Tales from Mozambique - by Mark Gallagher

For those of you who don’t know me, I worshiped at St Jude’s while on my year abroad (July 07-08) working at Procter and Gamble as part of my university degree in Chemistry. In June this year I went on a mission to Africa, organised by Iris Ministries with others from Englefield Green.  Here are some tales of my experiences for those who are interested.  
  
The trip consisted of spending 2 weeks in Zimpeto (one of the provinces of Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique) and 2 weeks in the costal town of Pemba which is on the Indian ocean (1000 miles north of Zimpeto, about 50 miles from the border of Tanzania, and very close to the equator). Both times we stayed in orphanages run by Ministerio Arco Iris (Iris Ministries.)

First of all here are some general things about Mozambican culture and lifestyle which we had to be conscious of while out and about. If a man and a woman are walking down the street holding hands it means they are having intimate relations and are not married, but if two men are walking down the street holding hands it just means they are good friends. In Africa in general, personal space is a very different concept than in the western world. If you are talking to someone in the street and do not stop with them you are being very rude, even if you are late for another appointment, and once you do stop, of you stand further than an arms length away from their face, you are being aloof and cold. A handshake normally takes about 10 minutes to finish changing from clicking thumbs together to shaking while talking at the same time. When wearing clothes, it does not matter what you wear on the top half of your body, just the bottom, as the sexiest part of the anatomy is the knees, and they must be covered at all times, if not you are selling your body on the street. (This rule applies everywhere except on the beach). Church services are also very different, they normally start at about 9am and go on until somewhere between 2 and 5pm, starting with lively worship led with drums, where everyone except the choir dances instead of singing for about 2 hours, then singing worship takes over for about 1-2 hours, then prayer, sermon, more prayer, thanksgiving etc, as in a normal service. The children were also very different; whenever they saw someone in the street with a smile on their face they just expected to be picked up and loved, and hugged. This actually ended up giving me a big upper body work out and now I can lift 3 kids up in one go! Taking photographs in Mozambique is a very dangerous thing to do as if you have caught any government building in it, even in the background it is illegal, and you can be sent to prison for up to 10 years.

Zimpeto Orphanage had about 350 kids, of which about 50% actually had parents, but they had been rejected from the home because the parents did not have enough money to feed them. There were 300 boys and only 50 girls because girls are seen in the home to be a much more useful commodity, as they can cook, clean, do building work, and unfortunately can also be used to make money by selling them from age 6 as prostitutes. The boys, on the other hand, are just another mouth to feed until they turn 16 and leave home.

In Zimpeto, as there is a lot of crime in the area, we were not allowed out of the Iris Ministeries base without being escorted anywhere by either Iris staff or some of the older kids. We got the chance frequently to go out in the afternoon with the kids once school was over to go to the local market, and swimming pool. The kids were more than happy to take us there because we paid their entry fee (Mozambique is the poorest country in the world, with a good weekly wage being 100 Mets, which in English money is £2 - so it is not normally possible for most children to go swimming). We would also treat them to a fizzy drink.

Most evenings were spent in church services which were shortened versions of the ones mentioned above. Mornings were spent doing outreaches to the local village of people who live on the dump (literally), and the local hospital. These outreaches all took place between 7am and noon while the children were in school, and happened every day. Dump ministry involved walking over the mountains of festering rubbish, talking to the people, praying with them if they wanted prayer for anything (in Portuguese as far as we could. However, this was not always possible as our Portuguese, and theirs, was limited. Only educated people speak the national language, the rest still speak tribal languages which is Shangdun in Maputo, and Makua in Pemba, which I can speak and understand some). At the end of this time, we pointed the people towards the local church, where we gave out bread to everyone who came - some of them did not usually eat for days. While at one of the dump outreaches (Bocaria in central Maputo) one of the wee boys, aged about 6 years, latched onto me for the whole 5 hours we were there, and kept on repeating ‘I love you’ in English and Portuguese to me. He did not want to let go when we had to leave.

Hospital ministry involved going round the only hospital in Mozambique and chatting to the people there. Some of them had had to travel up to 1000 miles for the treatment, and with the price of transport (aeroplane or road are about the same) being so expensive most had no company in the 1920’s cast iron beds. If they wanted, we prayed with them, for illness, healing, family etc. They seemed to be really grateful just for some company, more so than anything else.

In between going from Maputo to Pemba we took a day off to go across the border to South Africa to go on a safari in Kruger National Park. We saw all the biggies including Lion, White and Black Rhinos, Antelope, Gazelles, Springbok, Zebras, Giraffes, Wildebeest, Mountain Goats, Elephants, Hyenas, Baboons etc. from an open topped Jeep!

Pemba was similar to Zimpeto, except that streets were more dangerous at nights and not so dangerous during the day. We were not allowed off base unless taxied door to door with an approved Iris taxi because every month about two westerners are killed for money on the road where the base was. While in Pemba we were invited to the wedding of a daughter of one of the Western missionaries, which took place on the beach with the Indian Ocean in the background. The whole village was invited (about 4000 people in total!), and fed with chicken, rice and chocolate cake. A big point was made at the wedding where the guests of honour were seated at the top people with the rich and powerful as well as the lame, all eating the same food, and served by white people, who washed their hands, collected dishes etc.  This was such a different thing to happen than the usual elitism and class society in Mozambique which starts with white people at the top, then rich black people, and finally poor black people. Apparently they are still talking about how good this was a good two months later (according to friends who are still there).

Pemba does not have a hospital, so these visits were not possible, but instead we did weekend outreaches where we went to rural villages for 3 days, in a hay truck, with tents, no running water, no electricity, no roads (you get the picture). Here we helped to build the church in the place we were based, and also went to an unreached village, Makua in the evening. We showed them a film about Jesus on a makeshift screen on the back of our truck, and prayed for the people in that village. The next day the morning church congregation had doubled in size!

In both bases all we had to eat for breakfast was dry bread and sweet tea, then rice and beans or cabbage for lunch, and on very special occasions (e.g. Sunday evenings) a chicken foot as well. This left most of us boys on the team coming back having lost weight, (about 10lbs average), but most of the girls had put on weight (about 2lbs!). Mealtimes were another opportunity to get together with the kids and have fellowship with them (keeping up four conversations in two different languages, neither of which is English at the same time is quite hard!) as well as serving them in a practical way by serving the food and washing dishes.

One other way we got to serve in a practical way was by turning the unused mud huts of the old orphanage into VIP suites for visiting Iris Ministers, and speakers from America for the Mission School. In the space of 7 days, by the grace of God, we managed to plaster all the walls, paint them, put on a new tin roof, polish the floors, put in electricity and water, and get all the rooms decorated. The final one was finished at 11.30am and the guests were moving in at 12.00!

This really was an experience that I’ll never forget.  I hope this has given you an overview of what I did, but if you want any more info I’d love to hear from you!

God Bless,
MG J

Updated: September 1, 2008