The trip with Experience mission to Mozambique

Experience Mission

This outreach are one of Experience Mission's initiatives. This group exists out of 10 young Americans between 18 and 26 years old that came to Africa as part of an leadership building experience. The aim is to experience the different cultures of Africa and learn from them. Firstly they spent 6 weeks in the Western Cape staying with colored families around Lamberts bay and Vredendal. After that I joint them for the trip to Mozambique where they will stay with Mozambican families. Even the name family has a different meaning! 

I came to love this group. What they do is challenging to any person and I do not think that I saw them one day well rested. I became proud of the Americans because of their faith in God that drives them to serve and to be happy in spite of challenges to the core of their culture. This few weeks they will, in spite of high temperatures, work in gardens, carry water every day, wash out of pails in a culture of very little privicy, eat day after day very basic food, etc. They are serving families in Mozambique that are very poor and have to look after orphans. 

Bus trip from Cape Town

I met the group at the bus stop in Bellville Cape Town. We took the bus from their to Johannesburg for 27 hours through the night. We stayed at a Church building for the day, went shopping while the visums was organized. The evening we were on the next bus to Maputo through the night. Many did not sleep well. We arrived 4 hours early for the border post and had to sit in a closed bus and wait for 4 hours. Then we had to stand in a line of 200 meters waiting to get our pasports stamped, walk over the border. Armed soldiers checked the pasports and made remarks about Obama. Then we stood in a line for the Mozambican stamp. Suddenly we were in another country different from South Africa. 

We arrived in Maputo and uncle Jan came to fetch us in his pick-up. Meet the team:

We stayed in the guest house of the Reformed Church and early the next morning we climbed the next bus. The bus was good, except for the toilet that were quickly filled so that it was a mess as the bus went through the huge potholes. We arrived in Beira in the dark and Naldo had to do two trips to take us to his house. He treated us with a South African "Braai" Barbecue. We had a few hours to rest before he took the tired group back to the bus at 4 in the morning. Then at 15:00 we arrived in Mocuba, but the bus did not want to stop at a place form were we could have walked to our destination. The result was that we had to organize motorbike taxi's to take us there. What an African Experience!   

We had some time to rest, learn some of the language and have orientation at "Osivela wa Jesus" The love of Jesus. This is a school for orphans where the orphans can have education based on Christian values and have something to eat. There are also a clinic to look after them and some other smaller development projects. Each member of the group is assigned to the family of one or sometimes more orphans that attend the school. Mostly they are grandmothers of the children. It is in their house that they will stay for 6 weeks. Going out on the Thursday and come back on the Tuesday, to go out again on the Thursday. Here they meet some of their host families:

 In the time of orientation we visited some houses to get used to the basic cultural customs of relationships and respect. It is a relational culture and therefore very important to understand. During this time the elder of the Reformed church, who demonstrated to us how to visit a house, gave each member of the group a coconut to drink. He opened it with a machetti on an very skillful manner.

This morning I came with a chapa "Mozambican taxi" from Mocuba to Milange with the road in a bad shape. Now I am thinking and missing the group and pray that the Lord will bless them in this very challenging times. I believe that our Good God have will use this time and that it will have good consequences in many places for a long time!