Mozambique Journal Day 3

August 9, 2015


It's Sunday here.  I am tired.  Couldn't sleep last night from coughing, it's really dusty here.  We got ready and headed to church.  Church here is very different, but the same.  Everyone kind of wonders in over the course of an hour.  There is a lot of singing, dancing, praying, preaching, praying, preaching and more praying.  My sweet translator, Max, did his best to keep up with the sermon.  It became very hot, very quick because of jammed packed building.  My capallanna made my legs sweat, how do all the women wear these things?  I got teary a few times taking in the fact that God is universal.  That we sing the same songs, to the same God, on opposite sides of the world.

After church I basically grabbed a fat baby boy out of a moms arms and did not want to give him back.  I'm pretty much obsessed with black babies.  He stunk and had a runny nose and slobbered all over me and I could not get enough of him.

Then we headed to lunch with Ercylio and Ana.  Ercylio runs Spark of Hope, which combines sports with teenage boys who don't have stable families, or families at all.  They do bible study with them and teach them how to be Godly men, make sure they're going to school and help them get into college through sponsorship.  Ana is the daughter of Pastor Jeranamo and Noemia.  She is definitely not the normal Mozambican woman.  She is strong willed, not a fan of most of the customs here and refers to her dogs as her babies.  (which is absolutely ridiculous here)  I loved her.  She's in school to open labs that can do blood tests for numerous conditions here so that people can receive proper treatment for their illnesses.

They told me about their relationship and how he didn't love Jesus but came to church every week to see her.  She didn't give him much thought and moved to America for a couple of years to attend school.  When she came back, he came to her and told her that God told him to marry her.  She laughed and said that they must pray to different God's because he hadn't told her that!  He eventually won her over and he had to pay a huge dowry for her.  Noemia was so mad that Jeronomo had asked for a dowry because he hadn't even paid one for her.  So, during the process Jeronomo paid Noemia's parents a dowry so she couldn't throw it in her face anymore!

We headed back to the farm house to get ready for evening church and there was no electricity so we ate Nutella sandwiches on local bread by candlelight for dinner.

Evening church was a lot shorter than morning.  Jeronomo and Noemia's little girl sat in my lap most of the time.  After church I asked her to count and she did in Portugese and then I started counting in English and she would yell one, two, three, four, five, eleven, seven, nine..etc.  Just like Henny and Robee do.  Adorbs.

Late night of popcorn, chocolate, African wine and deep talks.  I found out tonight that I am the guest speaker at a church in the Bush tomorrow, so I should probably figure out what I am going to talk about.  Yikes.