Recently a friend commented on a short vacation we had taken out to the coast, saying that we take such exotic trips.  I was a little taken aback, since the idea of exotic brings tropical resorts to mind.  Then I had to laugh – because our photos do indeed look exotic!  However, almost no one has any idea about the reality of our vacations.  Let’s see,  there was the “vacation home” on the coast that we went to frequently because it cost so little, but was full of geckos and therefore gecko poo.  The bathroom smelled like you wouldn’t believe, and each time we went everything was just so dirty because no one lived there full-time.  The climb down to the beach was over 100 very uneven steps and we had to be careful there because people would come by and steal our things.  Once we went in the water and forgot to bring a mask and snorkel with us, and someone stole it.  Very upsetting for the kids.  We were always nervous at night because crime is bad in that city and there were no bars on the windows, so never slept well.  Every time we left the house we’d try to find places to hide our valuables.  The kids slept on the floor on musty mattresses, all of us in one room.  That was our main “exotic” vacation spot.  🙂

Our exotic trips to Malawi involve many, many hours over rough roads where there is nothing to buy to eat except bread or fried donuts that usually give us diarrhea.  Potty stops are in the bushes, trying to hide from local people who are passing by.  In Malawi, we have had various housing arrangements – some of which are clean and roomy, but never charming.  Much of our housing has been in dusty, dirty places where it is hot at night and the dishes are icky.  Our main place to stay has a ceiling full of bat poo and a bathroom that is . . . well, it is icky.  When you try to find a place to eat out, anywhere outside of the city, your chances of getting good food in good time are pretty low.  Time and time again we’ve tried to go out to eat, paid a fortune for it (it is never cheap) and wished heartily afterward that we had just eaten some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Usually the wait for the food is over an hour, and the portions are very small.  The kids often ask for another meal, and we take them home and feed them something there!

On our last trip to Malawi, where we camped for a few days, our exotic locale included garbage everywhere (a frequent complaint at the places we stay), an outhouse for the nearby toilet which was full of spiders and an incredible smell (and no light), a far-away shower and toilet which was also up on the icky scale, and a rotating roster of guests and visitors at the campsite who brought portable generators for their very loud speaker system (which rocked our world for 6 hours on an afternoon), carloads of people for parties, and creepy fellow campers. We also were very wet from a leaky tent, but we can’t claim that as an exotic experience.  🙂

On all of our trips, wherever we go, we are frequently asked for money, for rides, harassed by street children, and stared at constantly.  Least fun is trying to eat your meal in a restaurant while a group of children stand outside the window and watch each bite you take.  These are not starving children, just interested children.

What do we do for fun on vacations?  Last week we had 3 nights away and did have a very enjoyable tour of a historic fort (which involved 2 hours in the blazing sun and exhausted children), 3 visits to the beach (two of those visits involved being peppered with questions and requests from local children, who liked to stand next to our towel and stare at us while laughing), where there was garbage all over one beach, people poop on another beach, seaweed on the third.  We like to hike around and look at stuff on our vacations, playing in rivers or looking at overlooks.  There is a crocodile farm that we can visit near one place we frequent.  We play a lot of cards, watch movies on the little DVD player, and we like to snorkel if that is available.  Unfortunately, there is an itchy thing in the water where we used to go all the time, so Kevin and I would cover ourselves neck to ankle with rash guards and tights, or spend the rest of the weekend unable to sleep from the rash. There are the endless fights to keep mosquitoes out of the bed nets (last week we got bitten a lot), keep sand out of the beds, get the clothes washed (by hand usually) and feed everybody 3 times a day.  Getting ready to go on the trip involves many hours of packing and planning, because you can’t just run out and get something if you forget it at home.

There have been various trips that have gone down in the family legend book, like the vacation where the car kept breaking down and the part we needed would take a month to reach us there.  God provided a mechanic to glue the thing back together.  Then there was the much-anticipated trip to the big store, 12 hours from us, where the kids planned to buy some great stuff with the allowance money they’d been saving for 9 MONTHS.  The prices were so high that they couldn’t get much at all (like $10 for one hot wheels car).  There was the time Toby was stung by a scorpion at our vacation house, the house where the power kept going off and on all the time, the search for a restaurant for Christmas dinner that gave us a lunch buffet for an incredible price that included goat and watching the Queen’s Christmas speech on the television.  There was the time that one of the families staying with us for vacation all went down with Malaria on Christmas day.

Why don’t we just stay home?  Well, what would be the fun in that?  🙂  Seriously, we do enjoy our trips away, though we have learned to keep our expectations VERY low and that helps.  We do not expect to sleep well, stay clean, find cheap, good food, or have any privacy.  You can get those things at some vacation places, but they are all out of our price range.  And there are no cheap, clean places anywhere near.   What we do expect is to be AWAY from Nampula, which is absolutely necessary every 4 months to retain sanity.  We discovered that our first year here.  We also enjoy our time together as a family, every time, and seeing new things.  When we go to the beach, we enjoy the ocean waves and air, when we go to Malawi we enjoy the cooler weather and the green hillsides.  And we are always thankful, no matter how many mosquito bites we get (and we’ve never gotten malaria on vacation!).  As the kids get older, we’ll add some mountain hikes to our trips, and hope to continue our snorkeling and occasional boat trips (on local fishing boats) as well as a game park.  Now THAT’s exotic! – C

As many of you know, we are currently living in this little guesthouse on the compound of SIL here in Nampula.  There are about 7 of these houses on the compound, along with an office building, conference building, preschool, small school, and a few staff houses.  It is all very nicely enclosed with a wall and there are lots of trees and grass (which is unusual for here).  A dirt road runs around the perimeter, which is a favorite place for expats to come and exercise since there are no parks or running tracks in town (and if you run on the street you are an object of a lot of interest). 

When we left our rental house in May of 2010, we packed all of our things into a container and didn’t know where we would live when we returned from Home Assignment in the USA.  Upon return in August of 2011, we knew that the AIM cottage had become available to us, but needed some work (a whole new roof, and two added rooms).  We assumed that would be quickly finished, but at this point they have not even started.  Problems with the architect(s) – there were 3 different ones, getting a plan finalized, and getting the building permit have all persisted until just a couple of weeks ago.  Now the builder is having some difficulty getting started, and we are beginning to think we will live in our little guesthouse forever.  Above is a photo of the AIM Cottage, with the one-room guesthouse in the distance.

There are certainly some advantages.  Toby’s school is right here, and the only clean playground in Nampula outside of the private schools is also located here.  There is lots of space for the kids to run and play safely, and we don’t have to worry about hiring guards or handling the problems that arise when running a property in Moz.  Smaller house means less maintenance.  With my back problems this year, a move would have been difficult and unwise.

However . . . as we pull things out of the container that we want to use, things are piling up.  Half the time I can’t remember where things are, or if I even still own a particular thing after packing it all up almost two years ago or bringing it back with me in August.  Our belongings are stored in various places here and we look forward to the day when it will all be in one spot.  It is a small house, and though it is adequate for the four of us since the kids spend most of their time outside, we do feel like we are on top of each other constantly.  Living here on the compound also feels rather “otherworldly”, as in, not Mozambique.  Since I rarely leave, my only contact with Mozambicans is with those who work here or who come to visit me.  I feel like my Portuguese is slipping away!  The kids also don’t have opportunities to practice their language skills

We are thankful for this place, since the alternative would have been a 3rd-floor walkup apartment in a very broken-down building in a noisy neighborhood in town, with no playspace for the kids at all.  We do look forward to getting settled somewhere more permanently, though.  The AIM Cottage is to be our “temporary” home until we can get a house built on the other side of town, but since the building fund hasn’t grown at all for a long time, we wonder how long it will be before that project starts.  God knows!  We trust that He has a good plan for us. – C

The end of the latest 10-week term was last week, and Kevin thought it would be nice to have a little get-together with all the students from the various classes.  There were 5 classes running, with 35 students led by the six monitors, on the following books:

Christian Family

Hebrews

Foundations of Faith

It wasn’t a big party, just some talk about plans for the next cycle of classes and where and when they would be held, as well as public thanks to all the monitors for their hard work and dedication to teaching.  Then there was some cake (which Kevin baked himself!) and a movie in Portuguese was shown as a special treat.  It is very rare here for a Mozambican to watch a Christian movie in Portuguese; things like that simply aren’t available.  Actually, we can’t buy any movies here (that are legal), which was a great surprise to us on arrival.

The students really enjoyed meeting together and talking about what they learned, as well as meeting each other (the classes meet in various locations at various times).  There were five or six new students, to sign up for the next round of classes, which started last week on April 12th.  We are hoping to fill seven classes during this term.  We appreciate your prayers since two of the classes are new and it is always hard to get those going steadily.  – C

I must apologize for the long period of silence on this site – there has been a sequence of events which has put all of us behind in our regular responsibilities.  Indeed, we were supposed to put out a newsletter in March, but are still working on it now, in April!  As mentioned in January post, I felt in November and re-injured my back.  I had a disc trim surgery back in April of 2011 to take care of the back pain I’d been having since 2007, and it was a success.  However, in November I tripped and re-injured it.  After 3 weeks in Janaury of being very faithful about bedrest, we realized that it wasn’t going to heal and I flew to the big city of Johannesburg in South Africa.  Joburg is an enormous city on par with Atlanta, Georgia or perhaps even bigger.    I had an MRI, and the surgeon informed me that I had re-herniated the same disc which had been previously trimmed, and he recommended a spinal fusion of the vertebrae on either side of the afflicted disc.  This was done on February 13th, and I spent a week in the hospital.  There were some lovely local Christians there who shepherded me through the whole process and visited me daily, and my colleagues in the AIM office there also kept close contact and supported me.  Phone calls from friends and family ensured that I never felt alone, and with the pain of the surgery I was quite content to lie in my bed and do as little as possible!  After I was released, I stayed with a friend for 3 days, and then moved to stay with AIM colleagues, who entertained me and helped me and chauferred me to physical therapy. 

I was there for 6 weeks total, and while it was very hard to be away from Kevin and the kids, I was grateful for the opportunity to concentrate on healing, especially since I really couldn’t have coped with the rigors of life here in Mozambique or being involved with my family.  Here’s a photo of me with my back brace, which was worn 24/7 for seven weeks, and now on and off depending.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Kevin managed to keep everything together.  He did have to do less with ministry, but classes continued and he was able to visit and encourage his monitors during the time I was gone.  The lady we hired to stay with Ben every morning and teach him Portuguese was a wonderful help to Kevin (and to Ben), and other missionaries in Nampula helped out with some meals and a lot of encouragement.

Six weeks was a long time to be parted and we hope we never have to do it again!  However, God’s grace was amazingly evident to us in all kinds of ways, and the kids coped really well.  We are thankful they are at the age where they can be without mom for a period of time.  I continue to heal, slowly but surely, and try to be faithful in doing all I should (or shouldn’t) do.  It will be a healing process over some months, and we all look forward to an active and pain-free life for me.  We ask your continued prayers that this would come to fruition. – C

Benjamin Charles turned six in early March, while mom was away in South Africa.  So, we had a little superhero party for him with about 6 friends last week.  It is rather amusing, because he had a superhero party LAST year but wanted exactly the same thing this year.  He REALLY likes superheros.  We brought a Marvel Comic poster from the USA for a birthday present for him and he just loves it as it shows all the superheros.

What is even funnier is that he often believes that he IS a superhero.  When were were at Lake Malawi for a week at Christmas, I made him wear a floating vest, something not bulky at all, but enough to keep him afloat if he loses his footing since he is still a weak swimmer.  He sulked about it for quite a few hours before agreeing to wear it, and protested “But you have no idea what kind of powers I have!”  Apparently he believes he has the power of not sinking.

Anyway, Ben continues to be a great joy to us and has a tremendous exuberance for life.  He also has a will of iron, which will serve him well in the years to come if we can teach him to use it for good and not evil.  He has a strong sense of good and evil, and said to me last year “We all want to be like Obi Wan Kenobi, but there’s a little bit of Darth Vader in all of us”.  Wise words.  Currently he is being taught at home every morning in Portuguese, and the patient woman who teaches him spends half the time in stitches and half the time ready to pound the table in frustration.  She is very kind to him!  He keeps us in stitches too, and we enjoy so many things about him.

We are thankful that Ben believes that God is the biggest superhero of all, and that Jesus is more powerful than anyone.  His heart is softening toward spiritual things, and he is more and more interested in the Bible.

Ben has taken on some new responsibilities this year, and he sweeps under the table after dinner (an effort to get him to eat more neatly!), fills all the water bottles from the water filter and puts them in the fridge, and takes out the trash to the trash pit.  He hasn’t fallen in yet, thankfully.  He can scale a papaya tree quick as a wink, and terrifies visitors by climbing to the heights of the tree in front of our house.  His favorite pastime is putting together “setups”, though he also loves playing the Wii, drawing comic books, reading, and of course singing every waking moment of the day.  We are so thankful for our cuddly little guy, who in his words, celebrated turning six “fakely” at his party three weeks after his real birthday.  Smart, too.  🙂 – C

Do you know what a container is?  If you don’t, you shouldn’t be embarrassed.  I didn’t know either, until I arrived here.  You can see from the photo what one is, and if you think you’ll probably recall a time you saw one of those riding on the back of a truck or on a railroad flat car.  You may even have seen a photo of a container ship, with hundreds of these stacked up all over the deck.  To you, it probably means items for shipment to a store which are being delivered, perhaps even cars.  To a missionary in the third world, it means a Christmas-trove of goodies that we can’t get here!

When we moved to Moz in 2007, we brought all our stuff with us on the airplane, 16 suitcases worth.  You might think that is a lot of stuff, but I’d guess that if you packed up just your clothes, shoes, Christmas decorations and kid’s toys, they would fill that much space.  And that’s what we brought, along with some sheets and towels and photo albums, plus some kitchen utensils and tools.

Since then, when we need something we have procured it from various places.  Some needed items we can buy in town, though anything bought new is very likely to be terrible quality.  Kevin bought a faucet once and the nuts broke off as he installed it.  Innumerable drill bits have broken, coffee mug handles broken off, plastics split, and spoons bent.  The kids gave up completely on buying toys here since they break almost immediately.  There is a sad story of one missionary kid whose first word was “bwoken” because every time he got a gift for a special occasion it broke the same day!   We don’t even try anymore to find Christmas and birthday gifts here, but have them sent out by our folks.

Some needed items can be gotten from other missionaries.  Indeed, I have a crockpot, pretty dishes, Duplo blocks, a bathroom scale, and storage containers that I bought from other expats!  Our first couple of years, I was a regular at missionary garage sales, and they are very popular events!  If you need baby equipment, sturdy furniture (for less than thousands of dollars), good toys or kitchen appliances, this is the place to be.  Things are usually priced much higher than a USA garage sale, however, since the costs involved in getting their things here were also probably high.

As mentioned above, some things are shipped out. When you consider that it costs almost $50 to send one medium-sized box that can’t weigh more than 16 pounds, however, that option is not too attractive.  However, our parents frequently send things out to us that we purchase online, or things that they purchase themselves.  A box of car parts just arrived here this week, into very grateful hands!

Another option is to ask people to pick things up for you in South Africa or carry them in their suitcases from America.  This is not a popular idea as the people traveling are usually busy and hard-pressed for space even for their own things.

And lastly, we have the container.  Some missions encourage their new workers to bring out a whole container of possessions when they come to a place like this, since procuring household items here is difficult and expensive (a new, reasonable-quality sofa is over $3000, and used is difficult to find).  Indeed, it could be cheaper in the long run, though the shipping is quite expensive.  One couple we knew shipped their household and estimated they had paid over $6000 for the shipment.  And they had been quite lucky with the import taxes.  Recently, a whole group of us went in on a container being shipped from the USA, and paid way more than that just for the import duties and cost of shipping from the port to Nampula (2 1/2 hours away).  You just never know!  This doesn’t even include what each person paid to the shipper in the USA to pack their things in the container and get it to Mozambique. Thankfully, our part was only a small percentage of that but it still was quite a hit.  What could be worth paying all that money for?  Well, books for one thing.  Can’t get those here, or good tools.  Some toys, car parts, a motorcycle helmet, bike for Toby, a pressure cooker, keyboard, first aid supplies, a used treadmill and an orthopedic mattress.  Things that we can’t get here, or only at a very high price.  So, in the end it is worth it.  The container itself has been purchased by a mission agency here and is being used as a storage facility (we have three of these at the AIM property and they are wonderfully secure).

It was amazing to me, as I opened up the trunks that we sent, that these items had been sailing across the Atlantic ocean, around the coast of Africa, and landed in Mozambique.  That is a long way!  We are grateful for them.  The next time you see a container going by, maybe you’ll look at it differently! – Cami

Here is a photo of the newest member of our family, a puppy named Chancho.  We are big fans of a particular movie that has a fat little boy with that name, which is how our fuzzy little guy acquired it.  We picked him because he was the puppy that wagged his tail the most (and there were 13 to choose from, from two mothers!) and he seems to be a friendly, easygoing 3-month old.  Unfortunately, he still lives next door with his half-brother since we are still living in one of the guest houses at SIL.  We look forward to the day when we move to our temporary house (instead of our temporary-temporary home, see below) and can have him with us full-time as a pet and guard dog.  Meanwhile, we are thankful that our neighbors are willing to keep him with their puppy, so we can see him frequently. – C

The title is supposed to be a reference to the movie, Back to the Future, but using the word “Back” of course to refer to my back, to make it kind of funny.  But it’s not, is it?  No, it’s not.  It was also not funny when I saw the orthopedic surgeon in Blantyre and he told me I had herniated yet another disc.  He was a friendly British guy who told me to hope for the best.  I however, was quite dejected.

This latest disc was apparently herniated in November, a sweet little toddler crept up behind me and stood there innocently as I took a step backward, then twisted  wildly while I tried not to fall backwards on top of him.  Apparently that was all it took to put me right back where I was before my back surgery last April.

At this moment I am on 6 weeks of bedrest, recommended in the hope that the disc will return to its normal position and stop pressing on the nerve, which is causing shooting pain and numbness in my left leg.  We fervently hope that this will do the trick, though I suspect that it would only be a short-term solution.  The bone-rattling roads on Nampula would surely cause it to happen again, and staying home permanently is not a solution I care to embrace.  Neither do I care to consider leaving Nampula for a country with smoother streets.  Perhaps another back surgery is in my future, though we’ll leave that prospect for later consideration.  It wouldn’t be done here, that’s for sure.

As I pondered on WHY me, Lord, WHY this, WHY again? I became very aware that God has a purpose for me, and for our whole family in this current difficulty.  He wants me to gain his viewpoint as regards suffering, not the modern viewpoint of “it’s not fair!” as if somehow humans should expect a free ride down a flower-banked road of life.  Instead, we usually find that our characters are built through hardship, and  it is important to turn towards him to ask what he wants to teach us than to turn away and miss the lesson. Gee, that sounds sanctimonious and trite, doesn’t it?  Sorry about that.

Anyway, we appreciate your prayers as we face this little trial.  I call it that because we are fully aware that it could be far, far worse.  We are thankful that we do not face disease, financial ruin, or any number of other things that could devastate our family and/or send us home from the field.  So, please uphold us and ask God to put that little disc back where it belongs.  I know my family would be grateful as they are tired of eating meals out of the freezer! – Cami

There is an actual playground at SIL compound, where we live, but the kids prefer to play like this:

We like to keep life interesting, so we moved house just a few days before leaving on vacation.  It was just from one guest house at the SIL compound to another guest house about 500 feet away, so it was just a matter of carrying the items from one place to the other, and with the help of two friends, our house helper, and about six little boys (who all received a coke as a reward), it was accomplished within just a couple of hours.  Of course, Kevin and I spent the whole day before, day of, and days after packing and unpacking various boxes and finding spots for things, and were astonished at how much stuff we crammed into that little house.  This doesn’t even include the furniture!  We moved because the other house we lived in was right in the middle of the compound, and we were ready to be out of the “fishbowl” and on the edge of the compound.  This new house also has a hot water heater, so we can enjoy continuous hot showers, as well as a nicer stove, nicer furniture, and a nice mattress for the grownups.  All in one day, we moved house, cleaned up the old one, put up the Christmas tree, and decorated for Christmas.  Two days later, we packed for Malawi and then left.  Coming “home”, it is like we’ve lived here forever.  Which is good, and bad.  🙂  We are still waiting for the building permit for the renovations on the AIM cottage, and have hope that we can move in there by end of March.  It will be nice to unpack out things from the container on the AIM property after putting them in there in May of 2010.  I have books, dishes and photo albums that have practically disappeared from my memory.  Recently, we went through that container to get out the rest of the kids’ toys before they are too old to play with them, and found a horrifying sight:  a Ken doll with his face chewed off by a rat.  Knowing how much that would have upset me as a little girl, I told Kevin we should throw it out.  However, he thought the kids would love it, and indeed “Ratface” is now a popular toy among the little boys.  That event could bring on a whole post about little boys, but we’ll leave it for later.  – C