July and August Update

An update from Equip Mozambique! View this email in your browser Praise God for more helpers! New Team Member At the heart of Equip Mozambique is the mission to Discover, Partner with, and Empower Mozambicans to reach their goals. We get to live this in a very practical way with our new teammate--Dino! Dino is the leader of the media team at Peniel, so he’s been doing church projects with Jon ever since we got here. Now we have hired him part-time to help with Jon’s never-ending stream of work, and he is also receiving training toward eventually starting up his own video production company. Along with Dino, Jon is continuing to disciple several young leaders and helpers in the church about how to live and work with diligence, integrity, and honesty.   Jon training Dino how to fix electronics Jon designed and printed some Christian posters to sell at church as a fundraiser for the construction project. They were very well received!  Kyran and Jariel are still enjoying their school! We went out for ice cream to celebrate when they did well on their exams last month. Facebook Website YouTube Email Donate Equip Mozambique is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, so all donations are eligible for tax-exemption. International Conference Peniel puts on several conferences per year, and in August we had the International Conference with speakers from all over the world. Thousands of people attended, and hundreds responded to every altar call. In the following weeks, we’ve heard several testimonies of people whose lives were changed through physical, emotional, and spiritual healing during the conference. God is so good! We served in our usual, background jobs to help make sure everything ran smoothly. It’s definitely exciting to be part of a ministry like this. It's always great to see lives deeply transformed through God's power and presence! More Visitors As we wrote in our previous newsletter, the last few months have been full of visitors. Our most recent visit was from Laura, a young lady from Jon and Carla’s home church. She blessed us by bringing a lot of hard-to-get supplies and equipment with her when she came, and spent three weeks serving alongside of us. She took over the English classes that Carla had started with Pastor Mario’s family and spent many hours with them. Two of Pastor Mario’s daughters are hoping to study abroad, and this was great opportunity for them to learn more English while also having fun and forming friendships with someone closer to their age. Laura utilized some of her skills as a Sunday school teacher to help a fellow missionary, Sharon, with her work in the Peniel Sunday school program. All of our visitors have had great experiences and we’ve been very blessed by their time with us. Let us know if you’d be interested in coming to see us too!   Laura with one of her English classes where she built friendships and equipped Mozambicans! Prayer Praise Reports Jon was offered a part-time job that has flexible hours and can work around his ministry. It has also provided capital to make it possible to help some entrepreneurs start up businesses. Dino has been a blessing to our team, it's great to work with people of integrity! The conference went well and many lives were touched Visitors have continued to be a blessing to the team and our work here Prayer Requests Please pray for protection for our team’s health, we’ve all been hit with colds and stomach problems for a while; Janie was home-ridden for almost a month. We’re all on the mend now, but please pray that we can STAY healthy! Carla has started some sewing lessons to help a group of widows to support themselves. So far there has been solid interest, but please pray that keeps up and that they are able to learn quickly. Will update more in the next newsletter! Jon training and discipling the media team--equipping them to do their work better! Thanks for reading, please remember us in your prayers!  Tuesday, June 23, 2015 New video and update from Moz May and June in Moz! From new English classes to a houseful of visitors, we’ve had a busy couple of months here at Equip Mozambique. Our Adventure in Video! It’s a little hard to believe we’ve been here in Mozambique for 7 months already! We recently completed a video giving an overview of the projects we’ve taken on here. There’s never a dull moment as God continues to expand our vision and reveal his plans for Mozambique. Check out our video HERE, or click the link below. Click here to watch our latest video! Visitors We finished most of our house renovations and bought the needed furniture, and not a day too soon! We’ve had a steady flow of visitors for the past couple of weeks, who have been a blessing. One of these visitors is an old friend, ‘Mama Lee’, who ran an orphanage here for 11 years. She has since moved back to the States but is here to visit her kids.  We’ve been privileged to have her company, and to provide her with a ‘home base’ from which she can minister to the children and work with Pastor Mario to establish the orphanage under Peniel leadership. Her love for Mozambique and dedication to the welfare of her kids is a big encouragement to all of us. Our other visitors were an amazing couple, Jeff and Anneen, who are on an 11-month motorcycle journey from South Africa to Egypt. Their mission is to film a documentary about Muslims who have chosen to follow Christ. Check out their website and blog at anarrowpathmovie.com! They interviewed some members of our church, including Pastor Mario’s wife, Zaida, who was raised in a devoutly Muslim family. They also taught a few video classes for the Peniel media team during their stay here. They have a lot of skills and expertise to offer, and the media team was eager to learn more from them. They gave us the full versions of the testimonies filmed here, and we plan to edit and release them for those of you who are interested in the amazing things God is doing here among Muslims. It's been great to open up our home to visitors like Jeff and Anneen Mama Lee with a couple of her kids Carla with one of her English classes Kyran and Jariel are enjoying their new school! Facebook Website YouTube Email Donate Equip Mozambique is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, so all donations are eligible for tax-exemption. We were glad that Jeff and Anneen made some time for us on their motorcycle-through-Africa itinerary!  English and Education Classes Carla has had an opportunity to use her teaching skills with some English classes. Zaida and her  6 children have been wanting to learn English for years, and Carla started doing regular classes with them. She plans to start some more classes soon with some pastors who want to plant churches in Zimbabwe and Malawi. It’s a privilege to provide the tools necessary for these Mozambican missionaries to fulfill their calling! Through the church’s women’s ministry, Carla has continued teaching mothers about getting involved in their children’s education. In her last talk she shared the idea of making books at home to read to their kids, and it was amazing to watch their faces light up! There are very few books here, and they are quite expensive, so she showed them some books she created and encouraged them to do the same. It has been a great opportunity to equip families to give their kids a better chance at succeeding in school and life, leading to a brighter future for Mozambique. Kids' New School While we were enjoying homeschooling Kyran and Jariel, they were having difficulty connecting with other kids, learning Portuguese, and getting into the culture. A friend from church recommended the Christian English school where she sent her son, and we decided to try it out. The school is run by Kenyans and Nigerians, the teachers are Zimbabwean, and most of the students are Mozambican. The kids have been doing quite well at the school, they are opening up more, making friends, and learning a lot. Prayer Thanks for your prayers! As we reviewed our prayer requests from our last newsletter, we realized nearly every one was answered! Please keep it up. Praises We asked for prayer for Kyran and Jariel to make more friends, and their new school is helping with that! That our house improvements are mostly done, and we can now use it to be more hospitable. That we have made some great connections with old and new friends visiting us. That our teaching and equipping roles are expanding and bearing fruit. Prayer Requests That we could stay healthy. It’s winter here now, and most of us have had colds and sniffles for a few weeks. That we could manage our time well. As the pace is picking up and we are getting busier, we want to make sure we choose the right projects. Please also pray for Jeff and Anneen’s film project, that they would have a safe trip and make more good connections as they travel north. We will have another visitor from our home church, Laura, who will be arriving next week. Please pray for her preparations, travels, and the projects she will be doing here. Jon and Anneen interviewing and filming Amir, a leader at our church who grew up in a Muslim family. His was just one of many powerful testimonies we got to hear this week! Wednesday, April 29, 2015 Conference, car, and casa, oh my! Conference, car, and casa, oh my! The past two months have been busy ones for us, as we’ve focused on our roles as equippers and encouragers, taken a 17-hour road trip to buy a car, and have worked on needed house improvements. Carla and Jariel during one of Carla's teaching sessions. Women's Conference Last week was Peniel’s international women’s conference, and Carla was invited to speak. She taught three elective sessions on transforming the education system through parental involvement. It was very well received, especially in a culture where neither parents nor teachers take an active involvement in kids' education. Kyran and Jariel were able to show off a bit of what they know in order to inspire the mothers to spend more time with their kids, help them learn to read, ask lots of questions, encourage curiosity, and be creative, all of which is foreign to the culture. There were a few teachers who attended the sessions, and they talked about how difficult it is to be the only teachers of integrity at their schools, how they had to constantly turn away offers of bribes in exchange for good grades, and how little the kids coming into their classes knew, since previous teachers never expected much from them. We gathered around them to pray for strength to be a light in a dark place! Jon and Janie were also hard at work during the during the conference. Jon worked overtime with Dino and the video crew to record the conference sessions and make the teachings available afterwards. Janie teamed up with another photographer to do photos and photo editing. It was a busy time for us all, but we were glad of the opportunity to fellowship with and be a blessing to our friends at Peniel. Jon, Kyran and James hard at work in the media department. Conferência das Mulheres Vitoriosas (Conference of the Victorious Women) Some ladies from one of Peniel's church plants presented gifts of fruit and sheep to Pastor Mario and his wife on the last day of the conference. Carla made matching outfits out of capulanas for herself and Jariel. They were a big hit at the conference! The kids enjoyed being able to play outside more while we were in Maputo. We don't have much of a yard, and there aren't many parks in Beira! Facebook Website YouTube Email Donate Equip Mozambique is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, so all donations are eligible for tax-exemption. New (To Us) Car In our last newsletter we mentioned that we were importing a car. It arrived in Maputo, the capital city, and Jon, Carla and the kids went down there to get it at the end of March. The process ended up being more complicated than we’d anticipated, and one week in Maputo turned into three. But our prayers for favor were answered, and we are now the grateful owners of a 4-wheel-drive minivan! After months of getting rides with friends or taking chappas and chopellas around town, it is an incredible blessing to finally have a car of our own. Everyday tasks like buying groceries and hauling media equipment to and from church are much easier now. We bought a larger car because we also wanted to be able to bless other people with transportation. Most of the evening services at church go so late that public transport is hard to get, and we have already packed out our van on several occasions with people who needed rides. It is a big asset to our ministry. Janie was happy to cover up the cartoon                     The kids pitched in, too. murals  in her bedroom.     Home Repairs One of our goals is to spend more time connecting with Mozambicans by having people over for meals or small group Bible studies. So, we’ve been at work getting our house into shape. Cracks and windows needed to be repaired where water was coming in, several of the walls needed painting, and the floor needs to be redone. We are working on converting our ‘house’ into a ‘home’ but the process has left us without a living room for over a month. We are still looking for furniture as we don’t yet have a dining room table or any sofas or chairs for the living room. We are also hoping to install a generator so our food doesn’t rot in our fridge during the many power outages. We will be very excited once this process is complete and we can begin sharing our home with others. A side benefit of this long home repair process is that we were able to provide some work for friends in need. One friend, Tony, needed money to pay for his education, and Lino needed help rebuilding his haircutting business. Both considered the opportunity to be an answer to prayer and we are glad to have their help. As always, we appreciate your prayers and support as we pursue the plans God has for us here in Mozambique. Praises That our car arrived and we were able to drive it home safely! That the women's conference went well, and that we were able to start equipping families to have greater success in education. That we have made some beneficial connections with some Mozambican business people who will be great assets in our attempts at helping business and economical growth. Prayer Requests That God would continue to guide us in how to equip Mozambicans to reach their full potential. That we could find ways to get Kyran and Jariel more friends and help them become more connected to the culture here. That the house projects would be done soon and that we would be able to keep our eyes on the blessing it can be to others instead of just the work itself. Worship in one of Mozambique's tribal languages. And an accompanying dance, of course! Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Meet Equip Mozambique About Us Equip Mozambique is a non-profit organization working on grass-roots, long-term poverty alleviation in the southeastern African nation of Mozambique. This blog is the archives of our regular e-mail updates, so you can read about our history all the way up to our most recent activities. 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