Crisis in Zimbabwe
• For wisdom with all the ministries and people involved
• Finances
• Health

Bless ya all!