Mission to the Makua of Mozambique

Cultivating Christian Communities

Wow!  Time continues to fly by as we begin another new month here in Lisbon.  It is difficult to imagine that we head to Mozambique in only 3 ½ months.  This past weekend we had a big team business meeting to delegate and assign tasks for our entry into the country.  We have a good deal of paper work and forms to fill out, and we want to do everything that we can from Portugal to make our entry smooth and quick. 

Last week we welcomed our teammates Aaron and Mika Roland to Lisbon, who have been working with their sponsoring church in the States for the past few months.  We are glad to have our team complete here in Lisbon.  We have spent the past week introducing Aaron and Mika to Lisbon, finding them housing, and teaching them how to use public transportation!  Hopefully their transition will be smooth as we can communicate with people here and serve as their translators in many situations.  Please pray that they will pick up the language quickly as they will not have the extended stay here that the rest of our team did.

We are glad to report continued progress and growth in our Portuguese studies.  We are thankful to God for opening our ears; we are excited as we can hear more each day.  We have noticed quite a difference in our understanding of church services and television programs (yes, regretfully we stay tuned in to our daily soap opera which, silly as it is, has proven quite helpful).  We also have noticed our speed and ease with which we form sentences in conversation is gradually increasing.  It is encouraging to see progress, but we feel overwhelmed when we consider where we want to be in the language!

Our precious son continues to grow taller (and more and more like his father!!)  He runs everywhere and is never lacking in energy!  His favorite things include homemade juice popsicles, feeding ducks in the park, setting the table (I'm not expecting this one to last!), brushing his teeth (especially the spitting!), looking for the moon in the evening sky, and wrestling on the living room floor with his daddy.  We find such joy in raising Asher and learning how to be parents.  May God continue to grant us grace as we continue in this vocation! 

GH

During the month of August we have noticed a number of our favorite cafes where we study have been closed.  The windows have been covered with newspapers on the inside and there is usually a sign that says something like this: "Fechado para ferias ate Setembro."  The summer months, particularly August, are popular times to go 'on holidays.'  This doesn't necessarily mean that the Portuguese are out traveling Europe (though this isn't excluded) but simply indicates-"We ain't working."  Many families have a small house at the beach just thirty minutes from here or plan some other activities for the entire family to attend.  We have noticed, irregardless of the kind of job one has (baker, janitor, market vendor, café owner, etc), people stop the rhythmic punching-in to work and take a break.  It is not just the owner who leaves town, but all the employees leave as well, and the store completely shuts down!  It reminds me of a song playing on the radio when I was in high school: 'It's always punch in punch out, go to work and go back home." (Seven Mary Three/'Punch in Punch Out)  The daily grind, the daily rut that isn't always so redeeming for the world comes to a stop here in Portugal for about three to four weeks.  Ginger and I were recently talking about this practice, thinking about what the implications of this kind of holiday mean for people.  Number one, it seems like a business such a café must budget only eleven months of income each year!  Secondly, I would think such a long holiday would actually affect the total rhythm of work year round.  Perhaps there isn't such a frantic attempt to make as much money as possible.  Of course, these lengthy holidays aren't like the two weeks of vacation per year that some fortunate workers get in the States.  In addition, most businesses here in Portugal close for the numerous other holidays throughout the year.  How different this seems from the pressure that exists for so many people in America.  I would remind you that this happens in the largest city in Portugal-it's not like a sleepy, village where there isn't much "production" (my quotations are meant to have some sarcasm).  Now don't worry, this hasn't been an article to support a four month vacation from language school here in Lisbon (ha ha), we have just found it interesting to watch the way the people here value rest!  So now, when we go out to study at a café and they are closed on ferias, we smile and move on.  In the city with a million cafes we can usually find one on the other side of the street!

KH

Besides our usual need for prayer over our language acquisition, we are requesting your prayers for Asher's eye.  His tear duct has continued to be blocked, and we have started the process of getting the health care system here in Portugal involved.  We ask that you continue to pray for his eye, that it would clear up and that any infection within the tear duct would be cleaned out. 

We also request your prayers for our teammates, the Rolands, who just arrived last week.  They began classes yesterday and have a lot of language ahead of them.  Please ask for their learning to be intense but not overwhelming. 

Everyday Ginger goes to school from 8:00 to 10:00.  Meanwhile, Asher and I hang out at the house.  Asher and I leave our apartment at 9:30 in order to meet Ginger at school so I can begin my lessons.  We take a two minute walk to the bus stop and then wait for the bus which usually comes around 9:40.  During these few minutes of waiting, I have noticed something peculiar.  Across the street from the bus stop is a massive Catholic church that has been recently restored.  There are also a few trees by the church that have become a favorite hang out for some neighborhood pigeons.  In fact there is a particular tree that these birds tend to perch in which is showing signs of being overly pecked!  During this time in the morning, Asher and I can see a multitude of pigeons perched in the tops of the tree, and pecking on the ground below.  Another group of pigeons are normally all lined up along the roof of the church looking in our direction.  Never throughout the day are there so many pigeons in this area.  And then, as Asher and I watch, we hear the click of a door opening behind us from an apartment building and the pigeons in one instant are in flight.  As a woman exits from the apartment building behind us, the pigeons burst into flight-what was a quiet moment suddenly becomes a rush of flapping wings as hundreds of pigeons form one mass in the air and circle over us.  The cause?  It's the bread lady.  Each morning the pigeons expect to be fed by a woman, who everyday, crosses the street from her apartment with a bag full of bread crumbs and water.  I don't know which group of pigeons sees her first, whether it be the onlookers high above on the perch of the church roof, or whether it be the group closest to the door of her apartment.  Nevertheless, they leap into the air in one frenzied flight together.   By the time they have circled above twice they land surrounding the bread lady as she climbs the steps on the other side of the street.  At this point she has to walk carefully since there are literally hundreds of birds at her feet and flying around her head.  It's quite a sight! 

Pigeons aren't exactly the most intelligent of the animal kingdom and yet, they have learned to expect.  As much as we expect to see the sun rising each morning, they have learned to anticipate the actions of the bread lady.  "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing." (Rom. 8:19).  Breathless anticipation.gazing into the darkness.straining into the future.  Creation anticipates, birds nervously fidget on their perch, the wind groans through the trees and the apple begins to decay the minute we pick it from the branch.  However, this sense of anticipation, this lens of expectation is exactly that-a filter that we must consciously use.  Hope and the anticipation of redemption of all living things are not apparent and visible in this decomposing world.  In fact, the hopeful anticipation we are called to live by is irrational.  We live in a reality where violence is the means to righteousness.  We live in a reality where things fall apart.  We live in a reality where theology becomes genocide.  We live in a reality where all these things are as objectively real as our experience of gravity.  So we, when we are asked to wait-to listen-to hope-to anticipate, we're being asked, invited to live in a world of mystery, paradox and irrationality.  In a world that defines reality in terms of gravity and truth in terms of visual facts we can't help-as disciples of Jesus-but be unrealistic and unfounded-irrational.  In the end we anticipate the Coming when the End is already here.  We expect the Rising in the hour of twilight.  We hope when it just plain, flat seems unreasonable.  If this is the kind of anticipation we are called to as followers of the Way, then the act of hoping is not in our blood, but is a discipline to be experienced, and a skill to be learned.  Furthermore, this kind of anticipation isn't silly.  We can't be full of trite answers to the real suffering world.  Suffering is not an illusion to be cast off.  Rather, this irrational hope is precisely irrational because it takes the real suffering around us, in us, and among us and dares to live IN THE MIDST.  If hope lets us escape the world then the cross wouldn't be our symbol of victory.  We argue with God, we get angry at God, we cry in pain BECAUSE we have anticipation of something else.  Because we have a vision of something besides the world we see, we engage the movement of disintegration of all matter (including ourselves), IN HOPES, of a moment, when hope will become rational and visible.

Of course, this kind of anticipation isn't found in an article like this or in a text, but in the parabolic life which reflects what is beyond all of us.  I have learned this from people who have and are doing just that-anticipating.  May the Bride come and give you Peace.

KH