Gorongoza

While we were in Mozambique we had the opportunity to spend a night in a small, rural village in 2 hours from Maforga to show the Jesus Film, do children's ministry and preach in the church. It was an incredible experience for everyone that went.

At children's ministry we had well over 100 kids join us for stories, songs and games. We were a little unprepared - not knowing how many kids would come and how long we would have to entertain them. Needless to say, there were a lot more kids than we were expecting and we had quite a bit of time left after we finished our "planned"programming. But that's what missions is all about: being flexible and laughing your way through challenges. In the two hours we had with the children we told the story of Daniel and the lion's den, sang songs, played soccer, painted faces, blew bubbles, played duck duck goose and a variety of "mimick me"games. The kids loved it. Sara had a brilliant idea to play the mimicking games and had a hard time shaking them off of her, the continued to follow her every move late into the evening. At some point in the day, we all made at least one kid cry... maybe we shouldn't be working with children. A lot of the kids in the village have never seen a person with white skin, so to them we are a bit scary looking.

While Sara, Jess and I (Sarah) were out with the kids, the rest of our team ( only 8 of us went to Gorongoza for the weekend while the other part of the Mozambique team stayed at Maforga to serve in surrounding villages) was preaching at an impromptu church meeting. All 5 of our guys had to speak about something. When the meeting was over, we were excited to have reinforcements to help with the kids and the guys were excited to be back outside in the warm Mozambiquan sun.

That night we set up the projector and showed the Jesus film to easily 300 people from all over the area. 18 people committed their lives to Christ that night. It was an awesome experience sitting outside under a bazillion shooting stars, praying for the people watching the movie.

We attended church in the village on Sunday morning where once again we were all asked to preach. Um, can you say intense? One by one we shared our testimonies and talked about passages in the Bible that are important in our lives. It was scary, but a good experience. We also spent a long time worshipping Christ through song and dance - it was awesome. The dust rose from the dirt floor with such fervor from all of the feet stomping that after only a few minutes it was difficult to see and breathe. The joy and passion and faith that was portrayed through their body motions and voices was unlike anything I have ever witnessed. It was amazing to participate in such a freeing form of worship and use my every cell to praise God.

And I can't forget about the food. We had been warned that we would be eating food prepared by the local people, and that it would probably be things that we wouldn't normally eat. I don't know about you, but I'm not used to eating hairy pig skin and heart valves. The morning of our arrival the women had slaughtered a pig for us and we ate it for lunch when we arrived. It was an adventure of eating with our hands and picking out the edible meat from a bowl of pig parts. Yummy.


1. The church
2. A sampling of houses
3. Children's ministry
4. The crowd of people sending us off
5. The team from Maforga