We had a lot of goodbyes over the last few weeks in Nampula. Missionary friends, expat friends, teachers at the school, people at our church, pets, neighbors. We tried to plan as many of them as possible: “We’ll say goodbye to these three people at the school event; we must plan dinner with X and her family. Let’s be sure to stop by the corner a say bye to the fruit merchant, and don’t forget to call Y and wish them well before we go.” This went on for weeks and weeks! It was important to not offend anyone by forgetting them, and there were many dear faces we needed to see one more time.
The morning we left, the kids moved around restlessly, packing and repacking their backpacks with the few items they were bringing along. As people stopped by the house to say goodbye to me, I rushed to get ready to go, pulling my wet hair into a ponytail and shoving the last items in my carry-on bag. Then it was time to get in the car and all I could think was, “I’m not ready!” The kids took a few minutes to say goodbye to the dogs, but I went straight to the car – I couldn’t cope with any more farewells at the moment. It felt surreal.
At the airport, several of the monitors came to see us off, which was a sacrifice on their part because they had to walk a long distance, or get off work, or walk on a painful knee. Someone’s cousin drove them to the airport in his taxi and we stood around not knowing what to say, knowing that each of us was going to experience a great many things before we met again. There were hearty handshakes, a circled prayer, and waves as we went in to immigration control.
There we fumbled for documents, needing to have letters of exit stamped and dated. We didn’t dare have a mistake made, or our return might be very difficult and expensive. Finally all the paperwork was done and we went on through security, to be asked for one final bribe for the cash we carried legally. We laughed – this is Mozambique!!
The plane was a hour late in arriving and leaving, but when we finally walked out on the tarmac to board, each of these dear friends was still standing at the rail above us, waving with big smiles. I remember when we left on furlough five years ago – there was one solitary Mozambican waving goodbye to us. What a joy to see the faces of these men – who will carry on the work this year and make the program truly local-run. 
Settling into the little plane, we watched the earth fall away; knowing that the sight of the little mud houses out the window is one we won’t see for a long time. What a shock it was to land in Johannesburg, with superhighways and towering office buildings and huge malls! I feel such a sense of dislocation sometimes as I think of the sights we saw every day in Mozambique, and compare them to what I see out the car window here in the USA, a feeling that somehow I belong there, yet slipping so easily into living here. -C
We are thankful that our renters wanted to use most of the furniture, because it wouldn’t have fit in our container! Every dish, every book, every electronic device was packed away in a plastic trunk and stacked in the big metal container outside the house. It was a good way to prepare for being away from all of our things, instead of just walking away from them and being whisked away on an airplane. However, it is an odd separation to leave your home for a whole year, putting away scrapbooks and favorite kitchen tools and books. After being away from those things for awhile, you start to forget where your things are, and wonder if you’ve left your John Grisham novel in the container, loaned it to a friend, given it away, or sold it at the garage sale!
There was a lot of work put in by the kids this 
year, and we are glad they were able to choose topics that all of us found interesting. Ben had a great time making home-made instruments and testing pitch on real instruments. His grasp of the subject matter when he was dictating the report as I typed was incredible.
This year was no exception, and we sang the national anthem (a strange experience for many of our children, so we post the words in plain view), ate potato salad, and drank Coke. Our environment might have looked a lot different and we might have been missing a lot of American food that we can’t buy here, but it was a lot of fun. We are thankful for the countrymen who share our experiences in this place so far from our loved ones, and who are another kind of family for us. – C
A donor provided funds for each of the monitors to buy a number of books, and they were very happy to browse and buy in the bookstore set up in one of the conference rooms – the books are subsidized by the organization and come at low prices.
probably because I can now speak some Macua, which is the language they almost always use together.
The filters inside are changed occasionally, but scrubbed down more often to clean off the nasty goop that accumulates on them (but doesn’t go into our water).
Kevin will never forget the time he attended a church and heard a sermon about how Noah and his family threw poo from the ark at the people on the shore.
how to teach can be tremendously helpful, and many of the attendees expressed a “wow!” kind of attitude as the information was given, and after the seminar. Kevin taught for many hours in Portuguese – exhausting! However, it was much appreciated and we trust will have effects in the local churches for years to come. Meanwhile, I helped two other ladies cook the meal – grilled chicken, beans, cabbage salad and the stiff porridge that is eaten daily called xima (sheemah). – C
taken unless it is a group photo, posed for a purpose, so many of our photos are awkward. It is really a challenge to teach these women, all of whom are in difficult marriages and who face poverty and disease as a matter of course. In their culture, they are treated as less than men, to varying degrees. Some live in horrible circumstances, degraded and abused by their husbands. Others run their own small business while their alcoholic husbands terrorize them and their children. Some have a relatively stable home life, which involves all the expected duties of carrying water, cooking from scratch over a fire, washing all the clothes by hand, and living mostly outdoors (miserable in the rainy season when everyone huddles in the tiny mud houses). How do you teach a theology of love and concern for others to those who do not experience love and concern? How do you teach women to show their children they love them when daily life is so difficult and consistent and loving discipline is simply not practiced in their culture? How do you teach them that God deems them worth of respect when they are treated as objects and servants by the men around them? When we speak of romance or godly desire, I see their mouths twist in bitterness. When we speak of children lost, some of them are freshly grieving a lost child. It has been a challenge to know what to say and so we return again and again to the same scriptures: God has created them, man and woman. You have a Creator, you have a Father, you have a Savior. He who is Hope personified. – C
It is official – we have a teenager. He celebrated with an overnight party with friends, watching favorite movies and eating homemade pizza. A pan of brownies was good enough for a cake – no more fancy parties needed! Toby continues to be a joy to us and those who know him. Since he is a teen now, I can’t gush about him publicly anymore, but will merely say we are very proud of who he is and who he is becoming, and find his strength of character a personal challenge to us. He makes us better people, no joke. Watch out world – this one is going to change you! – C
He slept on the treadmill in our room the first night so we could hear if he needed help getting up – very convenient for draping the necessary mosquito net!
Kevin & Cami in Southern Africa 