Mission to the Makua of Mozambique

Cultivating Christian Communities

October has been another full month here in Portugal.  It is amazing to think that we have only two weeks of language school remaining.  We have finished our final Portuguese grammar book- which theoretically means that we know how to speak and understand the Portuguese language.  Doing this with speed and ease will still take us quite a while, and we will continue to learn new vocabulary for years to come; however, it feels good to have all of this information under our belt.  We will spend our remaining weeks in school working on our conversational skills and any areas in which we are weak.  After we finish school, my mother will be coming to visit for a week and then two other missionaries from our sponsoring church- Shannon Starks and Burt Casey- who are working with refugees around Vienna, Austria will be coming to visit as well.  After these visits, we will pack our bags and make our biggest move yet- Mozambique!

Asher continues to be a delight.  He and Luke Smith, who has just turned one, are beginning to play together more, and it has been fun to watch them becoming buddies.  Asher's Portuguese is improving as well as we are frequently surprised to hear him say some Portuguese word or phrase.  From what we have read, his brain will eventually make the distinctions between English and Portuguese with ease- how amazing this will be to watch unfold.  Right now he does interchange the two languages quite a bit.  His most common Portuguese words include: pão (bread), está bem (okay), anda ca! (come here), não (no), and  dá ca (give me that!)  We continue to request your prayers as his tear duct remains closed.  We will schedule surgery for the end of November, if it does not heal before then.  

As a team, we have been working hard to apply for our visas, work permits, and complete all the business and communication required to enter Mozambique.  We had our first team retreat last weekend where we finished some business, reflected on our language study and growth as a team during the past eight months, and enjoyed some time in the great outdoors together.  We stayed in some cabins in a national park just ten minutes from our apartment.  Friday evening we had a costume party (for the children, of course) which included lots of fun and even an apple-bobbing contest.  For some great photos of all the festivities, the pictures will be posted on our team website later this week.  We ended our retreat by building an alter before the Lord.  Each family added a rock (as in the custom of the Israelites) and shared a way that God had blessed them in the past months.  It was a great way to be reminded of God's faithfulness in our lives- how he has brought us here and how he will continue to be faithful as we journey into Mozambique.  We hope this is the first of many alters we build before the Lord to acknowledge his presence and work among us.

GH

Although it is with great anticipation that we move to Mozambique in five short weeks, we will miss many things about our time here in Lisbon.  For me, one of the things I will miss most is the daily trip to the padaria (bakery) for fresh bread and language practice.  Almost every day except Sunday since the month of April, Asher and I have made a trip to the bakery around the corner from our apartment.  The woman who works there, Manuela, has just fallen in love with Asher; I call her his Portuguese grandmother.  In the beginning, I just spent a couple minutes there- I waited my turn holding Asher on my hip, then bought my bread using the most simple phrases, "Queria duas carcasas" (I would like two rolls).  Then, Manuela started giving Asher bread or a cookie.  She would talk to him and smile at him while making comments about how cute he was to the other people in the store.  Eventually, this daily trip turned into what it is now- a thirty to forty-five minute visit where Asher helps her give bread to all the customers, punches the buttons on the cash register, eats as many rolls and cookies as he wants, pulls out the broom and sweeps up the flour on the floor, and runs around like he owns the place.  When I first began talking with Manuela, I called her "Dona Manuela" (which is similar to saying "Ms. Manuela") attempting to be polite.  However, now Asher calls her by name, but he just calls her "Donna," which everyone in the neighborhood thinks is quite funny.  All the customers know us, and many of them stay around to visit and let me practice my Portuguese.  The bakery is a place where people share the latest news, talk about their children and grandchildren, and just hang out.  For me, this experience has been valuable and very educational.  It is neat to think back to when I could not understand anything people said to me, and now I even can overhear their conversations with each other and understand (most of the time!)  We sometimes see Manuela outside of the bakery- we go to the park or have coffee together.  She has always been so patient, letting me take as long as I need to complete a sentence or repeating her words or even acting things out so that I understand better.  This past month, we invited Manuela to our house for a meal.  It was fun to have her in our apartment in a different context, where we could get to know her even better.  It has taken months for our friendship to develop, and it is with some sadness that we will leave Portugal and likely never see her again.  Hopefully, we will keep in touch with one another and maintain our friendship despite the distance.  Although our time here is almost over and Asher and I will no longer see Manuela's smiling face each afternoon, I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to cultivate a relationship with someone who speaks a different language and has different customs than we do.  I have learned a great deal about patience, acceptance, and kindness from Manuela.       

My father and I have always had a running debate on the nature of Sunday.  The debate wasn't as "religious" as it may sound.  When I was in my adolescent years we would usually have this debate Saturday night.  Usually, I wanted to go out with my friends and stay out late.  However, my curfew on Saturday was earlier than Friday.  "Why was there this seemingly obvious discrepancy in my parent's regulation of me," I often wondered.  "Tomorrow is the Lord's Day and we need to be at our best," was usually the response of my dad.  This debate has changed on some level, but we still continue to tease each other about it today.  I-being a part of a generation who wants to de-formalize everything-argue that, "We should worship God everyday!"  Dad usually responds by saying that, "Sunday is special, it is the day appointed, it is the day of resurrection."  Well Dad, after much reflection and thought I am prepared to say that I think I am still right..but I am now able to see the wisdom I haven't seen in your position.  Why-do you ask?  Well let me try to say it this way.

As you know, we live next to the neighborhood church.  Living in the States I can't remember always hearing church bells ring on the hour and half hour like they do here.  It's funny, the only clocks we have in our apartment are our wrist watches and a small alarm clock tucked away in the corner of our bedroom.  But we wouldn't need these anyway (well the 'alarm' on the alarm clock is a necessity!!!) since the ringing of the bells always lets us know what time it is.  Besides the hourly ringing of the bells, they also ring one other time apart from this schedule.  Before mass on Sundays, there is a beautiful, brief rhythm the bells are rung to.  The distinct sound echoes through the neighborhood every Sunday morning.  Of course, the tolling of the bells on Sunday is a way of pointing to God who is sanctifying time.  How so?  To find out we can start in Genesis. 

Our Creator God looked upon all that he had spoken into existence and proclaimed it good.  Then this Creator God rested on the seventh day.  The rhythm of day and night which God had created, was the creation of time.  And in this first sequence, God entered into what he had created and he rested on the seventh day-the Sabbath.  This divine rest sanctified the day for Israel and signaled the completion of a good act-the creation of the world.  Israel rested with God on the seventh day.  Of course if we follow the story after creation we know of a moment when chaos and disorder were introduced in the good world.  The world, of course, is still good, but the element of chaos has now made a world where things happen that aren't good.  So Adam and Eve left Eden and began writing a human story about destruction, deconstruction, and unraveling what God had created.  The Sabbath continued to exist and be practiced as a repeated moment in time where Israel rested with God and was reminded of God's sanctifying work.   However, things continued to fall apart.  The Sabbath, however, by looking into the past of God's act in the beginning helped cultivate a hope for a re-creation.  And so, according to our faith, Saturday turns to Sunday with a new significance.  God rested from his creative act on Saturday, and there was a long night of chaos.  But in the dawn of Sunday, we believe as followers of Jesus, that God began to re-create the world.  The decaying body of Jesus became whole again.  So, we celebrate and set-apart Sunday because God made Sunday holy.  At the end of the week, God rested.  With the advent of a new week, the first day, we can hear Genesis 1:1 echo for a new age.  "In the beginning God created," has become, "In the new beginning, God recreates." 

So, the weekend isn't important because we don't work (although this is becoming less true), but because in the Christian story, God has sanctified the last day and the first day of each week as a double sign of our origin and the coming Kingdom.   Therefore, we truly do prepare for Sunday in the act of resting on Saturday.  By resting from the chaos of the week, we can be prepared to accept the order of God's re-creation on Sunday.  We can be resurrected.  Although, this line of thought makes Sunday "special," it is special only in this sense:  Sunday merely points to the future.  We live in the dawn of Monday morning.  As the church, Sunday is a way of signaling and pointing to our responsibility as the body of Christ.  By being a community of disciples of Christ, we enter into the life of sanctification or re-creation.  The Sermon on the Mount plots our course and the cross becomes our horizon.  Monday is here for resurrection and God has appointed us through his Holy Spirit to be involved in this work of re-creation-reconciliation. 

So, Dad, I guess you're right.  But, I would like to think that Sunday is different only because it signals the sanctification of the whole week.  We gather together to celebrate the resurrection and re-creation of a new world.  This new world is where God has entered into our world and sanctified Saturday and Sunday FOR Monday, Tuesday,  Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  So maybe we're both right!?!?!  However, I still don't want to go to bed early on Saturday!!!!

KH

Blessings   

By the tender mercy of our God,

The dawn from on high will break upon us,

To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,

To guide our feet into the way of peace.

Luke 1:78-79

October 2003/Vol 2 No. 7