Get Out Of The Boat!

Visitors from the "snowy" north!

2012-01-06T07:56:00.000-06:00

I realize its been awhile since my last post- but I have an excuse!!! On Christmas day we picked up My sister Brenda and her husband Justin and their baby boy Colin in South Africa. Two days later we picked up Ricks brother Kevin and then squished all of them and us, all of our luggage (which was a considerable amount!) into (and on) the truck and then drove up here to the farm. It was a squishy ride for the three adults and two kids in the back seat, but we made it safely- Praise the Lord.

(not our vehicle, but ours was just as packed!! LOL) this is a scene we see nearly everyday!

After we arrived here, we gave everyone a day or two to adjust to farm life and intense heat, before we got to work getting things done! Its been awesome to see our family experiencing what we do here. Some of it isnt so glamorous, most is rather hot and dusty, but its important work that needs doing and we are glad to be able to share that with others!

Here are a few pictures from the past weeks- I hope to update more regularly now that we are settled with them!

Me and Tendai with Brenda, Justin, Colin and Farai.

Kevin, Tendai and Casamilo and Cerio.

Casamilo, Cerio and their sister Mariamo are living in the hut.... soon they will be living in that house in the background! YEY!!

Kevin helped Sowero take his maize and other food items back to his house. It was raining off and on the whole time we delivered Orphan food, but we weren't complaining since it kept it much cooler!

Brenda, Colin, Tendai and I spent a day driving Celestino (one of the mission's health workers) and Mathew around to visit some folks in need of home visits, delivering medical supplies to our other clinic and misc other errands. Here in Mucombedze community Brenda tried out the local water pump- did a pretty good job too!

At Baba Andreas' house Tendai wanted to "help" so Mathew taught her and Brenda how to take the kernels off the corn cobs. The first step in the process to get them ready to go to grinding mill and be made into maize flour for sudza.

She was pretty excited to help out!

While Tendai was helping Mathew, Celestino did his soccarista work,

and Ernesto made friends with Colin.

While we were off doing our visiting, Kevin and Justin were back at our house building bricks alongside our local guys.

Here is pretty much what the house looks like now, those blue boxes are the electrical outlets, which Rick, Justin and Kevin installed earlier this week. So exciting to see WALLS going up! Once they have finished this next row all the way around (it takes longer since they have to chisel every brick to go over/around the electical stuff) the walls should go up "chop chop!"

Getting the conduit pipes to just the right angle

Justin used a grinder and hammer to make space for all the boxes in the bricks. He has also been helping our coworkers Ron and Barb install plumbing for their shower and fixing a drainage problem of epic proportions (ok.. its not that bad but it seems like it is to me!) at our little cottage. Everyone is pretty excited to have a trained plumber on the scene- skilled tradesmen are ALWAYS a blessing this far in the bush!

We are very happy to say that we recieved a HUGE blessing this Christmas- our December mission fund report brought tears to our eyes as we saw that over $20,000.00 had been donated towards our building fund! Friends, that brings us up to the half way mark in fundraising! Please pray that we can continue to reach our fundraising goals so that work can continue. I (Heather) cannot wait to be in this new house, with room for Tendai to play, have guests over, have space to move and not have to trip over boxes of supplies! Im praying the house building goes miraculously fast, but I know that it will still take a long long time so im trying not to get my hopes up too high!

I hope your Christmas season was filled with family, friends and the Peace of our Lord. We are looking forward to this New Year and all the adventures that will come with it!

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai

Oh how I love Christmas Smiles!

2011-12-15T07:51:00.000-06:00

Monday Dec 12th, we had our Annual Amigo Orphan Christmas Party- it was sooooo much fun! Although the mission indirectly assists with Amor Orphan Programs in many northern communities (where pastors in our training program reach out to those in need in their areas, well over 1000 children!), we have a much more in depth involvement with the Amigo Orphan children here in our local area.

This year we were again blessed to have the party hosted by Lamimos Lodge, and our friends William and Monica who own it. These folks open their restaurant each year on their only day off each week, and bring in their staff extra just to host our large group! We are so thankful for them! Each of our guests (children and their caregivers) ate a YUMMY lunch of 1/2 chicken and rice with salad and of course, the staple party drink in these areas- coca-cola!

After lunch we heard the Christmas Story, played games, painted faces, made ornaments from seed pods and then handed out the gifts. It was an amazing day and everyone had such a good time. The kids were so happy, the grannys were so thankful for everything and the food was very yummy!

Since I cant possibly describe it any better, ill just let the pictures show you how much fun was had!!

Joao and the caregivers celebrate the gifts!

Mariamo looks pretty excited too (she was singing).

This kid just melts my heart, Francisco you are such a sweetie!!

Me and the Girls work on some glittery sparkly ornaments.

Tendai somehow was given the job of decorating poor Francisco's face! He was such a good sport about it though!

Tendai and Mae Vaida discuss the meal.

Leila Frank (our colleague) joined right in with the singing and dancing!

Serving the meal to the grannies.

The older boys (Gabriel, Farai, Paulo and Francisco) enjoying their cokes.

Pastor Mariano reads the Christmas story to a very attentive audience.

When we first met Nailene three years ago he wouldnt even smile at me, or even look at me.. now just a glance in my direction brings big shy smiles and if I tickle him he just giggles! He is growing up soooo fast!

The grannies worked really hard on their ornaments, Im fairly certain they had never had the chance to do something like that before and they loved every minute of it!

Getting ready to give out the gifts.

Barb Wayner (of Mercy Air Mozambique) helps to hand out the gifts.

The older boys and grannies show their appreciation for Pastor Mariano, who pretty much runs the orphan program under our supervision. We are so thankful for him and all the work he does!

Group Shot at the end of the party- lots of very happy faces!!!

We are so thankful for everyone who sponsors these kids. Your sponsorship helps us provide food, school supplies, clothing and valuable life skills to the children. If you are interested in knowing how you can help with our Amigo orphan program please let us know. We do have several needs including staff sponsorship (sponsoring the salaries of the local staff who work directly with the children), additional sponsorship for students in higher levels of education, and individual children who are waiting for sponsorship as well.

This Christmas is going to be a really busy one for us! We leave this Sunday to go down to South Africa to pick up some short term visitors. These visitors are VERY special to us as they are all FAMILY! Nothing excites us more than having family around for the holidays!! We pick up my sister and her husband and their baby boy on Christmas morning, and Rick's brother Kevin two days later! My sister and her family are coming as volunteers for three and a half weeks to help us with our house (he is a plumber!!) and with various other projects around the farm. We will also be visiting orphan programs and local churches to show them what our mission does, and what our mission trains others to do!

We plan to be back here on the farm before New Years and to jump right into work as soon as possible!

Please pray for us as we have an awful lot of travelling and errands to get accomplished in a short period of time. Pray that our visitors will not have horrible jet lag, or to many problems adjusting to the weather etc.

Ill try to post an update on our house from down in SA- but the good news is.. THEY HAVE STARTED LAYING BRICKS!!! It is sooooo exciting to see where the walls will go and how everything is laid out. Please pray with us that the funds we need will come in, as we have lots of supplies and materials that need purchased, and our house fund at this point is very very low!

Thank you so much for your prayers, we hope you all are enjoying this Christmas season and taking time to celebrate Christ's Birth as the central reason for it!

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai

Invasion....some good...some not so good.

2011-12-09T07:45:00.000-06:00

Some of the pastors enjoying a meal together, prepared by our school chef and some of the sponsored children who volunteer to help during their holiday.

This past week we were INVADED- By over forty pastor monitors who came to attend the Seminario Biblia de Fe (Faith Bible Seminary) intensive training seminars! All of these gentleman come to get trained twice yearly and then go home back to their communities and train many more pastors who are studying in our program there!

What made this Intensive Seminar even MORE special that they normally are, is that we were for the first time EVER able to host it at the Training Centre which has been under construction for what feels like forever and was finally ready to be used. There is still some work to be done, but at least it is useable now!

Needless to say, EVERYONE was pretty excited to be using the training center! In the picture above you can see the three "wings"- on the left and right are classrooms, and in the centre wing is a general meeting room, a administration office and what will one day be a bookstore.

Dwight welcomes the pastors and gives the first devotional in the new building.

Pastors worshipping and praying together.

All of the missionaries are involved in some way or other with seminars. Rick was teaching two books this time, as well as a seminar on orphan care. In addition to that Rick managed to keep a pretty good handle on the work going on at our house and we were able to get the floor finished completly! YEY!

The pedreiros work to complete the last portion of floor.

Yey!!!! Its all done! Praise the Lord!

Its exciting for us to see the floor done, and we cant wait to see the walls start next week!(we hope!) Right now the guys are very busy making bricks for the walls- which is a big job, since we are gonna need an awful lot of bricks!

We have also been INVADED lately by insects. In particular ANTS. Every day I clean, spray, and try a new method of persuading them to go elsewhere. We havent had this problem before, but aparently this year the ants have decided to invade. Hoping the invasion ends soon. :)

These are pictures of the INVASION of the flying ants. This does happen every year, and usually im prepared for it. It allways happens after major rains at this time of year. This year, I forgot. Perhaps because we were on furlough last year, but it completly took me by suprise this year, which meant I left our windows unsealed... and the flying ants INVADED.

After a mild panic session, I hid in the bathroom with Tendai and let Rick take care of exterminating and cleaning up. ICK.

This year we have also had a problem with crocodiles which Ive blogged about before. Our river shouldnt have crocs at all, but it does for some reason. They are mostly small and not of the man-eating variety, but they have been attacking our sheep and lambs when they go to the river to drink. Domingo our shepherd caught one a month or so ago in his net, and just caught another one the other day.

The most recently caught croc, a small juvenile, and Domingo our shepherd in the background.

Tendai is so brave. I wouldn't even go near the thing. Go Tendai!! (I should clarify that it was dead. Im not about to let my child sit on a live crocodile)

It was also Tendai's 3rd Birthday last week. We got her a bike on our last trip to South Africa, its still a bit big for her, but she enjoys trying it out every so often while she waits to grow into it! We cannot believe she is 3 years old already! It seems like just yesterday she was a tiny little baby being placed into our arms on the side of the road! She is such a blessing and we are so honored that God chose us to be her parents!

This week we have plenty of prayer requests and praise reports! Its a busy time here on the farm.

Prayer Requests

- One of our staff members, Charles, who has been with the mission a very long time had to have emergency surgery this week. It was a life and death situation and although he is still struggling with the aftereffects of having major surgery he seems to be doing ok. Please pray with us that they can keep infections away and under control (as in these conditions that is a constant and MAJOR threat) and he can remember to take it easy. In the pic below he is waving to all those who have prayed for him, this was taken the morning after his surgery when he was still on painkillers.

-Pray for us as missionaries as we are far from home and family during the holiday season. Many of us are travelling this year to various places, but we covet your prayers for our safety as we drive in less than ideal conditions. Dwight and Lynn are going to Canada on furlough so they are doing ALOT of traveling!

- Prayer for our house construction would be appreciated. Both that the guys will be able to get work done during the rainy season, and that we will have the funds to continue with our build. In a month or two we will be at a stage where we are going to need a large amount of funds at one time. If we don't have those funds we wont be able to continue.

Praise Reports-

-Most of the children in the Amigo Orphan Program passed their grades, and those who didnt have been identified and plans for tutoring help are in the work for next year.

-The rains have started and the local people have planted their fields- pray the rains will continue!

-We have family coming to visit next month as short term volunteers! We are sooo excited to go pick them up and have them visit us for a few weeks!

-We get to spend a few days as a family over Christmas in South Africa, we still have errands to do, but we are hoping that we can find a day or two to have fun together as a family.

Again, Thanks to everyone for their support and prayers. We love to hear from you!

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai

Pouring of all sorts.

2011-11-25T11:09:00.000-06:00

We started pouring the floor on our house this week. The first day was PERFECT for pouring- overcast, cool and just fabulous. The second day started out well and the guys got a good bit accomplished... and then just after everyone had left for the day the heavens opened up and it POURED. The kind of thunderstorm where you run and hide and wish you had earplugs. Rick tried to get plastic over the newly poured floor, but fearing for his own safety (in a lightning storm and standing on a mesh of rebar) he only got MOST of it covered... the very edge where he wasn't able to secure actually washed away, so we will have to repour there, as well as drain the remaining rooms that are waiting to be poured as they literally filled to the brim with water. It was nuts.

Please pray with us as we try to get the rest of the floor poured next week. We need several days of non rainy weather in order to finish. Once the floor is done then rain wont be such a issue. As long as it isn't pouring like crazy work can continue, though at a slower pace.

Here are a few pictures from the last few days!

Rick helps to level out a stubborn "low part"

Tendai learning a thing or two from Peter.

Nearly half way done!

We train em young out here!

Looks like she needed a bit more instruction.

One of our workers wheels a VERY heavy load of cement.

Finished product-(the top part at least)

wow. good thing we just got them new boots.

Tendai's boots after her hard five minutes of floor smoothing.

This is what the foundations looked like today after the CRAZY thunderstorm. Totally flooded. Completly. ack!

our foundations aka the lake. the rooms on the right were supposed to be poured today but we couldnt due to the rain.

Rick made a little hole in each room right by the edge of the foundation that we will repair later, but it helped to drain nearly all of the water in just a few hours. In this picture you can see the waterfall off to the left if you look closely.

Starting tommorow, (Saturday the 26th) the Pastor Monitors begin arriving for this week of Intensive Training Seminars. Rick will be teaching two books as well as a shorter one hour seminar, and trying to keep everything going at our house as well. Please pray for him and the everyone else participating in next weeks busy activities!

God Bless,

Rick, Heather and Tendai Neufeld

November Update Video

2011-11-22T12:51:00.000-06:00

Hey All, We posted this update video last week, If you havent already checked it out then here is your chance! We hope you enjoy it! ( if you do enjoy it.. or even if you dont, take a moment to let us know!) :)

Tommorow (Nov 23rd) after several delays and much dirt packing and rebar tying... we are starting to pour the floor on our house! Please pray for good weather and no hiccups! We are so grateful to those who have donated thus far to our house fund and have made it possible for us to get to this point. We look forward to having this part done, and starting on the walls soon. We have enough funds to start the walls, but will need additional funding to finish them and for the more costly project parts such as roofing etc. Thanks for your prayers, we appreciate them so much!

Rick, in addition to pouring our house floor with the guys will also be prepping for and teaching two books during next weeks intensive seminars! Please pray for us as this is a busy few weeks coming up!

God Bless,

Rick. Heather and Tendai Neufeld.

Bubbles of Blessings

2011-11-11T12:56:00.000-06:00

** Note- this is a bit different than my normal posts... but I really felt I needed to post it anyway, maybe there is someone out there just like me who needs to see it.- Heather**

Every once and awhile there is a moment where I capture pure Joy on Tendai's face. You know the kind of joy we all long to have.. where you throw your hands up in the air and giggle and chase bubbles and dont care who looks at you or what they think if they do?!? This week I caught a few pics of Tendai chasing bubbles, and though they arent in the best of focus, they spoke to me.

I long to remember that feeling. Ive caught myself at home lately lifting my hands in worship as I listen to Casting Crowns or Chris Tomlin and then lowering them quickly, not wanting to look "silly." Shame on me. When did it become silly to raise my hands to my creator? When did I become scared to look silly when Im the only one home? (or in front of others for that matter!)

I hope these pictures remind you (and me) to look for those moments, the ones where we feel free, to laugh, to giggle, to lift our hands, to twirl around, to passionately worship our Abba Father.. and chase those bubbles of Blessings.

God Bless,

Heather

Very Busy Semana (week)... otherwise known as VBS!

2011-11-06T23:54:00.000-06:00

Ok, for the past week we were running the annual DVBS at the mission school, and for the week before that we were prepping for it! It was a lot of fun this year with only one of the five days being ridiculously hot (in the 40's!)! The rest were nice and cloudy and cooler and we had so much fun playing and teaching the kids. Here are some pics from the week- hope you enjoy them!

Tendai Helps us prepare by loading up the water balloons for day one of VBS

We filled nearly 200 balloons every day. We love waterballoon games!

Tendai made this face everytime she threw a balloon in. I have no idea why.

A wet sponge game! More fun!

Who doesn't love a good sack race?

Balloon games... we love em.

Rick telling the story of David and Goliath.

and... more balloon games. (have i mentioned these are a highlight for just about everyone?)

some of the lovely faces we get to see!

Balloon toss game.

Oh how I love these smiles!

On the driveway to the school is this tree. I really wonder how it got that way.

More amazing faces.

The kids painted rocks to help decorate outside the school for their closing ceremonies this coming week.

One of my favorite smiles from the week. He has mischeif written all over his face dont you think? :)

Rick tried his hand at some face (arm) painting.

So did some of the kids. :)

On Friday morning we got to watch a Bible Story Movie... and we got to use the wonderful new projector we had donated by our supporting church in Morinville, Alberta. The kids LOVED the video, and we loved that we didnt have to tape up the whole room and turn it into a dark hole to see the picture on the screen. Fantastic!

Kids and Teachers intently watching the video on the "big screen" !

They sat perfectly still for at least half an hour. Everybody loves a good movie out in our neck of the woods seeing as they rarely, if ever, see one.

Tendai helped out by feeding the duikers every so often while Mommy and Daddy were getting ready for VBS.

We thank everyone who prayed for cooler weather, as it really made the week so much more enjoyable! Its hard to have a lot of energy to play and keep up with 170 some kids in plus 40 degree weather!

Currently we are in South Africa, for a very quick one week trip to get supplies and errands done both for our house and also for the mission. Everything from electrical wires, to truck axels, replacing stolen mirrors to uploading update videos! Please pray for good health, safe travels, safety while in an around town (as there is a lot of crime here, especially when you are driving a truck with Mozambique plates!), and that the funds will continue to come in for our house fund. Thanks so much!

God Bless,
Rick, Heather & Tendai

Encouragement comes in the form of Tic Tacs and other things...

2011-10-22T12:56:00.000-06:00

This week we were soooo blessed to recieve a lovely bunch of care packages from Home because Dwight and Lynn just returned from South Africa. Along with some story books for Tendai, and some lovely outfits, we recieved candies we cant get here, some spices we love, lip balms, cards, stickers for T, lotions and..... LOVE. Those little packages brighten my day so much. The BIG container of Tic Tacs we got caused great excitement for Tendai. Recently the little tic tac containers arrived at our shoprite so we purchased a few to be her "potty candies" (we are potty training... still). The look on her face when she discovered what to her must have looked like a GIANT container of her favorites, was priceless. She grabbed them out of the box and yelled..." look mommy!! BIG potty candies!!!." Too funny.

Of course, the biggest encouragement for me came in the form of the cards my mom sends me each week. It never fails to amaze me how she can send me a package or card months in advance, and when I finally get it here it is EXACTLY what I needed to hear at that moment. For instance. My mom sent Tendai a lovely sticker book in a big bubble envelope. I figure she wanted to wrap it up in some cloth to protect it in the package so she chose four pillowcases and wrapped it up. THIS very week I realised we did not have enough pillowcases for us to wash a whole set and have some on the bed as well. Just love how God meets even our small needs, that are just insignificant to everyone, but He chooses to meet them anyway.

Other encouragement came from the the cards my mother sends, there is allways at least one of them that blesses me so much. Here are two in particular :

"Just Think

You're here not by chance.

but by God's choosing.

His hand formed you and

made you the person you are.

He compares you to no one else-

you are one of a kind.

You lack nothing that

His grace can't give you.

He has allowed you to be here

at this time in history

to fulfull His special purpose

for this generation."

(Roy Lessin)

And this one, whose truth has been so apparent to me lately as we have seen the power of prayer in so many ways.

"No ocean can hold it back

No river can overtake it.

No whirlwind can go faster.

No army can defeat it.

No law can stop it.

No distance can slow it.

No disease can cripple it.

No force on earth is more powerful,

OR effective than

The POWER OF PRAYER."

Thanks again for all the prayers and support (and letters and emails and packages!) We will definetly need lots of prayer in the coming weeks as we gear up to run our DVBS at the school for 160 kids! (oct 31-Nov4).

God Bless,

Rick, Heather & Tendai Neufeld

is it mid october already?

2011-10-17T10:53:00.000-06:00

These past few weeks we have had quite a bit of rain, even though its not rainy season yet.. at all! We have been thankful for the roof over our heads as the rain has come down pretty hard at times! Although we are enjoying the early rains, we do hope they slow a bit so we can get some much needed sand from the "dry" riverbed before the path becomes to soft for the big truck to enter. All the construction projects on the farm need the sand so its very important that we get as much as we can before the rains "really" come!

We are also excited to have the trusses finally going up on the rest of our garage. Once they are all up then we can finish the roof sheets and our garage will be completely ready for rainy season! Woohoo!

Its also exciting that we now have almost all the supplies we need to pour the floor on our house! This includes A LOT of cement (this is about half of what we will need) and also rebar to support the floor as well. The guys are SOOO close to finishing the filling of the foundation- and then they will need to prep the floor to be poured (that means a lot of rebar and leveling etc) And then we will be pouring! I cant wait for the floor to be on. For me it feels like everything up to this point has been preparation for building the house, and now we are so close to actually BUILDING the house!

We appreciate your prayers for the funding we need and the supplies we need to be available. As Dwight and Lynn put it when they moved into their permanent home here on the base (from the tiny cottage they were in, similar to ours) "(their) "survivability" level went WAY up." In other words, when you have a place that feels like home to you, your chances of sticking it out here in the bush go way up! We love our work here, we love the people we work with, and cant wait to have a place for our family- because we plan on staying for a really long time!

this is from last week, there is already another whole brick covered in the verandah!

Rick has been working hard to keep the guys at the training centre on track as they race to finish the work needed before the rainy season arrives. We want to use the center for the upcoming Seminars for our Pastors in November. There is so much work to be done, but it looks like we will at least be able to use the training centre even if its not totally complete. It has been many years in the making so this is pretty exciting to see the roof go on and know that it will be at least useable soon!

Heather and Tendai have been busy working on some preschool activities during the day and my usual work as well. I was so excited last week when we got the marks for most of our orphan kids from the school. Overall they are doing really well, but one family stood out as having EXCEPTIONAL marks.

One of the kids in the Amigo Orphan Program receives school supplies and texts!

In mozambique students are marked out of twenty. Ten is a pass (so 50%). Most kids hover right around that mark, just barely passing is completely normal and meets the status quo so no one really pushes them much harder. We have spent a good amount of time lately encouraging our kids towards excellence, not just "good enough to pass" and have even started tutoring some of the older kids. Our hope is to have tutoring for all the kids soon, we just need to find the right person to do it! All that to say, in a sea of good marks (10-13's) three of our kids had consistent 15's and above and even a few 19's!!! I was quite impressed. There are a few kids who are having some issues, but having their marks and attendance records will really help us to come up with a plan of action to help them!

I was beginning to feel like perhaps it was the educational system that was flawed, that the kids here were not being taught well enough to receive high marks, since it seemed that EVERYONE was getting what I would consider low marks. Now that I have seen that its POSSIBLE for them to Excel, I am so much more motivated to see all of our kids do well! Please pray that we can find someone who can help us tutoring the children in our program part time.

Our little zoo is doing well.. both duikers seem to be doing well and both of them LOVE when Rick comes with their bottles... they run straight for him! Its the most adorable thing, and they are so cute, but since we are hoping to release them into the wild eventually, we limit our "cuddling" with them to feeding times so they don't get too used to us.

Pretty much since we got home in April, Rick, and Domingo (our shepherd) have been trying numerous methods of capture to try and catch the Crocodile that has been eating our sheep and lambs. Its literally been months of baiting the thing- I am sure we have fed that thing at least twenty chickens, numerous other hunks of meat, at least a dozen fishhooks and all sorts of other things. Today Domingo came to wake us up early and tell us that the Croc had been CAUGHT! (and using his simple drag a net across the river and leave it method.. no bait, no hooks, no wire... Way to Go Domingo!)

Rick had to go help him get the thing out of the river and brought it back to our house so the guys could skin it. (If you catch a crocodile you might as well keep the skin!) Unfortunately since it had died in the water during the night we couldn't eat the meat, its never a good idea to eat wild meat you didnt actually kill. Too bad since it was a lot of very good looking meat!

He wasnt a huge croc by Zambezi river standards, but for our little Mucombedze river, which isnt even really supposed to HAVE crocodiles hes a fairly good size! We all touched his skin, which felt like rubber and then two of the guys skinned him, and spread his skin to dry. Will be interesting to see how it turns out.

As always we covet your prayers and we love to hear from you! Its always encouraging for us to get emails from home, comments on the blog or even cards in the mail. Specific prayers for right now include prayers for our health as Rick has Malaria and both Tendai and I have had a stomach bug for a few days now. And we just had ANOTHER snake on our yard as I was writing this update! Lovemore came running with Tendai who was "helping him" and brought her inside before going back out to whack it and kill it with a long piece of rebar. Prayers for safety from the creepy crawleys like Snakes, scorpions, stinging centipedes etc are always appreciated.

To close off Ill post a few pics of the gorgeous Mozambican scenery. Lately weve been taking one afternoon each weekend to drive with no exact destination in mind, but to just enjoy the drive and scenery along the way! Weve visited mountains, forests and even spent some time visiting a few of the churches pastored by men in our Training program.

children dancing at an outside church gathering in Catandica

Pastor Paulo's daughter joins the "choir" to sing and dance.

large areas of clear cut forests of mature trees... most likely for charcoal production.. so sad.

see the sign up there beside the huge area of trees cut off??? it says.. "conserve the plants", other signs nearby said "conserve the forest", and similar slogans!

The view over Catandica from the top of the Serra Choa mountians. SO pretty. The drive up was breathtaking thru hairpin turns on the steep side of a mountain covered in gorgeous Mozambican forest!

on the other side of the mountian the landscape changed drastically, it was like stepping into scotland or ireland or something. No more forest, just hill after hill of rocky pastures with short grass. The sky was amazing. We will definetly be going back there again.. it was spectacular!

going further into the mountains we arrived at yet more hairpin turns winding up the hillside.

amazing fall colors... except here these are SPRING colors! The red leaves are actually the new growth, they turn green as they mature!

Thanks again for your prayers and support, we appreciate them all! Please feel free to drop us a line any time!

God Bless,

Rick, Heather & Tendai Neufeld

What's Up??

2011-10-06T12:54:00.000-06:00

Hey All,

Sorry its been awhile since my last post- seems I let time get away from me! Weve been busy with all our usual things lately, office work, orphan food delivery, house construction, snake killing, duiker rearing,.... oh wait. Guess I should go into a bit more detail on those eh? :)

Weve been so busy with everything the last few weeks I didnt even remember it was Thanksgiving this weekend until a Canadian missionary friend from Madagascar announced she was inviting EVERY Canadian on the Embassy's email list for their area to her house for Thanksgiving dinner. WOW. First of all... I wish I could go (but its a bit of a hike no matter how close Madagascar looks to us on the map) and secondly.. I wish I had the courage to organize that kind of get-together!

Here at our farm, Dwight and Lynn left today to take Ruth and Royden who had been visiting for two weeks down to South Africa, so Rick and I will be the lone Canadians this weekend... well, along with two mozambicasn (living at the farm.. there are lots more up the road! ) two south africans, one american and a Brazilian. ... Maybe we can organize a get together of some sort on the weekend to mark the occasion!

On Monday this week we did Orphan Food Delivery. It was good to see the kids again, and spend some time visiting with the grannies and caregivers. At Mae Liria's house these two little neighbor kids wandered over to say hi. Can I just say that they were two sweeties? They spent a while hamming it up for my camera, and investigating the finer points of the truck.

Im not sure exactly WHAT they were discussing, but it was a very intense conversation!

And of course, they had to look at themselves in the truck's mirror- like paint!

Mae Liria cares for three children that are enrolled in the Amigo Orphan Program, but she also has another grandchild that she cares for while the father works at a farm near here. Normally the little one is scared to bits of me.. but this week I got a few adorable shots as she rested on her grannies back.

I also got a cute pic of a neighbor boy using the broken down remains of a wheelbarrow to carry a water jug. It struck me as funny that he would go thru so much effort to use the wheelbarrow (it was pretty awkward to use) rather than just carry it on his head like everyone else. And then it struck me. Three years ago I never would have thought.. hmmm carrying things on your head is soooo much easier! I think Ive been here a while!!! LOL

Our house has been progressing as well-

Tendai is standing in what will be the guest room, looking out over the main room, master bedroom and her own bedroom. Its exciting to see the foundations filling up! Only the room where Rick is standing and the verandah are left to be filled!

the verandah half filled!

Rick uses the Backhoe to dig a septic tank pit for our house.

Stacks of bricks all made by our workers- they are doing such a great job at making these and I cant wait till its time to use them for the actual walls!!

Weve had unexpected rain recently, along with a few other delays so now it looks like our floor wont be poured until Late Oct/ Early Nov at least. We are praying that we will have enough funds to continue building. It is awesome so see how fast the foundation has gotten filled- even though it feels slow at times, its still been several months faster than the other houses that have been built recently!

We have also had our share of wildlife issues recently, including a snake taking refuge under the groundsheet of our blow-up splash pool. Lovemore and I took turns whacking it (he with a length of rebar, me with my pellet gun). Im pretty happy to say that I managed to take two shots and hit it both times, killing it.

No one is entirely certain what kind it is, but seeing as it was making its home by our kiddie pool It had to go! So proud of myself since three years ago even the thought of snakes made me all nauseous! (They still freak me out.. but at least I can deal with it now)

ick.

We also took in two baby Duiker's this week. Duikers are a type of very small gazelle, they dont get much higher than your knee full grown. Right now our big one is just higher than Tendai's knee! They are both orphaned ( duikers are hunted for food here, even though there are very few of them left) We have one male (Named Colin) and a tiny female that we are hoping will make it. She doesnt have a name yet.

Colin hiding out in the bush! ie.. the fence enclosure.

ahhhhhh!!! being chased by a small human!

sooo cute.

Thanks everyone for your prayers and support. We have had a really great week and are looking forward for the next little while as things on our house continue on! This update has been a bit all over the place, kinda like we have been lately, but I hope you have enjoyed it!

Blessings, Rick, Heather & Tendai

Important Arrivals..

2011-09-19T07:49:00.000-06:00

Remember over two years ago when we were thrilled to have this picture ??? Thats the President of Mozambique holding our then 8 month old bundle of joy, Tendai. That picture, which we got only by a small miracle, really helped our adoption process to go incredibly smoothly!

This week the First Lady of Mozambique (that is the presidents wife), came to our area for a visit and once again we were asked to be there to represent the mission. This time however, we were also asked to set up a few tables, with items to display on them representing what the mission does and in particular, our women's literacy program. Since everyone else on the mission had other pressing matters to attend to, I volunteered to help ferry items and people back and forth to set up. I thought it would take an hour or so.

As often happens here, things didnt go exactly as planned. At morning devotions I was asked to also sit at the table to represent the mission alongside some of the local staff. Sure, no problem- ill just take the items over in the AM, then go back in the PM when she is supposed to arrive.

Then it was determined that we needed to go back and get the "offering" for the First Lady... one of the mission's nicest sheep. Who was not to happy about going. The extra trips meant I spent most of my morning ferrying, vegetables, trees, a grumpy sheep, tables, chairs, staff members, study books, white boards, photos, computers and myself back and forth.

On our last trip Donna Angela (the area goverment leader), asked me where Tendai was. I was then asked/told to make sure Tendai was here to greet the First Lady, as it was important for the First Lady to see how we were taking care of orphans in many different ways.

Of course, the First Lady had a jam packed schedule, and in typical African/Mozambican fashion that schedule was running significantly behind. Her 1:30 Arrival time came and went, so we did some wandering around to see everything set up for her arrival. The normally sleepy town of Pina had been TRANSFORMED! They had street lights set up (they have no electricity) and water taps (they have no running water or pump), large grass hut "hotels" to house the visiting dignitaries and many stalls displaying our areas agricultural produce. The lights were run by a generator and the tap's tanks were filled by hand with buckets. A fire truck from Chimoio was even brought out "just in case" since this is the middle of Fire season.

seriously the first time ive ever seen a fire truck here. i was shocked. it looks so nice!

Finally, after hours of waiting and very close to Tendai's patience limit, the First Lady arrived to cheering crowds of onlookers and supporters. She is a very well liked woman in this country, and not only because she is married to the president. She is very vocal and active in the area of women's and children's rights, education and opportunities. As she approached our table my nerves got worse and worse, since I knew I would be expected to greet her and answer her questions- in understandable Portuguese!

Praise the Lord, I managed to make some sense when talking to her, and was able to present one of our new ASAM hats, as well as two photos of Tendai with the President- which she absolutely loved and declared she would make sure to show him! And, in another wonderful turn of events, she also held Tendai, talked with her and allowed us to take a photo- these pictures are such a blessing to us!

Myself, Tendai and The First Lady of Mozambique, Maria de Luz Guebuza.

The same day as the First Lady's arrival, we also had the arrival of FIRE on the farm. Thankfully they were able to contain it to one side of the dry riverbed and to mostly on corner of that side. I just hate driving thru and seeing so much burnt area though. So sad.

In other news, this past week we had the completely unexpected and strange arrival of the first rain. Normally we don't get any rain until October at least, and its not a heavy rain of any sort until November. This past Friday we had a MASSIVE rainstorm/hailstorm/ incredible wind storm. I was at a ladies retreat near Chimoio and we ended up having no power at all for the entire weekend, but thankfully the buildings were ok. In Chimoio however many people's roofs blew off, large road signs were bent over and completely destroyed, and there was tons of hail damage. The mission's van happened to be in town at the wrong time and recieved both Hail damage to the body work, and a window was completely smashed out. The rains flooded many areas since the ground was hard and not yet softened to recieve that much water all in one storm. Out here at the farm we only received a sprinkling of rain, however in Chimoio buckets of water fell!

the storm clouds roll in over the retreat center buildings. we were up on a high plateau so it felt like the clouds were just close enough to reach out and touch. The wind was whipping in circles and once the rain started it was crazy!

these are louvre type windows that were in our rooms. Even completely shut the rain was still driving into the rooms.. horizontally!! It was NUTS. Those blurry spots outside were palm trees and papaya trees that I couldnt even seen thru the rain!

Tendai has been pretty busy these past few weeks as well. We have been invited to a playgroup in town and hope to be attending weekly. Tendai loves playing with the other kids, and I certainly enjoy the fellowship with other moms.

A local restaurant about 45 minutes from our house just installed a new trampoline- great way to burn off Tendai's two year old energy!

Lately Tendai has been really "into" carrying her babies on her back like the local ladies do, it is just SOOO cute!

Just to remind you of how HUGE our dog is. And how small our other dog is! Magnum and MacGyver are like the odd couple of dogs, but they get along so well!

I often ask for prayer for safety as we travel on the road, and several weeks ago we had the an accident that could have been much much worse than it was. This past week I drove around a corner and saw this:

A semi truck, carrying fuel tanks had rolled and somehow ended up in THIS position. Dont ask me how. I have no idea if anyone was killed, but it seems to me it would have been a miracle if any had survived. Please continue to pray for safety as we drive, especially as Tendai and I drive into to town more regularly to attend play group and grocery shopping so Rick is free to keep things moving on our house.

The house is moving along fabulously- the main room (the biggest one) is nearly full, and then there is one bedroom, our screen room and the verandah left to complete. The end (of filling the foundation) is near!! PTL! Rick is busy hauling dirt and we have hired a few extra guys to make sure we can get all the river sand we need before the rains come! Again, please pray for the funds we need to come in, as well as speedy work by our workers!

We also lost one of our farm generators recently (well we didnt LOSE it literally, but it has stopped working completely), and replacing it will cost all of us missionaries quite a bit. Our generators keep the farm running, from our house electricty, to the water pumps, carpentry shop, administration office and so much more! If you are interested in helping us meet our portion of the replacement cost please drop us a line and let us know. Each missionary couple's ministry budget will need to contribute nearly $3,000.00.

And, a few final pics of Tendai- feeding her babies at the play group, and helping daddy on the tractor. Strapped in with a seat belt of course.

bumbo seats... did you know they were invented in South Africa?

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai

Updates!

2011-09-08T03:20:00.000-06:00

Hi all- its been a busy month (August) but we are so glad that we made it thru, happy, healthy and SAFE! God has shown us numerous times in the past month that He is our Protector and we are so thankful for that! Weve had alot going on recently and so Im just going to do a quick update post and post a few videos!

Rick got back from up north last week and was full of awesome stories about what God is doing in our pastor training extension schools up north! It is awesome to see so many female church leaders taking up the challenge to be educated and study! He was able to see some pastor associations that are really going out of their way to reach out to the orphans in their area, and fellowship with pastors who have a dream to plant gardens and grow healthy food.

Tendai and I were VERY happy to have Rick home- two weeks is much to long for me! (i know, i know.. im a wimp!)

Work on our house has been progressing slowly but surely- We are nearing the end of the "foundation" stage, and hope to have the floor poured by mid-October. Heres a video for those of you interested in knowing what our house looks like at the moment!

We look forward to having a home where our kids (we hope one day to have more than one!) can play safely and can sleep in actual bedrooms. We look forward to having kitchen cupboards and a place for our kitchen table... and we especially look forward to having a guest room... so we can have MORE VISITORS!!! (hint hint)

And just in case you are wondering why we are out here... aside from the training work we do with pastors and church leaders, aside from supervising construction projects galore on the farm... we are here to help raise up a generation of young people in Mozambique, who Love God... and who want to serve Him. Many of the children we work with are orphans. This is a video we played in several churches when we were home on furlough, but I dont think it made it onto the blog. I hope you enjoy it!

We hope to get a few more videos done soon to show you some of the amazing things we saw up north and as we packed and delivered the orphan care packs, as well as developments on our house. Please join with us in praying that funds will start to come in for our house fund. The funds we have now will allow us to finish pouring the floor (we hope) but we will need to raise some more before we can really get going on the walls (and plumbing and electrical and, and, and....). We need to free up the short term cottage for other staff in need of a place to stay, and get into a house that is more suited for a family with kids!

Thanks so much for the prayers... we appreciate them so much!

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai

The Least of These...

2011-08-26T08:00:00.001-06:00

Matthew 25:37- 40

³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

sunset over the rail line as we drove north

This week I had the privilege of joining Rick up north for a few days as he started his 12 days of seminars and training the pastors. Tendai and I went up with our colleague Andy, to help Rick and Dwight hand out the Orphan Care packs purchased last year during our Unique Christmas Gifts campaign.

The children who recieve these gifts are either orphans or vulnerable children. Many have been abandoned, all are struggling to survive in whatever situation they find themselves. Most do not receive more than on full meal a day, will have to travel five hours by foot followed by several on a boat to recieve medical care, and attend a school where the highest available grade currently is grade 3.

this is part of the bike/walking bush trail that the pastors widened to make it passable for trucks like ours!

The village Rick and I went to is called Chireza, it is located about two hours past the end of the planet. Or at least that is what it felt like! We left the highway and drove three and a half hours on a dirt road then it was two hours on a dirt track/sand road, and finally, after crossing a rather interesting bridge, we drove nearly an hour on a bush trail. We wound in and around rural villages, small herds of cattle and goats, women pounding maize, and thru many dry riverbeds.

the bridge. those rocks are about the size of footballs and basketballs.

Once we arrived in Chireza we were greeting by the entire church and community singing and clapping as we drove up to the Pastor's home. I wish I could upload the video of I have of them surrounding us and reaching out to shake our hands.. it was such an amazing moment.

a granny recieves her certificate for completing books one and two in the training program

After initial introductions and organization we had an hour of teaching, and then handed out the certificates for the pastors and church leaders studying in the mission's extension Bible Schools. I was so impressed by the number of women studying in the Chireza school. Young women, mothers, grannies looking after orphaned grandchildren- all of them recieving top marks in their studies!

Rick hands out the soccer balls, rice, etc to the Pastor who runs the Orphan Program.

Once the seminar portion was over, we started with the main event- handing out the Orphan Care Packs! We gave out 80 packs in this community. One to each of the children registered in the church's Amore Orphan Program. These kids were so excited to receive new backpacks and all the goodies inside of them.

when we asked these three what their favorite thing in the pack was, not one of them could pick just one item! They just kept saying "all of it.. its ALL my favorite!"

Its cultural here for people to be rather reserved when receiving things, and when having their pictures taken. It usually takes a while for the real excitement to shine thru. It was fun to watch as the day continued on as the kids discovered new items in each pocket of the packs! These packs contain probably the only gift some of these children have ever gotten. We are so grateful to all those who purchased items thru our Unique Christmas Gift campaign last year- the joy those packs brought to these kids is impossible to describe, but they really did make a difference. Jesus' love came to Chireza this week in the form of 80 backpacks lovingly purchased by God's faithful!

everyone wanted to save their Maheu (drinkable fermented porridge) in their new Water Bottles. Maheu suprisingly tastes a lot better than it sounds.... its maize meal and water made into a porridge and then covered and left to sit (ferment) for three days. Then sugar is added and its left for one more day. Then you drink it. yeah. not on my list of things to learn how to make but the kids sure seemed to like it!

Tendai tries Maheu for the first time. mmm. :) lol

Tendai really enjoyed her rice and beans for lunch- someone fed her while we werent looking!

a little girl (one year old) enjoys her lunch

(quite possibly the cutest kid on the planet. next to mine of course)

(children from the surrounding area came to see what all the fuss was about)

One of the hard parts of handing out packs it that inevitably children from surrounding communities or areas will come to see what all the fuss is about. We only bring enough packs for those registered in the programs so sometimes it is hard to see a child who you just know is wishing he too could have a pack! We try to bring enough for the orphan program that everyone present can have a good yummy lunch, some juice and this time we brought popcorn as well- so at least everyone got a treat of some sort!

cokes and fantas purchased for our lunch. these cost as much as a working mans daily wage! so humbling!

It is just such an amazing feeling to see how happy the children, grannies, pastors and everyone around was to have visitors, to have fellowship. We know that they sacrificed a great deal to have us visit- they honored us with a chicken lunch and even gave Rick a piece of gazelle meat that they had orginized to be hunted and prepared for him since the pastor knows Rick loves to hunt. The pastors young son gave Tendai an offering of a live chicken (a typical gift to show gratitude for visiting someone's house).

I am constantly reminded here of how much I have and how much I take for granted. It is an incredibly humbling experience to be given so much but those who have so very little. As we drove away we were once again surrounded by singing and clapping people, faces I will never forget.

The next day we visited another community where Rick again taught a Children's ministry seminar, and I fellowshipped with the women and took pictures. I was invited to dance with the women as they sang a traditional song- again, a memory I will never forget! (sure wish I could upload the video of that as well, though my attempts at dancing with them are not that pretty to be sure!)

If you would like to check out some more of the pics from our trip, you can check them out here- https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150774956925440.756700.680190439&l=19230a5a98&type=1

I also want to share with you an amazing story of God's protection over us. I ask each and every time I post a blog for prayer, and I allways tell you how much we appreciate those prayers. Sometimes I think people must think im nutty- I say the same thing every single time it feels like, but I want to tell you that we honestly depend on those prayers.

This is what the vehicle Andy, Myself and Tendai travelled home in looked like by the time we got back to the farm. It was an absolute miracle that Andy was able to maintain control of the truck (not ours, we were driving Ron and Barb's truck)! As we came up over the crest of a hill there was a large fully loaded semi in the middle of the road, barely moving at all- no brake lights, no fourway flashers! Had Andy not managed to slam on the brakes and swerve to the side we would have slammed straight into the back of the truck. As it was Andy kept both the truck and the heavy trailer we were hauling on the road and all of us safe. The entire passenger side front quarter panel and mirror are destroyed, but had we hit even 2 cm over we would have had the full impact on the truck frame- and that would have been much much worse. We KNOW that those prayers and our amazing God kept us safe! Thank you so much for all your prayers, please keep praying. We need them!

In other news, TOMOROW is the Golf Tournament- We are praying that it goes well!

Rick will be up north until next wednesday, so Tendai and I are alone here till then. With Dwight, Rick, Joao and Francois & Alta all gone from the farm, it is rather empty! Again, we appreciate your prayers!

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai

( I just realized I didnt post ANY Pics of us preparing the packs in this post! oh well. I guess ill post some at a later date and it will all just be a bit backwards! haha)

Rainbows of Hope and a bunch more Snippets!

2011-08-09T03:53:00.000-06:00

Im warning you now. This is a long post. But is a gooder, full of the awesome things God is doing here and the Hope that He brings. (and its got lots of good pictures!!)

This last week has been a pretty long week. Lots of great things happened, but we've also had a rather stressful time, personally, as Rick has been in a lot of pain and not sleeping due to we think, some pinched nerves. Last week as we were checking on the progress at the house and I was feeling a bit down (Rick is Ill, the house is going so slowly it feels like at times, we were all tired..) I turned around and saw this rainbow.. stretching right over top of where our house will be. God is Good. He reminds of his love and provision just when we need it. And I needed it right then. (not the greatest pic, but you get the idea).

This shows the "shallowest" part of the house, nearly completely backfilled and packed! PTL! The picture below shows just one of the rooms in the "deep" part that is waiting to be filled and packed. Ten Centimetres at a time, until it gets to where Rick is standing.

Ive had a few other Rainbows of Hope in the last few weeks as well. We delivered the monthly food amounts to the families in our Amigo Orphan Program. Its always a long day, but I always enjoy seeing Grannies, the kids, and hearing how they are doing.

This is part of our storeroom for our Maize and Beans. The guys just recently completed several months of buying in, sorting, treating and packaging all of this so that we will have enough to last thru the coming "hungry season." Each month Pastor Mariano and his helper Marco make up packets of food for each child, and also larger amounts for our school. There is a LOT of Maize and Beans in that room.. but we are feeding a lot of people! Each of the meals we provide brings hope to not just the orphans, but to the grannies, the school children who eat nutritious meals every day and their families too!

One of Tendai's favorite things to do is to help hand out the food and items to the orphan kids. She is growing up to be a deliverer of hope! (I pray!)

Another Rainbow of Hope came in the form of five boxes sent to us from Valley Baptist Church, in New Brunswick Canada. There were tuques, washcloths and even blankets in them! The blankets and washcloths are waiting to be given out yet, but the tuques (knit caps) were distributed to the mission employees last week. Although winter here is nearly over, the nights and mornings are still very chilly, so I knew they would very welcome!

Rick explains the the staff that these Hats came from VERY far away.. from people who have been praying for Mozambique and the Mission.

She loves to help hand things out, I hope and Pray that she is developing a sense of compassion!

so many warm heads around here now!!

Last Friday was a big Rainbow of Hope day for me. Pastor Mariano and I spent the day with the older children from the mission's Amigo Orphan Program, as they visited the different "sectors" at the farm. We had organised this day to expose the kids to different types of jobs that they can have. In North America you can ask a group of children what they want to do and get a different answer from each. Here, many of the children have no idea what kind of jobs there are, much less that THEY could learn how to do them. When I ask what they want to do the answer is almost always "teacher," simply because they do not know there are any other options! In the pic above they are listening to Gabriel describe what he does and the machines he uses in the carpentry shop.

In total we visited Four areas of the farm this time around.

-The carpentry shop, where the kids helped to build a door for the training centre.

-The Administration Office where each one was taught how to "open" Microsoft Word, use a "mouse" and type their name. (lots of excited kids after that one, not a single one had ever used a computer before and Im pretty sure most had never seen one!)

-The Garden where Senhor Alec taught them how to transplant "baby" plants.

-And the Bricklayers, where they helped to brick in one of the windows at the Training Centre.

It was so exciting for me to see their eyes light up as we visited each different area of the farm. I saw HOPE in their eyes. Excitement. Interest. As we left each area you could tell that at least one of the kids had found something that caught their interest, that they think THEY could do! In December we will host another similar experience, though we will do it for three days and allow them to choose what area they would like to learn more about.

I was also so excited to see our mission staff take such an interest in the children. They were patient, explained things very well, and invited them back to learn more! So excited to see our staff so excited about sharing HOPE!!!!

Of course, after a hard day of learning and observing we went out to the "helipad" (large cleared area where the Mercy Air helicopter lands when it visits) and played a game of Soccer. The teams were Mozambique and Switzerland (had some Swiss visitors join us for the game). Mozambique won, but the Swiss did their best!

Ok... now, that is the end of the major part of this post, which is already soooo long. However, I promised a few snippets. So here they are in no particular order.

Snippet #1- We are often asked "what are some of the crazy things that happen to you?" or "do you have wild animals in your backyard?" ........ this almost happened to me last week while delivering Orphan Food. He was coming for me. I screamed and ran to the truck and hopped in, so he chose Pastor Mariano next.

This happens to be someones pet monkey (they most likely trapped it to get it). I am not a huge fan of monkeys unless I am in the truck and they are outside of it.

Snippet #2-

Snakes. we have seen more snakes this year than I remember in both the other years we have been here combined. I usually only see them once they are dead, or when they are being hunted. I have NEVER been the first one to see one. In fact I am very very BAD at seeing them. My eyes just do not pick them out. But this past week at Devotions I noticed a branch in the tree the guys were leaning on was swaying. Ever so slightly, back and forth. Then I noticed there was no breeze and none of the leaves were moving. On closer inspection I realised it was a SNAKE. Couldnt believe I saw it first, and there were 50 local guys standing RIGHT THERE!!!

Its a Twig Snake or Vine Snake, very poisonous but not very dangerous since their mouths are very small and their fangs are very far back in their mouths, meaning they cant get a good grip on you to inject their venom unless they have ahold of your finger or toe. They are also not very agressive. Amazing how they are built to look just like a tree branch with a leaf shaped, green head!!

Snippet #3

This is Pindurai, a young man who used to be in our School Sponsorship program, and is now training under Gabriel, learning to be a carpenter. He also happens to be a gifted and creative artist. Yesterday he gave me a gift of some of his artwork. He puts a lot of thought into each piece. We still had some markers and pencil crayons from the folks in Fort McMurray that had not been handed out yet, So I gave him some, and a notebook as well, so he could continue to make beautiful pictures! He was pretty excited to get them!

Snippet #4

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Rick has been in a lot of pain for over a week now. He is having a hard time slowing down since he so badly wants the work on our house to continue and he knows he can help with that. Please join with us in praying that pain in his neck and shoulder will go away, that he will be able to rest (ie.. not go out there and work on every project !) and be able to sleep at night. Last night was the first night in over a week that he slept nearly all night. We know it was because there were literally hundreds of people lifting him up in prayer. Again, we cannot tell you how much those prayers mean to us. It is so hard to put into words the peace and the calm that we have when people are lifting us, our health and our work up in Prayer!

Snippet #5

August 27th is coming soon!!! If you haven't contacted Carter Krahn yet to get involved with the Golf tournament yet and you want to.... Now is the time! Even if you are not from Grunthal area you can get invovled by sponsoring one of the Golfers, donated towards the event as a whole, or if you are close enough to come... you can Golf yourself! You can contact Carter at Grunthal Abundant Life Church 204-434-6829. (also dont forget to check out our snazzy promo video by scrolling down a few posts in this blog). The money raised from this event will be going to help with out ministry costs and current projects we have. Cant wait to see what God is going to do thru these teens and adults who are putting a whole lot of love, sweat and prayers into this event!

Thanks so much for praying- we appreciate every prayer! Our prayer requests for this month are

- a return to health for Rick's shoulder, as well as some good nights sleep for him.

-that funds for our house will continue to come in

-that Rick and hopefully me too, will be able to have a good time of fellowship as we visit the pastors up north, run Children's ministry seminars and deliver the Unique Christmas Gift orphan care packs in two weeks time.

-Praise the Lord for a great Amigo Orphan Career Day!

-Praise the Lord for safety on the roads these last few weeks.

-Praise the Lord for the encouraging words and emails we have gotten lately from folks back home!

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai Neufeld!

the harder side of things....

2011-07-27T12:57:00.000-06:00

This week I've had a few tough moments. Sometimes life here is hard. Its dangerous. It is hard to see people suffer. And you wonder if what you are doing really makes a difference....

When we arrived home from south africa... in fact, before we even arrived home we heard news that a friend in nearby chimoio had lost her husband in a horrible traffic accident. They have two young children and as you can imagine, she is just devestated trying to figure out how to pack up here and return to their home country and raise two children on her own. We also heard of another accident that claimed the lives of two folks from SA doing volunteer missionary work up north. Its hard for us to hear about others losing their lives in accidents that could so easily be prevented.

Even though the roads are getting much better in our area, the drivers and vehicles are not. We have seen Semi-Trucks driving at night with hand held flashlights instead of actual lights. Weve seen fully loaded logging trucks missing three out of four wheels on one axle. (see above pic) Weve seen public transport "chapas" vans driving without windsheilds, or doors even. We see vehicles passing on blind corners or at the crest of steep hills, stopping to talk or pick up veggies on the side of the road.. without even pulling out of traffic, putting on fourways or anything (though most dont even have working taillights so fourways probably would not help). Drivers sleeping UNDERNEATH broken down trucks, with no warning triangles or anything to warn you that the vehicle ahead is stationary. Its just bizzare how there seems to be little to NO common sense when it comes to driving here.

All of that to say... please keep us in your prayers... we drive on these roads daily and really do need a prayer covering. Constantly. And not only for us, but our colleagues as well.

Another hard thing is to see the suffering of children. I especially struggle when I see little ones fighting for every breath and to simply live. Today we met a baby girl, three months old who was born one month prematurely (at least). She is tiny. Almost Miniature.

My eyes teared up just looking at how incredibly tiny this precious little one was. Her legs were no thicker around than my thumb. Her mama loves her so much, and so does her granny (one of the grannies in our orphan program)- we are praying for a miracle, that she will start to gain weight and thrive.

I also spent some time visiting a severely burned young boy who is mentally handicapped and epileptic. Breaks my heart to see him in such pain, and without strong medication to help him. The strongest pain medication our local hospital gives is the equivalent of extra strength Tylenol... for pain after debriding third degree burns. sigh. Today I stopped by our clinic to check on something and found our Soccarista (health worker) Simon cleaning severe burns on the arm of small child. Again, my heart just broke when I heard his cries. Burns are so common here, as everyone cooks around fires with lots of boiling water and hot hot pots. I pray for safety for our the children in our program often.

Another hard thing, (though not nearly as heartwrenching) Is dealing with local authorities who show up without warning and expect us to spend several hours from our already busy days answering questions and drinking juice and eating cookies with them. While I appreciate the need for them to come, and actually think its great that Social Action is interested in seeing the work we do here, I really really really wish they would call ahead and let us know they are on their way! Today we had the Secretario de Posto de Vanduzi (kinda like the area government head guy), The Director of Social Action for our District, and the Director (a) for Social Action for our whole Province and her assistant show up for a visit. Although its a bit stressful for us, its also a good learning experience for us to speak in Portuguese for a whole meeting with officials!

It was also encouraging to hear some of the folks we work with explain to the officials how much the mission has helped them, the difference it has made in their lives, and how involved we are in their lives. I had to laugh when the Directora gave a speech to one of our orphan girls about studying hard, and staying in school and the girl said to her, "Donna Heather tells me that ALL the time!" :) Yep... that made me smile!

All three of us have felt under the weather for a few days, though thankfully it seems to be passing now. Sometimes when you are sick you just wish you could find a babysitter and go sleep for a few hours, but unfortunately, we dont really have that option here. One thing I really miss about Canada is the availability of babysitters, daycare, preschools, coffee dates, the Grunthal Teahouse... but yet, I dont think I could trade what I have here for those things- the sunsets, the sound of the drums, the singing, the smiles on the kids faces, and the knowledge that Im where I am supposed to be!

This is not a hard thing ... at least not for me. But im sure it took a lot of effort and hard days of studying for Pastor Toca (pictured here with Dwight) to learn to Read and Write. When He joined our Bible School 7 years ago he could do neither, but now he can do both! He is one of our pastor monitors, and a graduate of our program.

This week we have nearly fifty pastors with us studying at our Intensives Seminars so they can go home and teach the students in their extension schools. It is always exciting to see the pastors as they come to learn and fellowship with each other. I Love listening to them sing, its like a choir!

Of course, life here isnt all hard... in fact some of it is pretty great! This past week we celebrated the two year anniversary of Tendai joining our family! We are so blessed to have this crazy kid as our daughter. She is so beautiful, crazy, stubborn, loving, caring, mischevious, friendly, adventurous and we Love her so much!!!

Of course, work had been continueing on our house. We are finally to the stage where the guys are backfilling the foundation walls- hopefully with Rick helping out every once and awhile with the Backhoe, we will be able to get the job done "chop chop."

Rick gives me a quick wave as he drives by on the Backhoe!

This is what our foundation walls looked like on Tuesday.. nearly done, and complete enough for the guys to start packing in the backfill dirt. WOOHOO :)

Thank you to all who have been praying for us as we live and minister here. We have our names in with Social Services right now and are on the waiting list to adopt another child. We ask that you will pray with us that we will be ready when the child becomes available, even if our house isnt quite ready yet! :) We are praying that the funds we need will come in and we will be able to continue building.

If you haven't yet, please check out the videos weve posted in our last two blog posts. We would love for the kids involved in the Golf Fundraiser to see their efforts bring about great results!

Again, thanks for the prayers, thanks for the emails, thanks for the encouragement!

God Bless,

Rick, Heather & Tendai!

Another Video and a opportunity for some Fun!

2011-07-14T14:11:00.000-06:00

Hi all, this promo video is for the Golf Tournament Fundraiser that a group from our Home Church, who will be visiting us next year, will be hosting. This is a group of 8 Teenagers and 4 adults, who working in conjunction with another charity (proceeds raised by those golfing for "our" group will go towards our fund, not to the other charity, and vice versa) from our home town, are aiming to raise money to help our work in Mozambique. We are super excited to see this event happen and cant wait to see how it goes. Please join with us in praying that it goes well and that the team hosting it will be able to get all the details covered and will grow together as a team as they work together on such a large project. ( In my head I keep seeing old episodes of "The Apprentice" and how they had to organize and host golf tournaments... AHHHH!!!... though ours wont be quite that star studded of an event!! or maybe it could be... hmmmmm)

Participants need to raise a minimum of $ 250, but the team has put out the challenge to everyone to try and raise at least $1000, there are amazing prizes available to be won including a boat, a quad and a motorcycle! (at this time I dont know the exact specifications) The tournament will be Saturday August 27th, at LaVerendrye Golf Course,and your minimum $250 will cover the 7 am breakfast and your 8 am tee off green fees as well! We'd love for folks to join with them at the tournament!

If you are interested in promoting or donating towards the event, sponsoring a participant, or even better- participating yourself, please get in Contact with Carter Krahn of Grunthal Abundant Life Fellowship in Grunthal 204- 434-6829

Also, for those out of province who think they might like to host a similar event, this video can be changed to suit your needs, please contact us for more info!

In other News, the same group will be hosting a Cow Poop Bingo at the Grunthal Ag Days- and really, who DOESNT want to play Cow Poop Bingo??!!! (dont worry.. you dont have to touch Cow Poop to play) You just have to purchase a "bingo" card, mark off the squares you want and then see where the cow will poop first! (in a marked field)- whoever's chosen square he poops on wins! I had never heard of this till Carter and his wife Leanne explained it to me one day.. but I gotta admit.. its pretty funny! I believe they will also be doing a number of other things at Ag days and in the next few months as fundraisers for their upcoming trip out here! Gotta love creative fundraising!

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai Neufeld

Its about time .....

2011-07-04T12:59:00.000-06:00

That we post a new video!! so here is one we did for our church. It is mostly just a slideshow with some music and Rick talking, but its still a video! Hoping to have another one up soon as well.

Blessings! Rick, Heather & Tendai!

The Snake Hunt. (and some prayer requests)

2011-06-30T06:50:00.001-06:00

So on Tuesday morning Gabriel came running down to tell us he had found this snake right on the edge of the Litchi orchard. ACK. But of course, knowing i could stay pretty far back, and wanting to get pics of the thing I ran up with Tendai and Rick to see it. Here are my instructions on how to find, hunt, and kill (and of course photograph) a very dangerous, poisonous snake. In this case, a Green Mamba.

Step One

the original snake finder and another local staff member should try to relocate the snake. this might take awhile.

Step two

after awhile, call in a missionary to help you look. He probably wont be much help since us "muzungus" dont seem to have eye's to see these well hidden snakes, but it will make the missionary fell good if you ask him to help. :)

Step Three

Ask a second missionary to join in the hunt since the first one wasn't really helping that much. (Thanks for Helping Andy!)

Step Four

Since both missionaries have failed to help much at all, call in a few more locals who will look for about thirty seconds and then find it, right where everyone else had been looking! Tada!!!

Step Five

Use a slingshot and pebbles to try and knock the snake either A) out of the tree or B) dead. (I recomend not standing in a large group directly under the tree you are trying to knock him out of but what do I know?)

Step Six

While all this is happening it is very important to make sure children are well looked after and not in any danger by asking a staff member to watch them while you take a bazillion pictures. I think I actually took 143 pictures of the whole event. not quite a bazillion, but close.

Step Seven

The photographer should at least know what they are taking pictures of. This is a picture of the snake. REALLY. See the big blue spot in the middle of the tree. Right at the bottom of that blue spot is a solid line kinda angling up towards the right. Thats the snake. I promise.

Step Eight

After having attempted numerous times to hit the snake with a pebble you should give up and grab a BIG STICK and whack the tree and the area where you saw the snake until it falls to the ground. This of course is only neccesary if you dont hit the snake with the pebble. :)

Step Nine

Now you can commence with the ACTUAL picture taking!

except... hes kinda dirty sooo....

Step Ten

you should give the snake a bath so he looks nice in the pictures.

swish the water back and forth in a big pail with the snake

remove the snake.

(using a stick of course, snakes can continue to have nervous system reactions LONG after they are dead and can even bite you if you are not careful)

Step Eleven. (aka... the last step)

Ahh... now its time to take a whole whackload of pictures before using a stick or machete to sever the head making sure the snake is "really dead". (Im not posting pics of that part)

As I mentioned, snakes can continue to move, twitch, even open their mouths, after they are dead for quite a while. You have to be very careful around them. Very. This particular snake is not responsible for very many deaths, simply because its neurotoxic venom is not as strong and it doesnt inject as much when it bites. However it can cause a lot of pain, lung and heart problems, partial paralyses and a host of other issues. It's cousin the Black Mamba injects a larger dose and stronger venom and is often fatal.

In Other News

someone tried to sell me this monkey the other day. I feel kinda bad that I couldnt buy it to set it free. argh.

work has been progressing on our house's foundation walls, under the watchful eye of Supervisor Tendai.

You can see here how much has to be backfilled (by hand most of it) Where Tendai is standing will be all filled with dirt to make the house level. Rick is standing where our floor level will eventually be.

Again, thanks for all your prayers. We head down to South Africa this weekend for a few weeks to get a bunch of supplies for our house (wires, plumbing doohickys, tools, etc). We will also spend a few days as a family away at a fame farm to celebrate our Tenth Anniversary and Tendai's second anniversary of "Gotcha Day" (we will celebrate the one a few months late and the other a few days early).

PLEASE PRAY

we know of three robberies recently in the town we are going to, and that is just amongst people we know! One home was broken into (thankfully they scared them off) and its on the same yard we will be staying on while in SA, Lynn and Dwight's truck was broken into and some items stolen today, and another missionary friend had their car broken into yesterday! Please pray for safety while we travel and that we wont be stopped by police on our trip thru Mozambique. Another continued prayer request is that the funds we need for our house will continue to come in.

Thank you so much! God Bless,

Rick, Heather & Tendai Neufeld

Snippets...

2011-06-17T03:58:00.000-06:00

sometimes things happen i just forget to blog about them.. so im just gonna write up a bunch of little snippets i remember from the last week or so... here goes!

Snippet # 1: Yesterday we were driving out of the shoprite entry and just look at what caught our eye....

can you believe it?? We were pretty pumped to find a little outpost of a ministry that brings Bibles into all sorts of African Countries, right here in Chimoio- and the Bibles were in the local languages.. and the Portuguese one was in the equivalent of NIV.. not the portuguese equivalent of King James.. YEY!! (nothing against King James.. but for folks just leaning to read and write it is rather difficult!)

While we were there, a gentleman came running from across the street with his wife, he quickly asked if he could please purchase a Bible, when he turned around holding his very own Bible in his own hands, purchased with his own money.... the look on his face brought tears to my eyes. He was so excited, so happy, as he carressed it with his hands and hugged it close I asked him " Its beautiful isnt it?" "Yes!" he replied! I just cant express to you the look on his face, but it was amazing... So happy I got to see that moment.

Snippet #2: Today for a brief period of time I was the only staff person available on the farm. Andy was in Town. Barb was in town. Rick has left to go up north. Ron was working somewhere and unavailable. Dwight and Lynn have gone on a much needed break. Francois and Alta were going to Zimbabwe quickly. Even Matthew and Joao are gone. With this sort of situation I just KNOW something is gonna happen. ... and yep. it did. Minutes after Rick left the shepherd shows up and tells me the missions "Big Bull" (the "nice" one) is sick... ahhhhhhhh! So i quickly makes some calls and arrange for some meds. Two hours later her returns with the guard, to tell me that the Bull has died. ARGH!!! And to top it off, becuase it died from an unknown and untreated sickness and was not butchered we cant even sell or give the meat to the local people!! WHAT A WASTE!

On the other hand Im very grateful for staff who can deal with the investigating the insides of the cow, digging the hole and burying it for us!
Also grateful that I did not have to go down there since Domingo (the shepherd) had also just informed me that a Rock Python as thick as his leg (and im sure much longer than his leg) had been spotted this morning too! ACK!!! ( i have since seen the actual snake... its dead now.. not quite as large as he said but still way to big for my liking!)

Snippet #3: Last night there was a Lunar Eclipse in our parts, (unfortunatly i forgot to go look) When the guard came this afternoon to fill me in on the progress of burying of the bull- he spent several minutes explaining for me with great detail and hand gestures what the insides of the cow looked like (from what i could understand it was not pretty and most likely Bovine TB), then went on to have an indepth discussion on the leg meat they kept to entice the crocodile out of the water so it can be hunted (the crocodile hunting has been going of for a very long time now). After all that he stopped and then said "Senhora, can you answer a question for me? What happened to the moon last night?"

I decided to first find out what he thought had happened, and pretty much he said, they think a cover or curtain is pulled over the moon, so that bandits or bad men can do things at night. In the time of the war, he said people would run into the bush to hide during Eclipses, convinced that bandits were coming to kill them. He was very interested to find out what I had to say, so I explained that the moon is like a mirror, it only reflects light, and if something gets between it and the sun, even if just for a few minutes, It can make it go dark for that time. I drew a few solar system-y type sand diagrams and did a whole hand motion thingy that I think he understood! Anyhew,,, all this to say.. that at the end he looked at me and said.. "Senhora, is this like science?" Yes, Jose, it is just "like" science! I love moments like this when someone suddenly understands or at least is exposed to a concept that was previously shrouded in mystery and fear!

Snippet #4: totally random and I wish I had a pic to prove it... but the other day in town we saw a guy biking with at least fifty chickens tied to his handbars.. upside down.. and they were live. sheesh. thats nuts!

Snippet #5: This week Tendai and I got to spend a whole afternoon with our new friends Sarah and Tabita! Sarah and her husband Aaron, run a technical training school here in Moz, where they train local young people in skills like mechanics, carpentry, metalworking, etc. Several young men we know thru our mission and who work for the mission are training with them at Tariro School. Sarah and Aaron, were just blessed to pass court and become the official legal parents of little Tabita- who is almost the exact same age as Tendai! I cannot express to you how amazing it was to meet up with them and be able to spend a whole afternoon just sharing our common experiences. My prayer is that Tabita and Tendai will grow up being good friends, and that having a buddy whose family "looks like theirs" will be a source of encouragement and peace for them!

(tendai taking a pic of her new friend Tabita.. not sure if she actually took one or not lol)

Although at this point the girls mainly play beside each other and not neccesarily with each other, it was still awesome to see them interact. I look forward to getting to know Sarah, Aaron, and all their kids much better! Meeting them has been an answer to prayer for me, as I knew Tendai NEEDED a friend.. someone who would understand the unique issues that she will face! Praise the Lord for adoption buddies!

Rick and Joao inspecting the footings of our house.

Snippet #6: The foundations for our house were poured this week (woohoo), Rick is now gone up north and the layout of the walls makes it a little difficult for them to start laying Bricks without direct supervision of a skilled kind (ie.. not mine), so they are taking this week to get absolutely EVERYTHING prepped for when Rick gets back so we can lay those bricks.. "chop chop" as they say here! ("quick quick")

Rick needed to make sure everything was level (that is key when building a house! ) :)

Once the footings/foundations were all poured, and Rick had to leave for the seminars up North, the guys turned to organizing and preparing for laying bricks once he gets back!
That Meant:

making stacks of bricks all around the inside of the house, so that the bricklayer will not have to wait while his helpers run around and find bricks (I know this seems like something obvious to do, but trust me, this is not the normal way of doing things here!)

and getting more pit sand so we can make the cement mixture.

Tendai and I took a moment to go survey the progress this morning.

Thanks so much for your prayers as we continue with this work. It is a long road ahead, but we know our God is able to bring in the supplies, funds, skilled workers, etc that we need!

Please pray for Rick's health, safety, and for the seminar participants as he is up north this week. It seems that during seminar times is when we get the most sick, and we know it is because Satan has no interest in us teaching others how to reach children with the love of Christ!

Thanks again! Hope you enjoyed my "snippets"! :)

Blessings,

Rick, Heather & Tendai

Building Blocks

2011-06-11T09:23:00.000-06:00

we treated the four workers who came to town with us to load the bricks to their first ever ice creams.... they were impressed. (I really wanted ice cream for my birthday so figured i should share)

Wednesday June 8th, was my 31st birthday, and we celebrated in style by buying 1600 bricks to construct the foundation walls of our house. Most women would not be particularly pleased with hunks of concrete for their birthday, but to be honest... Im THRILLED! It has been a long time coming, but these bricks and the foundations that are being poured this week signal the REAL beginning of our house... there is an actual structure over there that will one day be where I live!!! ( ok... its more of a long skinny cement pad right now than a structure, but its still PART of the structure!)

The guys we have hired to work on our house...loading 30 TONNES of bricks... literally.

my attempt at taking an "artistic" picture of bricks

just one of the many stacks of bricks being "organized" under the watchful eye of Supervisor Tendai.

The first section of foundation to be poured... looks a tad bit different than at home!

As a teen I spent several summers with Teen Missions Int'l on work and evangelism teams. Each summer we were trained in construction methods (rebar tieing, bricklaying, cement mixing, etc) and here is my attempt to convince Rick and the guys that I actually did know what I was doing!

The snazzy cement mixer, that, although a far cry from the pumper trucks we have back home in Canada is a HUGE leap forward from mixing the cement entirely by hand!

Just one of the challenges we face on our lot is that it is smack dab in the middle of a bunch of Rocks... some of which, as you can see are directly in the path of our foundation walls! This particular bunch of rocks will be a hopefully solid part of the walls supporting our verandah.

In other news, June 1st, was Day of the Child, and I being the leader of the Orphan Program that works with children ..... COMPLETELY FORGOT to get the kids anything or plan anything special. GAH! I cant believe I didnt do ANYTHING for them! I was in town, sharing my shame of forgetting with a local shopkeeper who I've developed a friendship with, when she reached into her bag and gave me 1200 Mets to go purchase sweets for the children on behalf of her! (thats about 40$) This lady has been a continual challenge to me, and my perceptions. You see she is Muslim, and even though she knows I am a christian, and a missionary here, she continually shows me kindness, and we have developed a friendship based on our shared desire to adopt children here. On the day we welcomed Tendai to our home, she suprised me with a generous gift of one of the nicest baby items in their store. All this to say, I sure hope that I am being as much of an example of Christ's love to her as she is an example of kindness to me! We plan on making a very nice thank you card from the kids, thanking her for her generous gift of sweets... each child recieved chips, sweets, cookies, juice... needless to say they were THRILLED.

Tendai loves helping hand out stuff.

Thanks so much for all your prayers, we know folks have been praying since Rick's guardian angels have been working overtime! He fell off the top of a brick wall onto a hanging truss the other day, and managed to ONLY get a nasty bruise on his side! Praise the Lord for that!

We have also experienced the power of prayer this week when we called on those we know to pray for the safe return of three abducted children, the son and nieces of one of the house staff of a friend here. Child trafficking happens so much, and it is a horrible horrible reality of life in many third world countries. We were so excited to hear that All three children were found, safe, even though one had been transported to the nearest port city and was in a Shipping Container already! We praise the Lord for their safe return, but we also are saddened that this is happening so close to where we live and work. Please continue to pray that those responsible will be brought to justice!

This coming week Rick will be travelling up north to lead several Children's Ministry Training Seminars, so we are asking for prayer for safety, health and a good time of ministry with the leaders. You can also join with us in praying that funds will continue to come in for our house fund. Now that we are at the stage where we are actually building... it is important that the funds come in so we dont have to stop and delay the construction! The lineup of people hoping to use our "short term cottage" seems to be continually growing!

and last but not least....

this strange looking frog that lives on the rocks behind our new house- i dont like frogs.. at all.. but this guy kinda intrigues me!

God Bless,

Rick, Heather & Tendai

Beans, Tractors, & More!

2011-05-28T07:35:00.000-06:00

This past week Rick, Tendai and I drove a few hours north with Pastor Mariano and the mission trailer to collect 25 Bags of Beans. Pastor Mariano is not only in charge of our Orphan Ministries, but he also is in charge of finding the maize and beans we buy in for our feeding programs, as we are not yet able to grow enough on our farm to meet our needs.

It was quite the drive to get to the place where the beans were, and it took nearly three hours for them to sort, re-measure, and repackage all the beans (Rick and I went for a drive during that time since they wont let us help with that part anyways).

Once they were sorted, the sacks needed to be tied shut and counted.

We are able to carry 25 bags of beans on the trailer (it can only handle so much weight). And everything had to be loaded right so that the trailer wouldnt bounce around to much on the not so good roads.

Rick loaded up the trailer with heavy heavy bags of Beans.

this is part of the road we had to drive to the beans (this is the really nice part) Isnt it beautiful?

This is the gentleman we bought the beans from. I wish i could have taken dozens more pictures of him- there is something about his face! He was such a friendly man, and was very proud to translate words into english when he could!

In other news, the container of donated machinery from Mercy Air donors in the states FINALLY arrived at the farm after months at sea and weeks waiting in Beira Port. It was a BIG MOMENT when the first tractor drove out! (of course we immediatly gathered the guys in the area for a picture!)

The "little" tractor came with a mowing and tilling attachment- woohooo!!!! (think mowing the airstrip instead of using machetes to get the grass the right height)

After several boxes of supplies, Audio Bibles, inverters and random tractor stuff we brought out the BIG tractor... the backhoe! They needed some weight in the front to get the container off the truck bed, so we loaded the bucket up with staff. (who thought it was great fun). Thankfully we didnt have to actually go anywhere, just balance out the weight. This backhoe is going to be a huge blessing for the farm, there is a lineup of projects waiting to make use of this monster machine! Please pray for safety as Ron trains Rick and Andy to use the two new tractors.

To fit in the container the backhoe had to have the top part taken off, so the guys had to fit it back on.

Last week, to celebrate the one year anniversiary of us becoming Tendai's Official Parents, we went to one of our favorite restaurants, Motel Garuso. On the way there, there is a strange little tower on the top of a hill that we have allways been curious about, so since we were early for the lunch hour, we decided to hike up and see what was up there. There was a small hut.

And the tower itself... after nosing around and trying to see if anyone was home, we came to the conclusion that it was probably a lookout tower, either for the tree plantations you can see from there, or else something left over from the war time, though it seems that it is in use currently so not sure its a leftover.

The view from the tower...

we are so blessed to live in such an amazingly beautiful country!

We posed for a quick family photo too- hard to believe its been a year since she was OFFICIALLY OURS!

One of my favorite places in the world to take pictures.... its practically impossible to take bad pictures here!

Its been a big week here at the farm with the arrival of the tractors and visitors from Mercy Air South Africa here to help paint Ron and Barb's home, and help with building window frames etc. Our house has been moving along as well-

We finally were able to pour the floor for our garage, and now all that remains is to finish the roof. We also will have the foundations for our house going in soon! PTL! Please pray with us that the Cement Factory does not close (as has been rumored), not only will it delay NUMEROUS construction projects around the farm, but it will drive up the price of materials too!

Doesn't the floor look great?!!! So excited!

Thanks so much for praying, prayer requests for the next little while include

-health and safety for us here, as there have been numerous cases of malaria recently!

-for Rick as he tries to organize seminars for the next month...

-that the funds for our house will come in so we can keep building!

-there are lots of people coming and going at the farm in the next while, please pray for their safety as they travel, and that the visitors here will be impacted positively by their visits.

Finally, here is a shot of Miss Tendai, I was taking new profile pictures for each of our orphans, one by one, and after the last one, she came and stood in front of the tree where we were taking them and posed just like they had...

TOO CUTE!

Blessings, Rick, Heather & Tendai!

Starting on the house.....

2011-05-22T01:49:00.000-06:00

A blog or so ago I talked about the speeding ticket rick got in the non-existant 60 zone... here is a pic of a "cancel 60" sign - seems like more often than not, these are "missing" making it very hard to know what speed you are supposed to be going!

Before we left to drop of Visitors in Beira this past weekend, Rick marked out the foundation trench lines so the guys could start digging right away on Monday. (he is standing right where trench #2 is in the later pics)

Tada! Trench #1 pretty much done!

Trench #2 well on its way!

Trench #1 again, but from the other end. Tendai loves to run laps around the foundation.. its kinda funny actually!

Soon they will begin preparing the trenches to pour the foundations- which will be a very exciting time! We are soon going to be ordering our bricks and once the foundation is poured, they will start on the foundation walls, and eventually filling in the foundation to the floor level. Building here involves a LOT of steps... all of which are accomplished BY HAND (unless the tractor currently sitting in Beira Port gets cleared for import any time soon! and even then its still MOSTLY by hand!). What takes a week or less in Canada to accomplish takes MONTHS & MONTHS here! I posted a picture when we were in Canada, of Rick's brothes using a crane arm on a cement pumper truck to pour a cement foundation in one day. Here, the guys will mix batches of concrete by hand in a small mixer and pour using wheelbarrows and buckets!

We are praying that our construction will go quickly, that supplies will be available, and that the funds will come in! Our little rental cottage is needed for short term visitors and new staff and there is a waiting list for it already!

Aside from keeping an eye on our house progress, Rick has been helping raise the trusses at the Training Centre, and working on a promotion video for our home church.

Last week we were privileged to have two Brazilian ladies join us here at the mission for a week of ministry with local children. Our Amigo Orphan program kids were excited to make all sorts of crafts to help them remember the wordless book lesson!

Aside from these lovely bracelets, they made pins, animal balloons, and a different bracelet!

And last but not least, a pic of our munchkin (s). Here is magnum and Tendai- Tendai had been on a walk with Oma Barb and picked me these lovely flowers.. which Magnum promptly tried to eat. sheesh.

Blessings,

Rick, Heather & Tendai

Back to Business!

2011-05-10T07:01:00.000-06:00

This little princess "Julina" lives next door to one of our orphan homes.. what a sweetie!

Well, we have survived our first two weeks home, pretty well actually! Tendai has adjusted back to life and schedule here on the farm very well, and we have even started potty training finally... we shall see how that goes! (luckily for us its quite normal for kids to run around half naked in these parts so im cutting down on laundry by allowing her to "run free" so to speak!)

Tendai...playing in the dirt, in her pretty shoes.. yep. shes a diva dirt queen!!

We have been able to get back into things pretty quickly, including the orphan programs, food delivery, construction projects galore and of course... umpteen trips to town to try and organize our DIRE (residence permits) paperwork! Nobody likes taking trips to town more than the once a week grocery drive... but when you are trying to get paperwork done its a must!

Vira, one of our orphan girls decided to "read" my Pretoria street atlas... wonder if she figured anything out? Both girls in this picture are decked out with hair pretties donated by the wonderful folks in Fort McMurray Alberta.

At the orphan group meetings the kids STILL love to play Frisbee just about every time!

Pastor Mariano, in charge of our orphan programs, loves to hang out with the kids.. and hes pretty good at jumping rope too!

We are also very excited that our garage (the storage part) is nearing completion, and the floor is almost ready to be poured on the actual parking part! We are also hiring the builders we will need for the foundation trenches and walls for our house. Please pray with us that the funds will come in for our house- we are pretty squished in our cottage as is, and we already have our name in with Social Services here to adopt another baby! We have no idea how long it will take to be matched with another child- it could take days or it could take months, but whenever they come this little cottage will be very squishy so we are really hoping to get our house started... and fast! We appreciate your prayers for the money we need to build, that we can find a good and efficient builder who will build straight and level walls, and that the supplies we need will be available! (Mozambique has a cement shortage half the time and a deisel shortage the other half.... other stuff like wood for trusses, baked bricks, etc are usually available, but not usable if you dont have the cement!)

Rick and one of the guys working on our house lot get the storage room roof on.

Rick brought this toolbelt from Canada- and is LOVING it.

Gabriel gets the door put on our storage room.

Some of the first few items in storage! YEY!

Tendai, Magnum and Daddy hard at work.

Tendai having a Tea party with her baby doll!

And, because I know I haven't really posted pictures before, here is a few of our current cottage. There is a main room that has the living area, dining room, kitchen, entry, "hallway" and Tendai's sleeping area, and then one bedroom that also houses our filing cabinets, printers, etc, and a bathroom. Up until now the back verandah has been for storage, but now that the garage is nearing completion we can move stuff over there to the storage room and use our verandah for other stuff... like sitting outside and enjoying the cool air.

The back verandah in mid sorting/rat disaster cleaning/laundry day stage.

The front of our cottage, to the left is our bedroom, to the right is the main room. Behind our bedroom on the left is our bathroom.

Kitchen at the back, dining in the middle, living room in front, play area to the right, hallway and front and back entry on the left side of photo, further left and out of the shot is Tendai's sleep area. (her bed sits in the corner of the main room as there isnt space for it anywhere else.)

Lord willing we can get our house started and finished in record time, so the short term cottage we have been long term renting can be used as intended.... for short termers!! :)

Thanks for all the prayers and support, we appreciate you all and miss everyone back home already!

Blessings,

Rick, Heather & Tendai

Welcome Back Neufeld Family....

2011-04-30T03:52:00.000-06:00

Students from our bush school very eager to see Tendai peer thru the windows of the new school clinic while I received the official tour.

We are HOME! And this time it really is HOME… not just the place we are currently laying our heads at night! We have had a busy week, adjusting to the warmer temperatures, humidity, unpacking and organizing not just our luggage, but all our belongings as everything was put away, and of course, evaluating the damage done by the rats! Thankfully, we did not lose too many things, although we lost a good chunk of the items we use for camping on our seminar trips so we will have to replace some of those items.

The trip up from South Africa was interesting. Having been away for 8 months we were interested to see how the roads had improved, and what if any changes had been made at the border crossing to speed things up. The B & B we stayed at told us how on Good Friday the border lineup was FIFTEEN KILOMETRES LONG….. just to get INTO the border area!!!! We decided to leave VERY early the next morning to try and avoid a repeat of that scenario! We arrived at 6 am and there was no line in sight! Praise The Lord!

Our border crossing went well except for one small detail- the temporary import permit for our vehicle had gone missing and so we had to pay a fine. We were told it would be 1000 Rand fine, but we only had 500 Rand as we had just changed almost all of our rand into Meticais (the Mozambican currency)- Rick ran back to the money changers in the heat (yes at 6 am it was already warm and muggy) and tried to exchange some US Dollars for Rand.. they wouldn’t except US dollars… (on a side note- WHO does not except US dollars???.. I mean.. its like the universal currency !!) So he ran back to me, and got the Meticais we had just exchanged for and ran BACK to the changers and exchanged them back to Rand (meaning we lost a good bit in the double exchange.. sigh) and then RAN back to pay our fine.. which we were then informed was… 500 Rand. The amount we had in the first place. ….. Welcome back to Africa Neufeld Family!

The rest of our crossing went very smoothly and we were on our way in no time! In Maputo just up the road we stopped for fuel, a bathroom break and to grab a bite to eat at a little restaurant beside the fuel station. As we finished up our fuel and bathroom break we noticed an argument between a restaurant employee and a visiting south African tourist. It seems the Credit Card machine wasn’t working, and the South African wanted to pay with his Rands (which are widely accepted in Mozambique). The employee was refusing his 200 R note and the man could not figure out why…. You see, over a year ago there was a problem in SA with counterfeit 200R banknotes so many places wouldn’t except them.. the issue has since been resolved and its no longer a problem.. but apparently the news has not reached Mozambique yet! Since I now had LOTS of Rand, I traded two of my 100 R notes for his 200 R Note and we solved the problem.. then our family headed inside to get some breakfast! We stood at the counter, perused the menu, while four staff watched us intently. We looked up, opened our mouths to make the order and they said… “oh. Sorry. We have no food” …… Welcome back to Africa Neufeld Family!!

We bought some chips at the gas station and ate those for breakfast. J

Our next adventure occurred when Rick got a ticket for “speeding”. He was told he was in a 60 Zone (he wasn’t) and that there was a school up ahead where the zone changed for our side of the road. (yes apparently school children only cross one side of the highway…).. There was no school (at least not one that was in use, the was one under construction but no classrooms or buildings were complete… an there was NO speed sign). Rick tried in vain to point out the holes in the policeman’s story and reasoning, but since he had a firm grip on Rick’s license already there was not much we could do but pay the fine. (note to self.. DO NOT HAND OVER LICENSE TO CORRUPT POLICEMEN!!!)…. He did tell us though that once we were out of his “60 Zone” (which didn’t exist) that we could go 200 KM an hour if we wanted since the 100 KM/hr sign was just a suggestion….

Welcome Back to Africa Neufeld Family!!!

Thankfully after this point our adventures stopped for the most part. The previously nearly undriveable sections of highway that have been under repair for over THREE YEARS were completed in our absence… it was wonderful to be able to drive on nice roads for almost the entire trip- and it saved us a couple of hours of driving too! Now there is only one section of bad road and potholes to contend with on the drive south, instead of THREE very bad ones!!!!

Welcome back to Africa Neufeld Family!

Gina with the dress made just for her by her by her sponsor!

We arrived home safe and sound with only a minor injury to my foot incurred while walking in the dark at our overnight stop. We even we able to get home in time to stop at shoprite and get some groceries. Imagine our shock when we walked in to find shoprite completely remodeled with new coolers and freezers!! WOOHOOO!!! Welcome back to Africa Neufeld Family!

Tendai attempts rather unsuccsessfully to get Magnum to move out of the way... hes about 6 times her weight and a few inches taller!

new paint on the walls, shower wall had been torn down in our abscence and has been rebuilt.. theres even a new toilet seat on the toilet!!

tiles in the shower (walls and floor... woohoo!) and a rainshower shower head! THANKS ANDY!

We even were blessed to come home to a very clean house and a brand spanking new bathroom (shower tiled, walls painted, new showerhead etc) thanks to the efforts of Andy and Lovemore who had a lot of work on their hands following the rat and worm incident and the remodeling of our bathroom following some pipes leaking in our wall. The new bathroom is wonderful and we are very appreciative of their efforts! Welcome back to Africa Neufeld Family!!!

Thanks for all your prayers, our first week home has just gone so fast and we have had a wonderful time seeing our friends and coworkers again. I (heather) was especially blessed when several of the orphan children and widows cried when I visited them. Gina, who holds a special place in my heart, held me tight and hugged me as she whispered.. I missed you Donna Heather (in Portuguese of course). Ill, admit it, I cried too. One of the widows cried as she grasped my hand and said she had prayed for us everyday that we would come home to Mozambique soon. It really helped me realize the impact the work we do has here, I do not simply hand out food and clothing and school supplies, my presence here makes a difference, the love and care and fun I share with these children and widows impacts them! I guess I always knew that, but seeing their reaction to our return once again confirmed in my heart.. .THIS is HOME for ME!

Casamilo sees bubbles for the first time (i think- he was so suprised by them im quite sure it was his first time seeing them!)

WELCOME HOME NEUFELD FAMILY!!!

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai!

Going... Going.. Gone.

2011-04-14T11:07:00.000-06:00

Hi all, we have made it to South Africa, we are safe, healthy and all our luggage arrived too which in itself is a minor miracle!! We had such a great last weekend in Canada, including several fun evenings with friends, and Tendai's child dedication on sunday. After the Sunday service our church held a fundraising chili dinner for us, and a "silent" auction, it was amazing!!! (my sis even made chocolates to sell!- if you are interested in ordering some from her, let us know- talk about a good way to talk about missions etc with your kids, give them africa themed chocolates!) The dinner and auction were a HUGE success, and we thank everyone who worked so hard to prepare the food, donated items for the auction and helped to make the day run smoothly. A total of just over 17,000 $ was raised that afternoon, which means we can definetly get a really good start on our house! :) God is GOOD! (and we are so incredibly humbled and thankful for the generosity of our church family!)

Monday morning we got up, had breakfast with Ricks family and headed to the airport. Where we needed a small army of luggage trolleys to get all our stuff inside!

Trolleys one and two.

add in a stroller and a two year old..

and another trolley.... (three trolleys, one stroller in total)

Thats, NINE checked bags (four of which were oversized) , SIX carryon bags, ONE stroller and ONE toddler and TWO adults. ACK!

we were expecting to pay quite a bit (upwards of 300 dollars) since we had three extra bags, and Air Canada does not allow humanitarian bags like other airlines. Turns out since our original tickets had been purchased in september- we got a snazzy break and instead they only charged us 60 bucks for all three bags total, since at that time the charges were lower and the baggage limits higher! how nice!

once we arrived at Heathrow for our ten hour layover (that turned into 11 since we arrived early after a fast flight with good tail winds), we settled into this little corner. Most comfortable ive ever been in an airport to be honest!! (in this pic we are coloring with color wondor markers.. these things ROCK for when you are traveling!)

Tendai LOVED the kids area "trial project" thing they had going. Sure hope they keep it going since it was a godsend for us! she got to play, we didnt have to worry (it was supervised) win win for everyone!! Here she is giving you her best "growl" like a gladiator. arent you scared???!!

We arrived safely in South Africa, after a VERY long flight- made longer by the fact the plane was COMPLETLY booked. not an empty seat to be seen, and miss Tendai was not interested in sleeping for a good portion of the flight! Once we arrived we made it thru passport control (immigration) very quickly and were very suprised to find that we did not have to pay the 1000R fine for Tendai staying a day past her visa date in September (long story, but God obviously did some work in that one!). We also made it thru customs with no problems whatsoever. The one officer who even asked us anything told us to go right on thru and smiled broadly when we said all those rubbermaids were filled with clothes, toys and toothbrushes for orphans!

We are enjoying a few days in Pretoria with good friends, and getting a few errands done here and there, we head up to Mercy Air on Sunday and will spend monday trying to organize our DIRE (residence permits for Mozambique) issues with the Mozambican immigration folks in Nelspruit. Your prayers would be appreciated for that. We were out of country when our last permits expired, and will be asking for grace, to renew again, instead of apply all over again. Then finally, next week we will spend two days at Kruger National Park, with friends enjoying God's amazing beauty, resting and being refreshed before heading back to Mozambique!

Thanks for all the prayers, we know that we have been covered by prayer this entire journey and we know those prayers have made a difference! Please continue to pray for our travels, safety, health and our visits with the immigration folks!

Blessings, Rick, Heather & Tendai!

Invasion of the Rats... and other things...

2011-04-03T23:14:00.000-06:00

Well, this is a pictureless post, and im warning you now, if you are bit squeamish you may just want to skip reading it all together!

Last week, we recieved an email stating that the gentleman who had moved into our house a month ago to stay until we got home had decided to move out.... due to "a rat and worm incident". Thats all it said. no explanation- Im sure you can understand that we were worried and a bit confused... especially since this gentleman (our swiss friend Andy, who has just joined the mission to work alongside us) had laughed very hard at Rick and Myself last year when we jumped on chairs and screamed when a rat ran by in our living room. If the "incident" was enough to make HIM move out... WHAT on earth had happened??!!!

After some panicked emails to our colleagues back home we discovered that as Andy had only arrived in February, our house had been sitting empty for much longer than anticipated. This resulted in a large group of rats taking up residence in our attic.

ICK.

Apparently when Andy arrived the rats were so plentiful and active at night that he could not sleep from all the noise- so he threw a bunch of rat poison up there and thought that would be the end of it.

IT WASNT.

apparently it wasn't the kind of poison that dries them up when it kills them, or else there was too many for them to dry up properly.... (i told you this was gross... but if you are still reading here is your second warning!) Now... please remember, we weren't actually THERE (we are here.... and only heard this thru emails and rather concerned facebook chats online), BUT... it seems that after the rats ate the poison and died, maggots (the aforementioned "worms") got to work on the rats!

DOUBLE ICK. GROSS. EWWW. YUCK.

To make matters oh so much worse, apparently some of them fell thru a light fixture in the ceiling and landed on Andy as the poor guy tried to sleep at night. ACK!!!! I cant even imagine. I would have FREAKED out. I know that Rick and I are called to Africa, I know this is something we make a decision to do every day of our lives... but maggots falling from the ceiling onto my bed at night was not something I ever imagined signing up for! (and Im fairly certain there isn't a missionary on the planet who would say "hmm yeah, that was something i expected!") :)

Thankfully, we were not there. And I did not have to deal with it.... and Lord willing I WONT have to deal with it! The attic and house have been fumigated, the plan is to have the attic cleaned out by the time we arrive home, an I can go back to being blissfully unaware that maggots falling out of the attic is even a possibility. (please note, that although I am glad it came up while we are away, I am not in any way happy it happened to Andy- that is one nasty introduction into missionary life in Mozambique and I feel rather guilty it happened to a guest in our home while we were away!)

Ive told you this rather gross story so you can remember to pray for us in the coming weeks. We have one more week in Canada, but then we start the journey home to Mozambique. It will be a long journey, but we look forward to it, and are getting ready for it! Each day we clean up a few more boxes, back another suitcase and see another person for the "last time" (this trip home at least!). This story in particular however reminds me that we need people to bring us before God on a daily basis. This is just one of the many bizarre situations that we can/could/might/will encounter on a daily basis.

I (heather) worry about taking my child into a home where Rats are apparently running free, I am concerned about her no longer being able to attend daycare, play with other children her age, and I wonder how I will be able to homeschool her properly- will I be able to teach her everything she needs to know? When you pray for us in these coming months, could you remember to pray for us as we face these challenges? It may seem silly, but rats freak me right out, and I could really use some prayers regarding them... more specifically, that they would all be gone, and not come back, as I CANNOT sleep when i hear scurrying (you can ask Rick.. ill keep him up all night looking for things). And no mother wants their child sleeping in a room with rats scurrying around.. doesn't matter where you live or who you are... that will always be a concern!

Of course, we also covet your prayers for our health, safety, our financial needs, and that we can get started on the construction of our house quickly once we get home to Mozambique. And Im definetly going to find some ways to rat proof the next one... i have no idea how yet... but surely i can outsmart them... I think I can.. I think I can!!!

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai

P.S. Many of you know that we have focused this furlough on raising our 'Prayer Support' we are still short of our 500 PPD goal, but those who have been praying have been making a huge difference! This coming sunday our church (Grunthal Abundant Life Fellowship) will be hosting a fundraiser for us. We did not organise it, nor ask for it, but one of our PPD-ers felt led by God to organize a chilli dinner for hundreds, along with a small ticket auction and other things as well. If you are in the area this coming Sunday (APRIL 10th), stop by and join us for the Sunday service (10 AM)- Tendai, along with several other children will be dedicated to the Lord during the service, and the chili lunch etc will take place following that. All our welcome to join- and it will be your last chance to hear Rick speak for awhile as we leave the VERY NEXT DAY!! We hope to see you all there! And many thanks to the folks from our church who are putting this all together to help us raise funds for the construction of our home in Mozambique, as well as our other ministry needs!

T - 21,600 Minutes... give or take a few.

2011-03-27T14:57:00.000-06:00

It may not look like much.. but this is a grahamcracker-dreamwhip-licorice lace african hut in the making.... (and its very yummy too!)

I can hardly believe that in 21,600 ish minutes (1,296,000 seconds for those of you who prefer seconds) we will be on a plane headed back to Africa! It is going to be a crazy few weeks of goodbyes, visits, sorting and packing. We have "kinda" started already... but sadly, I am not nearly as organized as I was last time around- I think we are just going to have to set aside an afternoon and the both of us are going to have to just go nuts ... and GET IT DONE!

Anyhew, this last week we had the privilege of speaking at a a Childrens Group here in Grunthal. We had a ton of fun (and as you can see from the photos above and below) learned how to make african huts from some very yummy construction materials!

We also spent three days visiting our friends in Killarney- it was so good to see them all again, and we will miss them so much! It is so awesome to have a place like that where we can go back and visit and fellowship and it feels like we never left! Killarney is yet another one of our many "homes"!

While there we had the opportunity to visit two different farms, and Tendai got to meet a lot of farm animals...

Today we got fellowship with our home church for the very first time in the new building- it was awesome to see so many people there and even though I (heather) was used for half the illustrations in his sermon, I really enjoyed the message that Rick preached. (Ive heard the same one for the last six months, and this is only the second time Ive heard the one he preached today.. variety is good! LOL)

We also were able to meet with the group of young people and adults who will be coming to visit us in just over a years time! This group of kids has a LONG and HARD road of preparation and fundraising and serious spiritual growth ahead of them, but we know that for many of them (hopefully all) this trip to Mozambique will be a LIFE CHANGING one, not only for them, but for the people they encounter along the way! Im sure they would appreciate your prayers for safety and for the group as they prepare!

We also, appreciate your prayers as we begin to say our goodbyes. They are hard to do... and emotionally draining, so that is a big prayer request. Also continue to pray for our 500 PPD (pray-ers per day) challenge. We have pretty close to 400 people praying right now... so we need to find another 100 people in the next two weeks to meet our goal! As more and mroe people tell me they are praying I am so impressed by the amount of children who bring us before God each night. Just this week I was told of two sisters, only 4 and 2, who pray for us and of course Tendai, their friend, every night. These are the prayers we just love to hear about!! (and yes... they count towards the 500!!!)

Well, Im off to go fourwheeling since the air is so nice and spring-y today and I might not get to go again for a few years! Have a great week!

God Bless,

Rick, Heather and Tendai!

Countdown... to Takeoff!!

2011-03-08T11:30:00.000-06:00

Rick Preaching at DaySpring Fellowship in St. Anne MB.

Today it is 34 Days until we get on the plane to start the long long journey home to Mozambique!

Teaching a Shona Song to our Awana Group at Abundant Life Fellowship, Grunthal, MB

But that doesnt mean we are sitting at home counting the days! Quite the opposite really- now comes the flurry of last minute visits and crazyness, speaking at new places every week, and trying to figure out how and what we are all going to bring back with us!

Being prayed over by the children at AWANA.

games time with the kids... lots of fun was had!

demonstrating how heavy the water bottles our kids back home have to carry are, this leader would fit right in back home!

working together helps!

Rick answers some questions.

another african style game.

With all the speaking and visiting, there is still alot of 'family' stuff that has to get done, like Tendai's first Dental visit- to the best Childrens Dentist ever! This place ROCKED! (i was so glad i brought my camera!)

Watching the TV above the chair

Dr. Biber works his magic

Tendai, Grandma and me (Mom) hosted a Baby Shower for Baby Colin, my sister Brenda's brand new bundle of joy... he is adorable and Tendai is quite fond of kissing him.

posing in her pretty new "hosting a party" dress.

giving aunty a break... since we wont get to see him again till hes nearly 3 years old, we are spending as much time as possible cuddling Baby Colin!!

Well, there you have it, Our week in a blur of Photos! Please continue to pray for us as we keep visiting, fellowshipping and sharing about our work. We cant wait to be back home, but we are dreading saying goodbye to family and friends again!

Another huge prayer request is that the funds will begin to come in for our big project for this year- The construction of our permanent home in Mozambique. Thank you again for all your prayers and support!

Rick, Heather & Tendai

Where my Heart is...

2011-02-19T15:02:00.000-06:00

My last post focused on "home", this one is just going to give you a glimpse of "why" our hearts are firmly planted in Mozambique! Nearly two years ago we were honored to have Professional Photographer Ron Nickel visit us at the farm as part of the Prairie College of Arts And Technology team. He came to document their trip, but while there he took some amazing images for us as well, and taught me oh so much in that week. He allowed me to be his assistant, and im forever indebted to his kindness- I learnt more in that one week than I had in an entire college photography course! I (we) have been waiting a LONG time to see these pics, but finally this week Rick and I were able to enjoy a few minutes catching up with him in Three Hills, and recieved our copy of the images. (the one of above is taken at dusk on top of a small "mountain" on our farm. its not that big... but to me it was huge, i was practically paralyzed with fear but was very certain i wanted to have my picture taken with Rick!)

These pics just stir my heart- these are the everyday faces and scenes that I miss seeing!

sunset near Inchope, Mozambique (we get to see this when we pick up visitors from the airport.. usually)

mother and child waiting in front of our clinic

tomatoes for sale in the "market" in Mucombedze, at the end of our driveway. (i actually REALLY like these tomatoes!)

local tailor in Mucombedze

one of our school kids with the lunch the mission provides

a local home... this is actually probably a storage or cooking hut.. its a bit small for a sleeping hut

kids just love to have their picture taken

panoramic view from the top of our "rock" on the farm...absolutly stunning! if only i didnt feel like a frozen noodle every time i got up there!

me and filipe.. hes no longer in our program.. but i miss him running out to greet me, arms open wide! he always had a big grin, hug and a slobbery kiss for me!

one of the widows in our Amigo Program, Mae Liria- shes quite funny and always has a story to tell.

Tito- if there was an award for mr. personality, he would win it!

Gina... :) (showing us muzungu girls how its done) (pounding maize that is)

Things im not really missing that much at all.....

although i have enjoyed eating them (once they dont look like aliens and are just chunks of meat)... these crazy huge freshwater shrimp kinda freak me out, they stink and they give me the heeby jeebies every time one of the vendors runs in front of our truck shaking these things wildly in front or beside my window... aparently if they look more alive I will want to buy them more. (obviously this is not the case for me)

crazy huge spiders..... ick.

matemba( i think thats the right word)- tiny little minnow type fish that we sometimes give out with the orphans monthly food alotments. They are a great source of protein apparently. But they drive me nuts. Its a longstanding joke between me and the local guys who help deliver orphan food. They know senhora (thats me) doesnt want anything to do with the stinky matemba or the bigger "peixe seco" (dried whole fishes), that make the whole back end of my truck smell like a fish market for a week. They love this stuff, but have given up on trying to get me to eat it!

Anyhew.. dont you just think those photos are FANTASTIC?? We are so blessed as a mission to have been given so many gorgeous pictures to document our work and the people around us!

We are now on the home stretch of our furlough. We have just over a month and a half left before we head back home to Mozambique, and we cant wait to get back! (dont get me wrong.. we have loved it here, but its hard to be seperated from your "heart") We leave Alberta tomorow and start our long drive home! I in particular (heather) am anxious to get home as my sister had a Baby boy on friday, and I need to get all the cuddle time in that I possibly can before we leave! Im a very proud aunty to Colin Layton Bage, and I promise to post of picture of the cousings together as soon as we get some!

Thanks in advance for all your prayers- prayer requests include:

- safe travels and continued health

-for our monthly support level to rise

-that funds will come in for our "special project" for this year- Our House!

- that we will have a good time of ministry and fellowship here in Canada even as we prepare to go back to Mozambique in the next few months.

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai!

Home... where is that again??

2011-02-07T14:58:00.000-06:00

I have no idea where Home actually is... these days it seems to be wherever I currently am physically located on earth. ( so i guess Alberta for right now!) But even though I (we) use the term home to refer to just about any province in Canada, Mozambique, and at times even South Africa during supply trips, there is absolutly NO CONFUSION on our part about where our HEART is! "Home" may just be where our bodies are at any given time, but Mozambique is where our Hearts are... ALL THE TIME!

As our furlough goes on we are beginning to feel the yearning to rejoin our heart back in Africa. Its not that we dont enjoy the time here in Canada- we do! We value each day with friends and family, and we love sharing about our work- but all that sharing reminds us of what we are missing... and it gets harder as time goes on! Please continue to pray with us as share and minister in churches here in Canada, that we will have energy to continue with this crazy schedule of travelling, and for Rick as he speaks!

I wanted to share with you a few of the wonderful places we have been recently.

Dawson Settlement Baptist Church

I may be a bit biased since i have quite a bit of family attending this tiny country church, but they are so mission minded and they dont let their small size stop them even one iota!

My aunt leads the sunday school hour for the kids, and does a fantastic job of presenting a mission focus to them- and she isnt even using a curriculum! When we arrived she had one side of the basement decked out in Mozambique vs Canada themed info, facts, activity sheets and photos!

she even had a "hut" with jungle foliage in the corner where they have their lessons!

We really enjoyed speaking there, and it is so neat to see kids being introduced to missions at such young ages. On our way out of the door after the service I saw this...

cant read it??? heres a closeup..

very very cool.

a weekly reminder that the mysterious and scarey sounding far off place we know as "the mission field" isnt so very far off or scary afterall... its all around us. Every day, every where we go, no matter where we call home or where our hearts are.

Morinville Christian School (and Church)

This was our first time visiting the church and school even though they have been praying for us and supporting us for quite some time! We really enjoyed speaking with the church, and had a great time sharing at the Christian School. (brought back a lot of memories for me as I used to homeschool using much of the same curriculum they use!)

Here is Rick speaking with the kids at the school, teachers and some visitors. Notice the snazzy projector on the table- the church in Morinville decided to cover one budget item for us and chose our projector as that item! What a blessing it will be to us and to the mission in general as we can use it in a LOT of different circumstances! Thanks goes out to our Morinville Friends for their generosity!

Rick using a filled water cooler bottle to illustrate with the children how heavy the water jugs Mozambiquan children have to carry are. Wish we had thought of this illustration earlier- its very effective! These Grade one kids couldn't beleive how heavy they were!

The Grade One Class donated that Folgers Tub full of the pennies, nickels, dimes etc that they had been collecting since the beginning of the year, to our work in Mozambique. More children being given a heart of missions and reaching out to others at a young age! It is so awesome to see Teachers making this part of their class! BTW.. i believe the grand total was 69.00- WAY TO GO GUYS!!!

Wetaskawin Full Gospel Fellowship

Wetaskawin is our "home" when we come to Alberta. Im not sure they entirely realise how BIG of an encouragement they are to this road weary missionary family! The small apartment they have set aside for visiting missionaries is such a huge blessing, and for folks who are very "home confused" it is a place of peace and refuge and belonging! We are so very grateful they have this place for us to come "home" to while we are on furlough in AB.

some of you may remember this picture from October. Marcia, a very talented artist from the church here, used one of my photos as inspiration for this painting that hangs at the front of the sanctuary. I am honored to have my little photo turned into something so beautiful!

Not only do they make us feel welcome, but they had so much snow here this year, that we have a GIANT snow pile outside our front door- which means lots of fun for us in the snow!

Tendai and Mommy playing in the snowfort we built.

Using daddy as a sled is helpful since he can "brake" before you hit the trees at the bottom!

The warm weather one day made the parking lot PERFECT for "snowmobiling" on!

Ok, there you have it, a few of the many wonderful churches who have hosted us recently, there have been so many, and we appreciate them all. We have been busy every sunday speaking and sharing, and most weekdays visiting with folks or attending meetings. The last sunday we were in New Brunswick Rick spoke at THREE different churches for a total of Two Sermons and Two Presentations in ONE day! (we also did two separate visits to different homes that day as well!)

Thank you so much for your continued support and prayer for safety as we continue with our winter travels, for our health, for our financial needs and for us as a Family. We appreciate you all so much!

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai!

What we do....

2011-01-20T10:57:00.000-06:00

Hi there, I realise its been a while since we have been able to show you any new pics from Mozambique, and I also know there are probably some new readers out there who would like to know what it is exactly we do when we we are not on furlough here in Canada. Here is a brief rundown of our responsibilities and ministries.

1. We have developed a Children's Ministry Training Seminar that we run in communities, mostly near the Zambezi river in northern mozambique. Our Seminar is designed to help Children's Ministry Leaders and Local Pastors learn the very basics of working with children, studying the Bible, and teaching like Jesus taught (using illustrations from the world around Him & culturally appropriate examples). The seminars, and the new "pre-seminar" that will review basic Bible stories and how to use them to teach basic values, are done over 2-3 days. We usually do two at a time, with several days in between, meaning we spend about 12 days up north, living in tents, cooking over an open fire, and building relationships with the many people who our mission works with.

Each Seminar has 25 participants and is for leaders from several churches. We provide food for several meals, and a very basic manual to help them remember what they have learned. Our goal is to see church leaders empowered to reach out to children in Mozambique, especially those in rural areas, where resources and activities are almost none existant.

2. Rick helps to teach at the Intensive Seminars for the mission's Faith Bible Seminary twice a year. He usually teaches between one and three course books over a week of classes. He also goes north during the year to run several mini seminars alongside Dwight and Francois (our coworkers). I sometimes help with the Intensive Seminars as well, helping to teach memorization skills, etc.

3. I (we) run the Amigo Orphan Program, where we find sponsors for orphaned children being cared for by their widowed mothers or grandmothers in our area. Families are usually recommended to us by community leaders or local pastors who see that they are struggling. We, alongside and with an enormous amount of help from our local staff, deliver food each month, help with school fees, basic medical care and some new clothes each year. I make sure sponsors receive updates several times a year, and we try to send out a drawing or craft to the sponsors yearly as well.

We also have bi-weekly meetings with the kids where we learn a bible lesson, play games as a group, sing songs , do a craft and catch up with the kids about whats going on with school, at home etc.
I also assist Lynn on home visits, etc (or rather I watch in awe as she does her thing and I hand her stuff). :)

4. We have been organizing and delivering the orphan care packs from the Unique Christmas Gift campaigns for the last several years. This is one BIG job, but we love doing it each year!

5. We help organize and run a weeklong vacation Bible school at Mucombedze Interior Primary School (the mission's school) each November. One of our favorite times each year- we love to work alongside and train the teachers in children's ministry, and see the kids having five days of FUN... juice, cookies, games, crafts and FUN! (and of course learning Bible Lessons, verses, and life lessons!)

6. Rick helps to oversee numerous construction projects on the farm. Once we get back to Mozambique, we will hopefully be starting to build our family home (we are currently renting a one bedroom cottage, which is needed by short term visitors and is too small for us!). We are trusting God that the needed funds will come in, so we can get started on it, and get Tendai a room to sleep in, instead of the curtained off "hallway" corner! :)

7. We look after one very active 2 year old, and hope to add to our family thru another adoption! Between the two of us we also try to keep on top of paperwork, emails, videos for the churches back home, finance records, random farm necessities and the seemingly unending pile of paperwork that allows us to stay in Mozambique!

Each day is a "adventure" in Mozambique- not that we have something terribly exciting happen everyday, or run thru the bush on a regular basis, but we do wake up every morning wondering what the day will bring- will we follow our "plan" for the day? or be asked to use our truck as an ambulance? a hearse? a school bus?, will we have to make an emergency run to town to hand in a random paper that officials have decided is urgently needed?, will we help haul a heavy water tank to the top of a tall tower? or get the chance to take a picture of a dead snake? or maybe we will just do paperwork and make sure brick foundation walls are straight and level....whatever it is we do, we know God has called us to Mozambique, to train national pastors and leaders, and to Love God.... by Loving His People!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and a sheepish "Im Sorry"

2011-01-15T21:49:00.000-06:00

Hey All,

Just wanted to say I am so sorry for not having posted for nearly a month. Rick and I both came down with colds/flu's right at Christmas, and then by the time we got over them, we were on a plane to New Brunswick! Weve been busy visiting friends and family, and spent two days of rest at a small inn in St. John thanks to some generous friends. (And Grandma and Grandpa who babysat Tendai for us!) Weve been speaking at churches, and helping out with various jobs around the house. Its so good for us to have this time with family, and it is such an amazing blessing to see Tendai with her grandparents!

It is hard to believe that we only have three more months here in Canada before we head back to Mozambique! We are so excited to get back to our home and work, and yet leaving family and friends behind will be very hard too! Please pray for us as we start to prepare for our return. Licenses, paperwork, doctor and dental appointments, the list goes on and on!

Here are a few pictures from our time with Grandma and Grandpa-

we went to Jungle Jim's for lunch, where Tendai got this very scary mask!

Tendai noticed that Grandpa dropped some porridge off his spoon. So she very helpfully went and got her bib for him and put it on him. He said she even got a wet wipe and wiped it off for him first! What a considerate kid we have!! :)

Thanks for you prayers, I hope to be doing an update soon on some of our current needs and prayer requests, as well as some awesome praises!

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai

From Tendai's point of view.

2010-12-19T17:20:00.000-06:00

Hi All.. recently for her 2nd Birthday, Tendai was given a kid friendly camera. Nothing fancy, it doesnt have a flash, nor special settings, and according to the box it has a whopping .3 megapixels. (yes.. POINT three). Its the cutest thing though, and takes decent enough pictures in good light. Tendai loves it, and managed to take quite a few shots before she got fascinated with the beeping power button and completed ran the batteries down making it beep on and off ( i should have known something was up when it was quite in her bedroom!). Anyhew.. its a great little camera, and it got me thinking. Im gonna do a blog post every once and awhile from Tendai's point of view. With HER pictures. This could be fun i think!

So heres a smattering of the first batch of pictures I managed to get off the camera before she ran the batteries completly dead.

"daddy is hard at work on his computer...

mommy is too. here is her keyboard that I smash every day at least once (even though i know im not supposed to.. its just so much fun!!!)

this is a christmas tree. its much bigger than the mozambiquan one we have back home. it has tons of pretty lights and I love it. do you think it will fit in my suitcase?

this is me. mommy took this one because when i tried myself it did not work at all. not even close.

this is one of my favorite dollys. my aunty gave her to me. she smells like strawberries. Here in Canada there are TONS of dollys. Everybody has at least one or two!

another fun toy that i got for my birthday. it makes all sort of noises. They say that animal is a sheep but they obviously have not seen "REAL" sheep before. the sheep back at our farm look nothing like that cotton ball!

Thats all the good pictures i have for now. I tried to take some of the snow but they all just turned out very blurry white. Its hard for me to sit still long enough! When mommy buys me new batteries i will take lots more pictures! I cant wait to take pictures of my friends back home in Africa and of my house and yard. I will even try to remember to take a picture of a real sheep so you all know what they look like. Mommy says it is almost Christmas time so I should also say Merry Christmas."

Now.. you all know Tendai cant talk, much less type, but i think the whole idea will be fun.. and since she really is taking the pictures it will be a bit of a challenge for me to come up with things to say that base around her pictures!

We had our first Christmas Family Gathering today and enjoyed it so much. We are blessed to have such an amazing extended family who support us in so many ways. I hope your Christmas season will also be filled with friends and family, memories and laughter.

God Bless,

Rick, Heather & Tendai Neufeld

....the most wonderful time of the year.....

2010-12-14T13:37:00.000-06:00

One of the kids gets the drums warmed up at last years Christmas party!

Its that time of year.... Christmas.... I love Christmas time.. here in Canada and in Mozambique! (though i dont enjoy the HOT weather at this time of year at all! in mozambique that is) . This past week we were able to spend time with Chris and Corissa Mohan (you may remember they visited us in Moz in the spring for the month of march). We spoke at their church and had a wonderful time of fellowship with them. The church was amazing, and we were blessed by the community of believers. Its funny how I never tire of hearing Rick preach (and its the same message too!).

Chris and Corissa treated our family to a Brandon Wheat Kings hockey game... so much fun to be at a hockey game again!

Being Silly with Aunty Corissa!

In other news, back home at the farm everyone is gearing up for both the staff Christmas party, and of course, one of my favorite days of the year- The Amigo Orphan Program Christmas Party! This year the party will be held at the farm in the brand new Lapa (outdoor covered meeting area with a traditional thatched roof), complete with a decorated Christmas tree and presents! I am sad to be missing the party this year, especially since they will be seeing all those twinkling lights for the very first time!! (Lynn promises that she will take pictures for me!) Can you imagine what it will be like for them???

The orphan kids and grannys at last year's orphan party.

VERY excited kids!

Little Nailene ate a whole big plate all by himself!

Rick and I have the next few weeks "off" meaning we dont have any planned speaking engagements at churches or youth groups, but will instead be enjoying a few weeks of fellowship with our home church here in Grunthal. We look forward to worshipping with our church family and being refreshed. Although we are not actually speaking anywhere, we are booked EVERY SINGLE evening for this entire week, and most of them for next week, as we visit with supporters, friends and family, sharing what God is doing in Mozambique, and our passion for ministry there. And then of course, it will be Christmas, which we look forward to spending with family.

One of our busy nights from the past week was hosting Tendai's 2nd Birthday party, complete with an awesome cake made by our friend Jen Klassen. Ive been dreaming of this safari cake for over a year (literally)!!!

Jen even made Tendai a lovely little smash cake just for her!

Our 500 PPD Campaign (Pray-ers Per Day) has been going well. At this point we have just over 200 signed up... if you are willing to join us in our challenge, by signing up to pray for us every day, please let us know. We are aiming to find 500 people by the end of our furlough. Once you sign up by giving us your name and email, you will recieve an email update once a month. That update will let you know praise reports and prayer requests, and give you a rundown of what we have been doing and are looking forward too. Please consider signing up to be one of our Pray-ers. You can contact us at the email address listed on the right hand side of the blog.

Thank you to those who have been and continue to pray for us. Your continued prayers for our health and safety, finances and ministry needs are so appreciated. We hope each of you has an amazing time visiting with family and friends and celebrating our saviors birth.

God Bless,

Rick, Heather & Tendai Neufeld

Unique Christmas Gifts.... and more!

2010-11-27T15:57:00.000-06:00

orphan girls in Mutarara open their care packs with MUCH anticipation

Hey Friends... its almost December.. which means most of us are neck deep in Christmas trees, cards, baking, and of course Shopping! Rick and I are enjoying the ability to actually go Christmas shopping this year- last year we scoured the small foreigner owned shops in chimoio to find some small gifts we could give each other. We usually end up making our own gift certificates for each other, and enjoying each others company, sometimes if a trip to South Africa coincides with this time of year we purchase a family gift for ourselves. This year we have the option to go Christmas Shopping in all of our favorite stores- exciting!- and a bit overwhelming too... to go from few options to zillions is a bit to wrap your head around. We try to keep our Christmas spending within limits, no going crazy for us, and to focus on the real meaning of Christmas- The best gift of all, Jesus.

orphan children with their care packs!

Im sure many of you are also struggling to balance the joy of giving, with the wonder of remembering our Saviour's birth. Some may even be desperate to find that perfect gift for those who seemingly already have "everything!" Or perhaps you are searching for a way to teach your children that real joy is found in the giving, not the getting. If any of those apply to you... then "have I got a deal for you" (not to sound cliche or anything)!

this little guy just couldnt wait.. he dove right in!

For the past few years SAM Ministries (our mission) has put out a "Unique Christmas Gift" brochure, full of ideas and "gifts" that people here in Canada and around the world can purchase which will then be given to needy children, families and pastors in Mozambique, in the New Year. Rick and I have the privilege of sourcing, purchasing, packaging and delivering the orphan care packs purchased thru this campaign each year. It is such a blessing to be able to share, the Love of Christ with each orphan who receives and to tell them how an individual in Canada prays for them and sponsored their pack.

Some of this years gifts include:

Complete Orphan Care Pack: 50$

Water Carrying Jug: 4$

Blanket: 25$

Childrens Ministry Training Kit: 300$ (includes Bibles, and seminar resource manuals and supplies for 25 Childrens Ministry leaders)

Sponsor a Pastor in our Training Program, Faith Bible Seminary for:

-one course 30$

-full year (four courses) 120$

A cow for an area farmer: 375$

Plough and supplies: 220$

a granny and the orphan she cares for pose for a picture- so thankful!

pastors and church leaders participate in a seminar to learn methods of teaching bible memory skills.

These are just some of the options available to purchase as a Gift. You can see the full listing and brochure by clicking here and then follow the link to see the full size brochure. Options are listed on the brochure for how to give. (you can send a cheque or you can give securely online as well) Please note there are also gift options listed for our sister mission in Brazil (where Rick and I lived for four months while learning portuguese).

This week we were blessed to speak at the CMC Youth Group here in Grunthal, as they prepare for TWO upcoming mission trips with Samaritans Purse! They played "dentre/fora" (in/out) a deceptively simple game we were taught by our school kids at Mucombedze Interior Primary School (our school). They also ate Litchees for the first time.. reactions varied from.. "awesome" to"im going to vomit"- i guess its one of those you either like it or hate it kind of fruits!

Tendai joins the youth group in prayer from her perch on the pew behind us

Rick spends a couple of days each week working alongside his brothers in the family construction business. This week I got a call saying I had to come down to the jobsite and get a picture of the giant cement crane! Its funny how the things that never even phased us before are now amazing to us. Rick wanted a pic of the large crane and cement truck so that we could show the guys back home how they do it here:

even with the big cement crane and all the technology available here.. the guys still level it out with a shovel and a 2x4... i guess some things stay the same no matter where you live!

-opposed to our new "normal" method of cement mixing back home (and by the way this is the NICE way of mixing.. sometimes they just have to do it by hand):

Its been awesome to spend time with family and friends! We are taking advantage of every opportunity to visit and fellowship with friends here. Thank you all again for your prayers and support. We appreciate them so much.

Some of our current prayer needs include:

- health and safety as we travel, Tendai has had a nasty cold lately, and both Rick and I are adjusting to driving on winter roads again.

- that our support will continue to increase, allowing us to do more Children's Ministry Training Seminars each year.

-that we will be able to raise the needed funds for our family home

-that Mozambique will receive the rains needed to have a good growing season this year

Praise Items-

-safe travel thus far!

- we have had many people sign up to be part of our 500 Pray-ers Per Day challenge

-good times of fellowship and visiting with friends.

-that the airstrip back at the farm is nearing completion! PTL!

another one of mommy's photo shoots!

Thanks again! God Bless,

Rick, Heather & Tendai Neufeld

Live!! at Calvary Baptist...

2010-11-18T17:02:00.000-06:00

well.. ok.. maybe not live! exactly, but pretty close! This last weekend we spoke and participated in the service at our second home church, Killarney Calvary Baptist Church, which is also where we used to youth pastor. They post all their services online, and so Ive decided to link to the page so you all have the opportunity to see it too! If you do watch, about half way thru, Lavinia Bryce (the wife of one of our former youth kids - yeah.. we feel old... sings an absolutly AMAZING special music number that just spoke to my heart- what a talented young lady!)

Now.. a few disclaimers... a) this is our second home church.. so we are bit more relaxed here... joking around, laughing, taking pictures of our church family from the front.. yeah. we are a bit nutty. b) SPOILER ALERT- should you decide to go check this out, and we come to your church later this year... you will probably get the same sermon in some variation.. just so you know! (its a gooder though and even seven sundays in, Im still loving listening to it!!) c) I am in the praise team... and i havent sang in a praise team for nearly three years... so no laughing.

Click here if you would like to view the service!

me singing in the praise team.. what a blessing it was to be able to participate again with them.. and even cooler was the fact that FOUR of our former youth kids (both jr. and sr.) were involved with the team that sunday- God is Good!

The Pastor, and many of our friends and former youth prayed over us at the end of the service.

We stayed with good friends (Corrie and Grant and their daughter Elora and McCanna- sp?) Elora Loved to play with Tendai!

frost on the trees on the way home..... oh how i love the frost on the trees!!

moose we saw on the way home.... he was cute. (i used to be scared of moose till i got chased by an elephant.. now as long as the moose is BESIDE the road and not on it.. i think they are cute!)

We recently sent out an our monthly email update, where we asked for folks to continue praying for us, but also to COMMIT to praying for us... I'm going to post a little excerpt from that here

"Our 500PPD (pray-ers per day) Challenge!

Lately God gave us a desire to find 500 people who would commit to praying for us daily. It seemed like a big number since we are asking for regular prayer from each person, and asking them to sign up for our email newsletter so they can have access to our monthly prayer needs and requests! (currently we have about 150 people receiving that newsletter). If you are one of those people (who already receive the email updates) BUT have not yet signed up to be one of our “500 pray-ers per day”, and would like to, please send me an email with your name & email address and stating you would like to commit to praying for us every day! If we wont be visiting your church soon we can even mail you a new prayer card and magnet so you have some reminders!

We have realized these last two years in Mozambique that prayer makes a huge difference. I cannot tell you how many times someone has emailed me and said “I felt I needed to pray for you today… was something going on?” We know when people are praying for us, we feel the encouragement and support even across the planet! Mozambique was recently listed at #165 out of 169 countries on the human development index- it is a tough place to live. We are blessed to have a home and access to clean water and safe food, but we are daily faced with the realities of working with the local community, many of whom do not have those opportunities.

Please take a moment to consider signing up to be one of our 500Pray-ers, we are believing we can get to 500 who have committed and signed up by the time our furlough is over!"

This afternoon the first few flakes of what the forecasters are saying will amount to 15 cm are falling.. its so wonderful to be celebrating the season in "normal" style- with snow, hot chocolate, mittens, vans that wont start in the cold.... all the fun stuff! Hope you are enjoying it as much as we are!

Lately Ive been encouraged to find that LOTS of people are reading my blog (which is nice.. cus i didnt think very many were) so Im motivated now to keep updating it more often!! Ill try to get back to doing it once a week.. though theres only so many pics of Rick preaching wearing the same outfit that you guys are gonna want to see!! Im hoping to do a post on our Unique Christmas Gifts in the next week or so, keep your eyes open for that!!

God Bless,

Rick, Heather & Tendai!

p.s. if you would like to receive our monthly email update send us your email address and we will add you to the list!!!

Jars of Clay....

2010-11-02T12:20:00.000-06:00

In August, I was contacted by Marcia, an extremely talented artist from Wetaskawin. She was asking permission to use my photo as the inspiration for a painting she wanted to do. I was honored (having seen some of Marcia's amazing work already at the Wetaskawin Full Gospel Fellowship before we left Canada), and of course gave her my permission! Here is Marcia, Myself, and the absolutly beautiful painting on the day of its "unveiling" at the church where it will hang. It brought tears to my eyes, knowing that that hand in that picture is one of our grannies, a woman who at a fairly advanced age decided to learn to read and write in the ladies literacy school, run by the mission. She moved from her home, community and friends to help us by being the "house mother" at the orphan home in Chitundo where the orphans in grade 6 & 7 stay during the school year. She makes these pots as a way to have a small income, and takes great pride in decorating each one with a design. They are sold for between 7 and 30 Meticais ( 20 -80 cents) each and involve several days of forming, drying, baking..

Rick preaching at Wetaskawin Full Gospel Fellowship this past Sunday.

I was especially moved when Marcia told me that she hoped this painting would remind me of our work in Africa.. and it does. We are helping to "form and mold" the leaders of the church, by teaching and encouraging, so that they are able to in turn to do the same with their churches. We also are reminded by the verse, that we have a great treasure, good news, to share, and thru God's Grace are able to use our earthly resources and talents to bring that news to the people of Mozambique- whether in words, or thru our actions every time we love an Orphan, widow, sick villager or struggling pastor with the Love of Jesus.

Our last week in Alberta was very busy (just like the first one!). We visited Keren's (remember Keren? she was the nurse from Alberta who spent Ten months with us on the farm) parents for an afternoon- which was a lot of fun as they have a whole "store" of toys hiding under their stairs!

We also visited Miss Suzanne (who let Tendai play with her stethescope) and Shannon and Jodi, and others from Three Hills Alberta. Was great to see some familiar faces from the Prairie Bible nursing teams!

The next day we travelled to Athabasca to see some friends we know from our Youth Pastoring days in Killarney Manitoba, was great to be able to fellowship and encourage some freinds. Rick and Bruce enjoyed some time hunting while Deidre and I took care of the munchkins, and visited at home.

(dont they look like they could be brothers???) (they arent)

We also spent an evening in Calgary with family there, and accompanied them to their churches annual Family Fest... Tendai went as a lion and was sooooo cute!

Finally.. after driving thru the night we arrived home Monday afternoon. Tendai got to try out her new borrowed toddler bed and much to our suprise went right to sleep in it.. no problems! Its no wonder she was exhausted.. we have been going going going for two weeks straight.. nice to have a week of just work and home and visiting folks close by!!! We are so thankful for this "retirement fund" house and also for fantastic weather! Praise the Lord we are all still reasonably healthy ( colds and runny noses but in the grand scheme of things thats nothing!), our vehicle is doing great and we have been booking into lots of churches. We are now booked up till end of the year, and most of January!

Thank you for all your prayers- your continued prayers for our travel safety, health, and finances are appreciated! God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai!

On the Road again!

2010-10-20T15:39:00.000-06:00

not quite able to touch the spot where Wetaskawin is!

Hi all! As you can see from our lovely model we are currently in Alberta! We are pretty busy visiting with folks, speaking in churches, youth groups and meeting with mission committees but we are having a great time! We were so encouraged by the folks at Carrot Creek Christian Fellowship this past weekend, and we are glad to know that there are many there who pray for us faithfully.

Currently we are based in Wetaskawin, south of Edmonton, where the Full Gospel Fellowship has a "prophets chamber" apartment, set aside for visiting missionaries, pastors or those in need. This place has blessed us already and we truly do look forward to the next two weeks here.

Thank you for your continued prayers as we travel around Alberta, and then back to Manitoba in the first week of November. We also appreciate prayers for our health as we seem to have arrived just as cold and flu season is kicking off!

Here are a few pictures from the last week, Blessings, Rick, Heather & Tendai Neufeld!

Rick preaching at Carrot Creek Christian Fellowship

Tendai hasnt quite gotten used to North American style worship services yet!

Just hanging out with two wonderful people, George and Carolyn Stone- we so appreciated their hospitality, generosity, and prayers! (and the homemade jam, pickles, moose meat stew and meatballs were pretty good too!!)

Yikes.. its been one VERY busy week!!

2010-10-09T16:28:00.000-06:00

What a crazy week it has been! We flew out of Jo-burg last Wednesday night and havent stopped moving since! Tendai was a trooper and did great travelling! She had FIVE different flights in less than five days, but had no problems whatsoever with the UP and DOWN or the sitting for long periods- sure she got a bit antsy, but nothing a walk in the aisles or a fort built by daddy (see below) couldnt fix!

Once we arrived in New Brunswick we had some important visiting to do (including suprising both my parents and my granmother) None of them had ANY idea we were coming so it was great to be ale to see the looks of absolute SHOCK on their faces when we arrived. And to make it even better it was my Grandmothers birthday! She said meeting her great grandaughter all the way from africa for the first time was the best birthday present she has ever gotten!

Tendai also enjoyed some spoiling by her grandma!

Rick was able to preach and share about our ministry at Hampton Baptist Church - where I myself attended as a toddler! Watching the video on the big screen reminded me of how much I miss the orphan kids I work with ... it will be a long six-seven months until I see them again! We are looking forward so much to sharing about the work we do with Orphans and Widows, the training seminars with Pastors and our heart to see the communities we are involved with grow and change in so many positive ways. If you see us out and about, dont be scared to ask about our work in Mozambique, it is our passion and we love to share about the many areas of community development and ministry we are involved in! It has been so exciting these past two years to see how we can really be agents for positive change if we let God work thru us and in us!

One last pic with Grammie and Grampie Clarke, before we head west to Manitoba!

Welcome to Manitoba! this is our Home Church's welcome sign.. dont we feel special!?

Once we arrived in MB its been a whirlwind of errands (gotta renew the all important driving licenses), visits with friends and family, and moving into our "retirement fund"house. Thanks to some REALLY generous folks, who allowed us to purchase a newly built house at pretty much "cost", we have been able to build a house that will be rented out while we spend the forseeable future in Mozambique- then, way way down the road we will have a house we can live in once we retire and wont have to worry about a mortgage or rent! Its a huge blessing and one we NEVER expected to recieve.. but God is good that way- he throws little and big things our way just to remind us He cares!

Its nice to know our Canadian Retirement plans are looking up- although I sincerely hope not to making use of them for at least 20-some years! Back home in Mozambique our garage is nearing completion, and now we will need to start thinking about starting on our permanent house. Up until now we have been renting a short termer cottage... but the short term visitors are kinda needing it more and more, and we are definetly needing more space since we hope to expand our family even more when we return and we are desperatly needing office and storage space for the ministry!

Thanks for all the prayers for Tendai's visa, we do appreciate them so much! God worked everything out in the most amazing ways! Please continue to pray for us as we being travelling this coming week (we are coming out to Alberta, so if you would like to visit with us, let us know.. our sundays are booked but we have lots of time during the weeks to visit, or speak at youth groups, awana clubs, small groups, etc.) On this trip we will be in Alberta till October 31st. Please pray for safety while traveling, that we will be able to share about our ministry and work effectively and clearly and that we will have a good time of renewal and fellowship with our supporting churches, friends and family.

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai

Leaving... (this time on a jet plane!)

2010-09-28T02:19:00.000-06:00

Praise the Lord! This monday we finally received Tendai's Visa for Canada- WOOOHOOO!!!!! Its been long months of waiting, but we are FINALLY going to be going home! Booking on short notice means some interesting flight plans... but we will be leaving later this week, and arriving in Manitoba on Monday evening. Please pray for safe travels, especially since this will be Tendai's first time flying!

We will update once we are safely home in Canada, but wanted to let you know that all those prayers lifted up on our behalf were heard and answered in a wonderful way! God is Good!

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai

How my "manliness" almost killed me (a post by Rick)

2010-09-17T05:50:00.000-06:00

Ok, I guess I could substitute stupidity for "manliness" but I think we could probably use these terms interchangalby. Heres the story. First of course, I should preface this story by saying, I am a bit of a hypocrite. For the last two years we have seen many visitors come to the farm and each visitor recieves the same instructions. If you are achy, feverish, and have a head-ache you need to take your malaria medicine. We tell this to every visitor although there are some who do not like to take that advice. Those are the ones who tend to get real sick real quick.

Anyways, back to my story. A couple days ago, I began to have lots of joint pain but just thought it was because I am getting older and am a bit of a wimp. That and I tried to do push ups the day before. I also figured that might be why I had such an intense headache since I get those due to an old neck injury. My wife on the other hand highly recommended that I start on my malaria meds (shes a smart woman!). She told me I was getting the symptoms and that I should practice what I preach and take the malaria meds. But I insisted I am manly, and I DO NOT HAVE malaria (still not sure how getting a sickness is unmanly).

Anyways, the next day some friends offered to watch tendai for us so we could go on a date. Our first "date" in over 2 years, so I of course jumped at the opportunity despite being achey, slightly feverish, with a headache. And what a wonderful date it was. Since we are stuck in South Africa waiting for a visa for tendai, we were actually able to go to dinner and a movie, which was awesome. (Especially since I was getting sick and it did not involve a lot of activity.) After supper, we went to pick up the baby from our friends which turned into a really good visit. However by this time I was like a kid with really bad diahrea holding back with all I had. Not diahrea of course, but the effects of malaria. I was fighting the chills, aches, and headache, but did not want to be a whiner and complain to my wife. I am manly (right, like a man can actually defeat a sickness raging through his body.... It's not a dragon!) and I am not sick and will not complain. Finally however, it was time to go, and I no longer had to pretend I was ok. Of course by now the chills are so bad that I am shaking like a leaf in a tornado. I think I pulled a muscle in my neck, and my lower back, just from the chills. That and my jaw is strained from all the chattering and I don't want to talk (but I think that one Heather might say was an answer to prayer and not the malaria).

At this point I succumbed to pressure and took the medicine, after a long long night of shaking, and suffering, I finally am getting better. I am not sure if this makes me any less manly for taking my meds, but I know I will live another day. Funny thing is, this is not the first time. Last time this happened, I was brought to the hospital when my kidneys wanted to shut down. Hmmm. They say insanity is repeating the same thing over and over expecting a different result. I disagreee. On this premise, all manly men, would be insane! Just doesn't seem right. Anyways, moral of the story. Don't work out the day before getting malaria.. cus it just makes it hurt more.

(Heather's note... despite what the title of the post says, Rick was not near death... he did have malaria, and it did hit him hard, but he wasnt near death. I would never let him get that sick, just to avoid looking like a sissy (which he doesnt... its just medicine for crying out loud!!)

Well for all those wondering what is going on now in our lives the basic answer is waiting, studying and preparing. We are waiting for Tendai's visa. I think we have to have an answer by the 30th, but are hoping to recieve one much sooner. The current process goes like this. We have been told we need a TB test. We do the TB test. We recieve the answer which says Tendai does not have TB. That response gets sent to Kenya where another doctor stamps the results. The results then get returned to Immigration in South Africa, and our application is approved. Lots of waiting.

So now we are working on office work that needs to be done for the mission while we wait here. I am working on making church video's, reworking a youth book for the local pastors, and catching up on other mission related office work. Other then that, we are just praying that God will continue to open the doors for us to be able to come home and we hope that you as well will pray with us for this. God bless. Rick, Heather & Tendai