Leaving... but not on a jet plane yet!

Well, we are leaving Mozambique this weekend heading to South Africa. Tendai has been told to come down for further medical tests before they will approve her Visa application. Please pray for us as this is not only discouraging but its getting to be expensive to make these trips up and down all the time. Because we are trusting that God can work this out, we are choosing to go down and stay down rather than make yet another trip up and down again.  We will most likely be there for at least 3 weeks, unless God opens some doors BIG TIME! We were not sure how we were going to make this work since either way it was going to be expensive! However, God once again has blessed us, as a friend contacted us and said she had found a place that would let us stay for the whole month for just over 300 dollars!!! (Do i need to tell you what an incredible deal that is???!!!) 

We of course will stay busy in south africa- with numerous mission repair errands to run, office work, , and a ton of promotional work we have been trying to get done and struggling to accomplish! Please pray we will be able to make ends meet with our ministry funds, since things are a bit tight with construction on the go, air tickets needing to be purchased and our everyday min costs as well!

Our garage is moving along nicely, too bad we wont be here to see it finished- but I guess it will be a nice suprise when we come home next year!

Putting the trusses up!

One of the sights i will miss very much... the sun setting over the mountains in the distance, with the litchi trees all around.

Im also gonna miss the litchis. they are only around for a few weeks a year.. but they are SOOOOO good. wierd looking. but good. (these are the flowers... the fruit only is ready usually late november)

Thanks again for your prayers and patience! We will be sending out email update soon to those of you on our list to let you know what is happening. At this point its hard to know since our travel and schedule is pretty much dependent on the High Commissions instructions for us. Please pray for us as we continue to arrange Tendai's Visa... we are not sure why this is all happening, and it is frustrating, but we also Know God must have a reason for it all! 

Prayer Request for this week include- travel safety, Visa issues to be resolved soon, ministry finances.

Praise Request- That we have been offered a very reasonable rate on a place to stay in Pretoria, that our garage is nearing completion, that we have all been healthy recently! 

God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai

Feet

Since last week's post was all about hands, i decided to dedicate this one to  Feet! I dont really have a ton of stuff to say about feet, except that we are more than happy to be the feet of those bringing good news to those around us, and even happier to be training local pastors to be the feet bringing good news in their own language to their own communities. So I didnt run out and take a ton of pics of feet, instead, I waded thru thousands of pics from the last year and found some shots of feet taken at different ministry events - hope you enjoy!

women dancing in church

orphan children sit patiently waiting for the pastor in their community to provide some bread and juice for their meal- most likely their only meal that day

a nursing student replaces Mae Marosa's very worn sandal.

the worn sandal.. held together by string

the worn sandals of our orphan kids.. they do a LOT of walking

one of our staff members here at the farm.. made some sandals from tire treads!

more orphan children wait for their meal

sitting patiently waiting for class to start at the mission school

oh the joy a balloon can bring to tired dusty feet

weve had a TON of shortterm visitors recently.. can you tell?

pretty good looking feet if I do say so myself

my most favorite feet in the whole wide world

Thats all I got for Feet folks!! :)

Rick is currently up north trying to get the documents we need, please pray for safety as he travels and that he will be able to find the officials we need quickly!

Blessings!

Rick, Heather & Tendai

Hands

This week we had a few extra hands show up around the mission. A team from Britain came with Mercy Air to help out for three days.. a short trip, but they sure packed a lot into it- including painting a widow's home, helping deliver orphan food, a medical home visit, and helping us run our orphan program meeting. Sometimes we as missionaries are seen as the "hands" that reach across the world and do the "church body's" work in various places. It is neat to see how so many hands, from different countries, walks of life,  ages and cultures get involved in the work we do here!

This set of hands belongs to Mae Minolia (sp?). She is the granny who moved from her own community where she has lived for many years, left her home and machamba, as well as her friends to come and stay with our orphan kids studying in Chitundo- the kids love her and she has been a real encouragement to them. Here she is making clay pots to sell for a small income. She is a lovely Christian lady, who has been attending the Simukai ladies program run by the mission in many different communities... we hope her "hands" will help to shape the lives of the orphans she watches over!

Working on her verandah!

Another set of Hands, these ones from Britain, give a warm hug to a teeny tiny baby. These same hands helped to paint a house, hand out clothes & food to orphans and made some crafts as well!! 

Little Nailene really enjoyed making a craft for his sponsor- this was his first time coming to the orphan meetings since he is so little, but he had such a fun time I doubt it will be his last!

Many hands make the load light.. errr. sorta.

Here two sets of hands work to make sure every kernel of maize is picked up from the ground... every single kernel is precious here.

Ok... so there are no hands in this picture.. but a wondeful set of nursing hands from Canada gave this shirt to Mae Vaida, and every time I will see this shirt i will remember the warm hugs the arms attached to those hands gave me... and the care those hands offered to many in our area.

Keren's hands cuddle tiny Cristopher, who doesnt even weigh 2 kilos! Kerens hands have been doing tons of stuff ever since they got here in October...

including becoming Tendai's favorite field trip friend! Tendai sure will miss Aunty Keren when she leaves next week! (as will Tendai's mommy!!!)(sniff)

My hands got involved with helping dig out dirt for the backfill for our garage... its a job for "man's hands" here in Moz, but I wanted to at least help a little bit! (not that i really wanted to shovel dirt in the heat for that long anyways!)

Tendai (the worker Tendai) uses his hands and knowledge to pour part of the concrete floor for our garage. (yey!)

these hands are helping to mix the concrete

These hands are eating yummy popcorn!

This guy has no hands and I certianly dont need his help for anything and wish he & all his relatives from all the different snake families would go away forever. (he showed up by the litchee orchard the other day and was subsequently killed) This is a green mamba, a very dangerous snake, and they seem to enjoy hanging out in our orchards!

We are still waiting for numerous hands to get some documents ready so we can go to Canada on furlough! Currently we are waiting for the death certificates, once we have those in our hands we "think" we have all the documents they are asking for! Please pray it will arrive quickly and we can get our furlough sorted out. Prayers would be appreciated for us as we wait, for the Visa Officers as they process our file and request, that we will be able to book VERY short notice tickets to get to Canada, and that we can get everything possible sorted out here on this end with our cottage, garage, and house!

Thanks so much for your prayers! God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai!

Exploring... Mozambique.... and other places

I know its been awhile.. weve been on the road for weeks it feels like! After returning from visiting Granny up north, we ended up returning to Gorongosa park with the second team of nursing studends, and then spent several days driving back and forth trying to get paperwork and documents for Tendai secured. Then finally her BI arrived (Identity document)! We left the very same day and drove to Maputo, where we applied for and received her Passport- which was amazing cus we actually received it three days earlier than they said it would be ready! Although we were a bit hesitant to head to Maputo (it has a bit of a reputation), we had a blast, discovering all the neat stores, actual restaurants, tuk tuk taxis and oh so much more. We also saw the embassy's of just about every nation on the planet (albeit from the outsides), visited numerous handicraft markets and enjoyed some time in beautiful parks.

Two absolutely beautiful Male Lions we were so privileged to see at Gorongosa with the Team of Nursing students!

Mathew, the mission administrator, sees his first Lions... guess he was a bit scared???

Wow... such incredible beauty! We are so privileged to live in such a beautiful place.

Sunset at  Gorongosa.

Yet another amazing sunset!

 It was a refreshing two days of family time before we headed out on the road again to South Africa, to apply for a Visa for Tendai to visit Canada and get numerous mission errands done. This trip included sourcing a part for the four tonne truck, new tires for our truck, hard-drives, switches, cords, laminated curriculum sheets, ..... etc.

Tendai posing next to the Garden Gnomes at the guest house where we stayed.. she waved hi and bye- bye to them every morning! Hard to believe this very grown up looking toddler is the same teeny tiny baby held by the president last year!

Tendai and the president almost exactly one year ago !

Unfortunately we were unable to get a Visa for Tendai to visit, as the Visa officers felt we needed to provide more documents to support our requests. Please pray for us in these next few weeks, as we had really hoped to be home in early August and its hard not knowing if or when we will be able to arrive in Canada on our furlough.  The very same day that we found out we could not get a visa with the current documents they had, happened to be the one year anniversary of "gotcha day"! Since we were in South Africa we headed to the mall and found a "build a bear" store and created a fluffy friend for Tendai! 

stuffing her new friend

taking her for a walk

she got a lot of attention wandering the mall with her new fluffy friend... what can we say?? SHES SO CUTE!!!

Since I have a few more weeks here than originally thought, I am hoping to find time to do home visits to all our orphan homes and get some new updates done for all the sponsors before we leave.  Every time I think about not seeing "my kids" for six months I feel so sad.. I'll miss them so much!

This week is the Intensive Seminars for our pastors in the Training School... everyone is busy preparing lessons and teaching, and I hope to have some pictures of all the action in the next blog post! Please continue to pray for our pastors and the staff who are teaching this week, as well as for our family as we are somewhat frantically trying to find all the documents being required of us by the Canadian authoritys!  God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai Neufeld.

Meeting Granny Zenia!

This past saturday we were blessed to be able to travel up to Marromeu, and the Ruama Baby Home where Tendai spent several months of her life. We met Tendai's biological great granny for the very first time! We knew it would be a very emotional time for us, but we were completely unprepared for the reaction from Granny Zenia- she took one look at Tendai and began to wail, shake and sob, much like they do when someone dies, only her wails were wails of joy and gratitude! It was completely overwhelming to meet her, and to be able to thank the woman who chose to give Tendai a chance for a better life, and in the process became part of God's plan to bless us with a daughter!

We took this picture just after Granny had calmed down enough to take a picture- Tendai was sooo scared of her after all that wailing and shaking, but as long as I was holding her she was happy. Granny could not believe how much Tendai had grown and how healthy she was!

Later that evening when Granny Zenia was all smiles! She told us as much as she knew about Tendai's parents which wasnt terribly much as she didnt live in the same town as them. The first things she told us were... HE was a BIG man (waving arms out to the sides and on top of her head)  :) and SHE was a GIRL (here that means she was probably very young.. most likely under 20, could be as young as 16 when it is legal for girls to be married in Mozambique). I Found it rather interesting that she chose those things to tell us, as opposed to describing their character or personalities- although its very Mozambiquan to do that, talking about the dead is very difficult for them, and in some ways "taboo".

The crib at Ruama where Tendai slept. The lady in the picture is the house mother that cared for her. She was so excited to see how Tendai had grown as well!

It was such a blessing to be able to visit there, and we hope to return each year. It will be so nice to have pictures to show Tendai as she grows up. 

We are still waiting for Tendai's ID document to arrive, but as soon as it does we will be driving down south to apply for her passport, and then going to Pretoria to the Canadian High Commission to apply for a Visa. Please continue to pray with us that the process will continue and that we can get everything done in time to get home on furlough in August. God Bless- Rick, Heather & Tendai