Life is Good---God is Good

Life is good here, it is funny being in town by some of the stores and they have Christmas lights up, it being December and finding myself sweating profusely in the sun. It has been here lately getting up to 105-110 degrees in the day and the mid 80’s at night. When there is a breeze coming off of the Indian Ocean it is not bad. This is the last week of classes in the mornings and this Thursday we have “graduation”. Heidi had gone back to the states during most of our school but she is here this week, she said that God had told her to come back for us that are here. It is a nice blessing to hear her stories and teachings.

I have continued to be working on the boat. We got it into the water this past Thursday, everything is working good except we are still having a problem with one of the engines. I got to drive it most of the way from where we put it in and where the boat slip is at, it is really neat being out in the ocean like that, a completely different view!I have been learning through out the time here a little bit of Portuguese but only the essential words! It would be a lot nicer to know more! Thankfully some of the children at the center know English and also people around town understand a little bit of English. But when we go out into the villages they speak Makua. So I have been learning a little bit of that language also (little being two words I have learned lol).

The kids here are all so cute, their favorite thing for me to do is either throw them in the air or swing them around. I think some of the kids in the villages have never been thrown into the air because they are hesitant at first but after you throw one or two in the air they see how fun it is and you then have 20 kids hanging off of you wanting to be the next one to be thrown. I have said that these kids here even though they don’t have parents and family have it pretty good from a kids perspective back home, they get to have their friends over to play with all the time! And they have the whole base which they play on and I think there is not a square inch that does not get touched by a kid. This morning I was in the prayer hut and looked over at a medium sized tree that was moving and had singing coming out of it, about 8 or so kids had climbed up into it and were terrorizing the tree lol!

This Saturday morning a team of us (28 people- 15 westerners and rest Mozambique) leave for our evangelism trip. We will be gone for 10 days the whole time sleeping in tents in the bush. Each day we will be going to a different village to minister to where we will see salvations, blind eyes open, deaf ears hear, and the lame walk! Praise God!! The first village we go to is a 8 hour drive on the back of a truck that we will be riding on during the entire trip! For food we buy everything in the villages and cook it ourselves! Where we are going is west of here and will be in the mountains so they are telling us that it could get down to 50-60 degrees at night brrr (but refreshing)! I have been chosen to be the leader for this team so please keep myself in your prayers and the whole team as well for God to speak to myself as to what direction to lead the team and what He wants us to do while we are in the villages. Where we are going is a new area for us to be going to, it is very hard there and very muslim so be praying for the people there as well! Please also be praying for our safety and health!

Thank you for your prayers for myself over the past months because I have been in good health!Yah God! Also you can be interceding for the people in the villages! I will report back about all of the testimonies when I get back!The generator for the base has come in handy these past few days! We have been with out power for the last six days! It has been running great. So I have been making runs to the gas station to get diesel for the generator! The maintenance man went on a vacation to one of the islands this past Thursday for a week for his anniversary so I have been kind of watching the base and everything while he is gone. He needed a break I was glad for him to go, the power just decided to go off at the wrong time. Haha I have decided to stay here until the first week of January. I have not heard back from travel agent so I don’t know exact day yet. I am excited to spend Christmas and New Years here with the kids and village people. They do some extra things here during this time so they are needing some extra hands around the base! I believe they give out hundreds of chickens to the village people and have a huge Christmas service at the center.Well I hope and pray everything is going well back home. God is Good! - Jarod