Sunday Drive

If you count children, Debbie and I had about 13 investigators at church today.  One of them, Paula, is so close to giving birth that we really didn't have the heart to ask her to walk the 4 kilometers to church in 96 degree heat--so we picked her up.   With the prospect of a free ride, other people came out of the woodwork and the truck was full.
 An interesting side story is that often, when we give people a ride in our truck, they can't get out.  They have never worked a door handle before and have no idea how to open the door.
Paula and her husband Julio live on a very typical rural Quelimane street.  It is dirty (literally) but not trashy, and has a certain charm to it.  though perhaps that charmis just for us who have grown to love the place.   After dropping them all off after church, and driving home alone, I stuck my iPad out the window and took this little video of a quiet Sunday afternoon in residential Quelimane.
  If you look closely and quickly, I believe there is a woman killing a chicken on her porch as I drive past--you won't want to miss that.

The picture above is of Pascoa, a woman scheduled to be baptized this coming week.  Debbie and I taught her this week with Elders Santos and Andrade.  We were very impressed with the quality of this very simple sister and the strength of her faith.  Later in the week we heard that she announced to her employers (works as a live-in housekeeper) that she would no longer work on Sunday.  We hear she is now both homeless and unemployed.  We are working on this little problem now.

Zacarias and Sandra who we taught this week with Elders Sorensen and Christensen,  An interesting couple trying to figure out what to do with their spiritual lives.  Debbie and I are often invited to help the young missionaries talk to couples with more challenging issues--or sometimes when they simply want a little age to offset their youth (and if there is one thing that Debbie and I have, it is age).

This is Cornelio, who I meet with at least every couple of weeks to try and get him ready to be baptized.  He is a singer (his songs play on the radio) but still dirt poor.  But his public lifestyle left him with more adjustments to make to turn his life around.  The impressive thing however is that he is willing to make the changes and has been doing well now for some months.

We really enjoy Tinoca who was baptized a couple of months ago--but we continue to teach--mainly because she has a thirst for learning.  She understands my sense of humor which is a rarity among Mozambicans.

We have been teaching Gaspar and Veronica for several months.  They continue making baby steps of progress toward marriage.  They are pictured here in our kitchen preparing lunch for the branch.  We hired them to do this task yesterday so she could earn the 200 meticais (7 dollars) necessary for her to obtain her personal ID documents--a first step toward marriage.  We have bought Veronica and her children alot of food in hopes of keeping them alive over these last months.  There are many times that we have found them literally without anything to eat. 

Here are Santo and Santinho now with about six months.  Santo is thriving--healthy and strong but Santinho is scrawny and listless and we fear for his future.  We continue to provide formula for him but it doesn't seem to be helping him get much stronger.

Mango season is upon us and I made a roadside stop to buy a bunch of them.  No shortage of people anxious to take my money as you can see.