Finally.. another blog post with pictures!

Tendai enjoyed sitting on Mae Marosa's lap while the two nurses did what they do best this past week! One of the children in our orphan program has had pain in his legs and lower back for several weeks. We had taken him to the hospital once already, where they said there was nothing wrong other than some muscle strain and gave him some anti-inflamitory med and sent him home. This past week we showed up to discover that he had a huge abscess on the side of his one leg, and three on his back. After a few days with no improvement- we took him back to town.. this time to the private clinic. They drained nearly half a litre of infected fluid and blood from the abcess, before he refused to let them do any more. (Its fairly painful!) My hat goes off to Keren, for sitting there with him , holding him,  and comforting him, even though she speaks very little of his language. 

The abscess on his leg- see those three marks? After much discussion and asking about ten times we FINALLY got a straight answer- he had been taken to the "witchdoctor", or "traditional healer", who had used a straight blade to make small cuts allowing the evil spirits to leave his body. We arent sure if the cuts allowed the infection in , in the first place or only made it worse.  It is completly normal here for people to go to the witchdoctors, even those who profess Christianity, as many dont understand the significance of what they are doing. We try to help people make educated choices about their health, but it is very hard to break a cycle of fear, shame, curses and whatnot that make people believe pretty much anything a witchdoctor says!

I cant seem to get this picture to rotate, but this is Lynn trying to assess how big the lumps on his back are. You can see how the one on the left of her hand sticks up higher than her hand is... Thankfully, the doctor at the private clinic ( one of two in town with "decent" health care facilities) thinks that with continued treatment, antibiotics and care he should be back to normal soon.  Praise the Lord! I cant wait to see Paulo back to his usual happy, active self!

Rick took Tendai over to the site where our house will be built to do some line marking with him the other day.. (he let me sleep in.. what a sweetie!)

She loved being daddys helper... and the free ride!

Apparently it was hard work though.. she conked out in that thing afterwards!

And finally.. a few reptile shots- Above, one of the crocodiles at a lodge about an hour away from us- they are trying to reintroduce crocodiles into their area (cant say i am terribly happy about that.. im not much of a croc fan, but i suppose there are environmental reasons for it)

And below, Tendai plays with "Daisy" Keren's pet chameleon (for all of one day.. he ran away). Tendai did suprisingly well with him, until he jumped into her lap.. then she freaked out.. screamed.. flailed, kicked... im suprised she didnt squish him! (dont worry.. both Tendai and Daisy survived the incident) (Many mozambiquans beleive if you get bitten by a chameleon you will  a) either be stuck with it on your finger forever since they dont let go (?) or b) die since they have strange powers. (?)  (neither of which is true of course) So whenever we see em we try to get them to a hiding place (ie.. one of our yards or gardens or into the bush) so they wont be killed by fearful mozambiquans. They are not dangerous at all and in fact eat tons of mosquitoes and flys.. making them handy to have around!

This week has been a long week for us- as I mentioned previously we are trying to get travel documents to allow us to travel to south africa with Tendai next week, in order to pick up ricks parents who are coming to visit. It turns out that we had been advised all wrong as to the process and the order in which things are done. So we have now hired a lawyer (who is hopefully not crooked and will get things done for us), who is going to start the process ALL over- Please pray that God works in the hearts of the Judicial officials and the Judge, it will take a miracle for us to receive the paperwork needed on time. 

Thankfully we are all feeling a bit better this week, just in time for the temperatures to skyrocket- its been REALLY hot the last few days! 

We are also asking you to join with us in praying for rain- it is extremely dry here, and if we dont get rain soon the maize will not grow. Many will go hungry, and lose their years supply of food. There is no irrigation here for the local people, and when the rain does not come there is nothing they can do but watch their hard work and effort go to waste. Please join with us in praying that rain will come soon, and abundantly so.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support, God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai

Tired

Today has been a long day. We are desperatly trying to arrange travel documents allowing us to go to South Africa with Tendai to meet Rick's parents. However at this time it will literally take God intervening in the process for it to happen. We know HE can... and we pray HE will.  

I promise to blog this week yet, I know im a bit late with that, but for now, if those who read this blog could pray for a) that travel documents can be arranged and b) rain for all of mozambique.. if rain does not come soon we will have a very bad hunger situation here!

Ill try to blog with some photos later this week.

Thanks in advance to all the prayer warriors who lift us up before our Heavenly Father when we are tired, frustrated and dont understand what is going on! Blessings, Rick, Heather and Tendai.

Welcome to 2010!

Welcome to 2010! Its been a great year so far, and we look forward to seeing what God has in store for us!

Our truck has been getting ALOT of use- this week it got to deliver Orphan Food- something it will be doing a lot of.  A new vehicle is allways something exciting.. and aparently the neighborhood kids cant help but touch it- as evidenced by the lovely handprint! (mango juice makes hands very sticky!)

Carey helped out by driving on Orphan Food day, here he is helping one of our Mercy Ministry Recipients carry the maize back to his home. I dont think it was actually THAT heavy, but i needed a good picture. LOL.

One of our Grannies has moved out of her house temporarily (she was told it was cursed) so we need to do a bit of talking and  a lot of praying! Belief in ancestral curses, luck, spirits and witchcraft are very prevalent here- even amongst those who profess Christianity. This little boy literally RAN down the highway in front of our truck to show us where she is staying now.  I couldnt believe how fast he was running!

Welcome to our new project- our house! This year our main project will be to build our home! (and probably most of next year as well!) The cottage we are currently in is intended for short term use, and only has one bedroom. With us having Tendai now, and hoping to be able to adopt more children in the future, we definetly need to build a bigger house! In the picture above, Rick and Tendai are walking where the workers have already cleared some of the land, where the garage/storage building will be.

Here is what the whole area looked like to begin with.

Here is what it looked like once the workers had begun clearing! Amazing things were discovered- like we have a whole section of flat rocks right on the edge of what will be our verandah.. a very nice natural extension!

We also discovered the septic tank that had been dug and built by a former mission staffer who had started to build on this site many years ago, and then decided not to continue.

....and the french drain he dug as well. (rick understands how this all works.. its all greek to me)

Tendai is beggining to walk every once and a while.. a few steps here or there, she also discovered how to throw herself this way and that and crash into hard things.. like rocks. Here she is sucking on some ice to nurse that swollen lip!

On New Years Day, Lynn, Keren and I (and Tendai) had a ladies "spa" day. We soaked our feet, applied nice smelling lotions and painted our nails.. it was lots of fun. Tendai even got to have her nails painted! Rick even made us healthy spa style frozen fruit only smoothies.. sooo nice.

More ice licking.. she sure loved that ice!

Below she is playing in our driveway's dirt- we dont have a sandbox, so this is as close as it gets.

After a hard day of playing... falling asleep in her play area with her stuffed puppy!

Sooooo. Yesterday morning Lovemore (while washing the dishes, after him being here for almost half an hour) turns to me and says... Senhora, what would you like me to do with that dead animal in magnums water bucket? I was like.. uhhh what???!!!!!!  So he shows me...

A rat had fallen in and drowned.. i had to wonder.. what did he think I wanted him to do with it???!!! keep it as a souvenir??? Anyhew.. he threw it in the bush, washed out the water bowl and gave magnum new water. Welcome to life in Africa! :)

This past week has been very busy for us- Dwight and Lynn headed down to south africa to get some important errands done, and Francois and Alta are still down there with family members- so its just us. Then we heard that the government has decided to open all the school two weeks earlier than normal- meaning we had to rush to organize all our registrations, school fees, housing for sponsored students.. and the list goes on and on!  

Please continue to pray for us- lately there has been a nasty flu going around the farm, as well as several cases of malaria, some quite severe. We are also still waiting for Tendais paperwork to be approved by the judge, allowing us to travel to South Africa with her at the end of this month. We need it to be approved soon so we still have time to get her passport before our trip. This trip down south will be very exciting for us- Rick's parents are coming to visit for three weeks and we will be picking them up from the airport in Nelspruit! We are sooo excited!

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai

Merry Christmas!

 Hard to believe its already Christmas time, especially since this is what we do in our free time now.... sit in our teeny tiny baby pool and dream of snow. (notice the christmas tree in the background)

This past Sunday we were invited to attend Beiro's church. Beiro is a young man the mission is sponsoring to attend school. We are also hoping to assist him in recieving surgery to correct the horrible burn scars he recieved as a child. His home was set on fire during the war and he was very badly burned. We had a great time at the church. There was much dancing and singing, which is always the best part- although it was SOOO hot that we didnt do much of either. It was nice to watch though!

Tendai crawled over to Uncle Dwight to assist him with the sermon notes he was writing in the sand. :)

This little girl had a ton of fun dancing... even though she was just learning to stand and cant walk yet!

The whole church, us and Beiro- hes the guy by Dwight and Lynn in the red and black striped shirt.

I love this picture! Rick, Mateus and Carey (one of our short termers). Mateus is completly blind and it was really neat for Carey to be able to meet him. Carey's family helps sponsor Mateus for school so I made sure to get a pic of them together!

Also last week, Keren gave blood, to help an infant in need of a transfusion. Brave girl she is. I took pics but i was almost feeling woozy myself! The needle was HUGE and they took half a litre in less than four minutes!!!! (at home aparently it takes 15). Crazy. Tendai was not woozy at all- she found the process fascinating.

Big Needle. 

Really Big NEEDLE!! 

Tendai decided to add a few of her own thoughts to Keren's pages on the Health Manual.. and even after all that, Keren still was such a sweetie and drew the most amazing picture of Tendai for me.

How beautiful is that?? I cried.

And the last pic of the week, Magnum. Our poor dog is apparently very allergic to some insect.. bee perhaps? He swells up like crazy... this isnt even as bad as it got! We had Keren and Lynn rush over with meds- injectable benadryl, steroids, and an epi-pen just in case. Yes, our dog has an epi pen. How crazy is that. He looked so miserable, I felt so bad for him. Thankfully, the drugs did the trick and he is back to normal, but i dread the next time it happens- every time hes been bitten the reaction has been worse- im a little scared what will happen next time.

We hope each of you is having a wonderful Christmas season, filled with family, friends and lots of yummy food. We also hope you are able to take time to celebrate Jesus' birth and remember while opening your gifts that He IS the greatest gift!

Thank you for praying for us, as it is difficult at times like these to be so far from home, family and friends. We are thankful for the friends we do have here, and the plans we have over the next week to celebrate mozambiquan style with them!  Our major prayer request right now is that the request we have before the judge for Tendai's travel documents will be approved- and quickly! We know how effective prayer is, and are asking that you will pray for a speedy aproval, and that her travel documents can be proccessed quickly as well.

Merry Christmas & God Bless,

Rick, Heather & Tendai

Sorry... Long time no blog :(

Hi all, so sorry its been over two weeks since my last post! Its been crazy around here but so much has happened! Aside from planning, prepping for and hosting Tendai's birthday party, we also planned, prepped and hosted a Christmas party for the orphans and widows in our Amigo Orphan Program, attended another birthday party for friends, made numerous trips to town to push Tendai's paperwork along, hosted the social workers for a "home visit" and about a billion other things! Rick taught another two courses at the Intensive seminars for the Pastors Bible School in early December, and we have booked four more Childrens Ministry Training seminars for next spring/early summer. We have to wait for the rainy season to end so we can drive up north- the roads are impossible to pass during the rainy season

Rick, Myself and Tendai at her First Birthday party! What a blessing to have a happy healthy baby! Now that she is one we were able to have her tested for HIV- the test came back Negative and we are so grateful!!! God is soo Good! Rick thought I was going to faint when we were waiting for the test results- im telling you.. that was one of the hardest things Ive ever had to wait for.. and the longest two minutes ive had in quite some time!

Christmas is coming quickly, so we set up our little Xmas tree ( up high this year since we have both a puppy and baby interested in it!) Thanks so my sister for the box full of wrapped presents to put under it!

All of our orphan kids and their grannies, what a great group! We had a blast at the Christmas party, with even the grannies getting involved in the fun.

Little Nailene enjoying his plate of food. He may be small but man, can he pack in the food!

After lunch we played lots of fun games, by far, one of the favorites was the limbo, since it brought about A TON of laughs! I love how Gina can make anything look graceful.  Even the Limbo.

Ok.. there are several Tito picks in this post.. mostly cus he allways has really hilarious pictures. His version of the Limbo wasnt nearly as graceful as Gina's but it was as entertaining for sure!!!

Little Nailene decorates his grannies face- with her help! I think she was scared of having an eye poked out!

End results of Tito's face decorating!

Handing out Christmas gifts to the  kids. Thanks to some generous sponsors from Canada, South Africa and England we were able to purchase wonderful presents for everyone this year, including capalanas for each of the grannies.

Mae Vaida was VERY excited about her new Capalana. All the grannies danced and sang and ululated when they opened their gifts!

I think Luckmore's looks says it all- the party was a huge success!

Yet another picture of little Tito.. he is just so photogenic.

Ok.. so here is a yucky picture of a little creature who decided our house was safer than outside where it was raining... bad judgement call on his part! Rick managed to spear him with the blunt end of our Broomstick. ick. I hate rats, so i dont feel too bad for him. ick. Just one of the many oodles of creatures that are beginning to invade our home now that the rainy season has arrived. Spiders, flying ants, strange stick bugs, rats and tons of moths... ick.

ewwwww.

These guys have invaded our house as well, but we like them so we will let them stay! These are the three current short-term volunteers we have. Carey, Keren and Jeff. Carey and Jeff are here for three months, Keren is here for at least ten months.

We were also blessed to receive mail when Rick was in South Africa to get the truck- one package was from my mom... but addressed to Simon! He was thrilled to get a noah's ark flannelgraph book to use in the preschool- im pretty sure that package was his first ever piece of mail.

Here is the cake Lynn, Keren and I made for Tendai's birthday. It took a lot of work and a ton of scrounging around in Chimoio to find all the decorations.. and some homemade creations and creativity as well- but it was so cute and worth it in the end!

It took days to make.. but only a few seconds for Tendai to discover her deep love of CAKE!!!

And in closing.... a family pic... dreaming of a white christmas... in our minature sized inflatable baby pool. (see the Christmas tree in the background?? LOL) Blessings to you all this Christmas season, we hope you are able to celebrate with family and friends! We are planning a day of yummy food, friends, and some fun too!

Once again we thank you for your prayers- the new truck is driving wonderfully and we have been using it alot lately to drive into town and try and get Tendai's paperwork done. As of now we are waiting for two last documents to arrive and then the social workers have said they can write their recomendation letter to the judge!  Please pray the documents will arrive quickly and that we can also get travel documents for Tendai very soon. We are hoping to make a trip to south africa in Late January so we will need the documents very quickly!

Rick has been working on a number of proposals, including blueprints for our house (the cottage we are in currently is not big enough for a family, and is intended for short termers, not for long term use), a blueprint for a satellite base camp up north and continuing to develop our orphan ministry and childrens ministry training seminars! Between planning parties, answering emails, and organising a ton of finance paperwork (although not nearly as much as poor Dwight has been stuck with) Ive been busy watching Tendai. She is growing like crazy and just took her first steps yesterday! A big moment for sure!

Blessings to everyone.. we sure miss family and friends at this time of year and would love to hear from you- leave a comment or email us and let us know how things are going for you!

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai