Adventures in Believing

shoredump

2012-02-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

It may come as something of a surprise but ‘Bethel’ where we live in Mozambique is a lot like Gisborne where we live in New Zealand. Firstly, it’s not really called Bethel. More correctly it is part of Manavene. Gisborne is of course just the colonial name for the fiendishly difficult to pronounce Turanga. Unfortunately however, the colonial Postman couldn’t differentiate that from Tauranga and the rest is, as they say, herstory. Bethel distinguishes us I guess, as it’s a Hebrew word. It’s Bethel in Portuguese, Shangaan (our neighbourhood mother tongue), English, Maori and South African. Like Coca Cola I suppose – almost universal. Which is a good thing I guess. We don’t have a Postie here though.

Aren’t indigenous names so much cooler? Sort of tribal in a non-branded kind of way. Kind of like calling a milky coffee a latte, or a meat pie an empanada. Or calling your church ikon or La Vida or wild@heart instead of plain old Saint John’s. Edgy.

Like Gizzy, Bethel is a long, long way down a very windy road that not too many people can be bothered driving down. Their loss. Corners, trees, paddocks, indigenous folk, more corners, goats, cows… “Are we there yet?!”

Bethel, like Gizzy, has an ocean. It’s not pacific at all though. Our beach could kill ya - honestly. That’s why they called it the Indian Ocean I guess. When the waves are pumping the ‘shorey’ can dump you head first onto almost dry sand. Millions of crabs scurry across that sand. Each one fears the shorey. It’s like ‘Pines’ on a 3 metre cyclone swell at full-tide. If you don’t get hammered by the waves you will get hammered by the shorey. Fear the shorey.

Summer. Both Gizzy and Bethel have summer. Real summer, not your crappy Auckland undecided, or Wellington’s three days of sun. Loooong, hot, stormy, blazing days of head breaking sunshine. Did I mention it was hot? By 8.30am your head hurts and you need to take your first of 5 cold showers. No, I exaggerate. Only 4 showers. And tepid not cold. It’s so hot the birds fly upside down and the snakes only surface after dark. We get Cyclones too – like Gizzy. You never heard of Bola?

Gisborne doesn’t have snakes that I’m aware of. So that makes Gisborne and Bethel different I guess. Gizzy has flies, cockroaches and plum eating possums. Bethel has none of the above but we do have Giboia (python), Mamba, Puff Adder, brown, green, yellow, red…ah, you get the picture. Our lake doesn’t have crocodiles. It’s very similar to Lake Waikaremoana in that respect. Maybe it has bilharzia, watch this space…

Apropo the above: we (i.e. me) are thinking of changing the name of Bethel to Costa do Soul or Malabooo or Paraiso. Something more edgy to lure more people down the long, long very windy road. To the shorey. Which they will come to fear.

Incidentally, Bola means cake in Portuguese. Names are never what they seem.

in the game

2011-12-31T05:31:00.000-08:00

“The 12 apostles talked about Jesus Christ! Night and day. That’s all you got out of them: Jesus Christ. They originated the whole idea of the topic of Jesus Christ, hence the gospels. They couldn’t of thought of anything else to talk about if they had tried…………..The cutting edge of today’s Christianity is “know the scripture”. This idea virtually enshrouds today’s [Church-o-centric] thinking. It is the first and main thought introduced to all new believers. This all dominating idea has held first place for the last 200 years – long enough to have been tested and to have brought forth the fruit it is supposed to have produced………..Dear reader if you ever really get to know the Lord in a deep, abiding experience, it will suddenly dawn on you that teaching doctrines was something invented by men who just don’t know the Lord all that well. Men who really know Christ well will talk about Christ. Men who don’t…they teach all sorts of interesting, unimportant things. May you be a man who daily, deeply, profoundly meets and experiences the Lord. Then you’ll talk about the same thing the apostles did.”

Gene Edwards, 1974

Revolution - the story of the early church volume 1, Christian Books p.48

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Sometimes you feel like you are right in the game. Other times not. To be a player, for me, is to see and feel and know you’re making a difference. You’re running, you’re passing, you’re tackling. Others probably score points (wasn’t that ever the case) but not alone. Not without team – “the power of all” as Pastor David Dishroon says.

You are fully engaged – hot, dirty, tired, sore, happy!

Not being in the game is not making a damn bit of difference, no matter how loud you yell from the sideline. How fine you look in your supporters jersey. How much you spout on about tactics. No difference.

Being in the game costs. God help us. Yes, we must saturate ourselves in The Book to succeed in the game. But the book must always move us closer to the One, not reassure us on the sideline.

Get in the game, play in the team, stay in the game, be close to the Captain. To know him, to serve him, to love him. Jesus Christ.

fruit

2011-11-04T05:17:00.000-07:00

Sowing and reaping is such a fundamental principle that we can sometimes forget how self-evident and yet powerful it is - in all of life. You reap what you sow; personally, nationally, globally. As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night. (Genesis 8:22).

We live in the midst of a community who survive largely thanks to their skills in planting, gardening and harvesting. The ubiquitous gardens you see throughout

Mozambique

are know as machambas. As I write (8 October), the peanut crop is growing well. As if a switch was flicked the small green plants burst into yellow fluorescence one day last week. Rainy season also arrived Wednesday with lightning flash and booming thunder, then the rain bucketed down for 10 minutes. It soaked the surrounding scrub and grazing lands. We no longer feel the threat of imminent wildfire across the dunes. Out came the hoes (a symbol on the national ensign) and the ox-ploughs to break more ground in readiness for sowing crops at the next drizzle.

As we interact with the many Mozambican machambeiros in our district we often gratefully share in the fruits of their labour. Recently we’ve received spontaneous and generous gifts of mandioca (aka manioc), freshly dug peanuts, corn in the husk, papaya and even a cocky chicken (who unfortunately met his maker after tangling with Oreo the Ridgeback!).

Jesus spoke the language of the agriculturalists in his community: remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:4

His friend and follower John talks of what this remaining looks like: I am writing to remind you, dear friends, that we should love one another. This is not a new commandment, but one we have had from the beginning. Love means doing what God has commanded us, and he has commanded us to love one another, just as you heard from the beginning. 2 John 1:5. Anyone who wanders away from this teaching has no relationship with God. But anyone who remains in the teaching of Christ has a relationship with both the Father and the Son. 2 John 1:9

Our goal is to enable people to know the living God, who cares deeply for His creation: to show Jesus is alive today, giving us hope, by showing His life, love and light through tangible actions and life giving words. In all this we hope to remain in this precious relationship with Christ – not drifting away in any sense – and to bring him glory with ‘fruit that remains’. In time we shall all see that NOTHING remains aside from that which is intimately connected to The Vine.

The greatest joy we have in

Mozambique

is seeing Christ beautifully manifest in the lives of Mozambican believers of all ages. All else my friends is just details!

Being Mister Dickson

2011-09-20T07:50:00.000-07:00

In my earliest memory of him, my Dad is like a smiling giant. He is standing talking to two men in the public bar as publican of the Windsor Castle Hotel (Parnell, Auckland). He has a 10oz brew in his hand – and with the other, he is handing me the requested shiny sixpence. I am 4 years old.

What is a father? A protector? A provider? A teacher? I’ve been a father for over 23 years, but I still haven’t been able to adequately work out the job description. It’s not a job I’ve resented or run from, but it’s most definitely the toughest assignment I’ve ever been set. I reckon I was a pretty good Dad to my kids, until they became teenagers and the power shifted. Really, I was pretty crap parenting teenage boys in particular. Sorry guys!

Israel Mikael Dickson - Wanganui 2009

Out of financial necessity, Sonia worked a lot of weekends as a nurse whilst our boys were small. Mainly evening shifts. We were living in Australia where our 3 kids were born. Countless Saturday nights I was home alone with one then two small boys. Our extended family back in New Zealand, I was on my own. Bathing, feeding, bottles, nappies, stories, teething, potty training - the whole 9 yards. It was wonderful, it was tough. How’d we ever make it?

Micah James Dickson

Sadly, I never really rated my father as a parent. Too distant, uninvolved, dispassionate, a stoic ‘Scotsman’. DNA which I too have to resist like an undertow. I certainly did rate him more highly as time went by however! As my mistakes, angry outbursts, procrastinations, lack of ‘man skills’ to pass on, desire for personal space, incessant dissatisfaction with life in suburbia et al made me appreciate him more as the years passed. Borm in 1921 and raised during the Great Depression, my Dad could kill and dress a cattle beast; stalk a deer; shear a sheep; grow a decent garden; make home brew; run a business and so on. He was multi-skilled.

Encouragement and affirmation, however, were not my Dad’s strong suit. But in November 2000 when we first left for Mozambique, he gave me $2,000 and told me straight he endorsed what we were doing. When we returned home, God’s plan put us near him in Tauranga, New Zealand the last place I wanted to live. Over the next 8 years - until his death at 89 - we managed to strike up a pretty decent father / son relationship. I’m really grateful for that season.

One day my 3 will give their verdict on me. I just hope they remember that I love them more than anything on this earth. And that I’m proud, so very, very proud of each of them in their uniqueness. Early in the journey Jesus made the stunning statement that if we would be His disciples, our devotion to Him needs to exceed our devotion to family (Matthew 10:37). One of his so called ‘too hard statements’. Being here in Africa we miss our boys back in New Zealand. But I can trust God with the outcome, and in that is true freedom. The best legacy I can leave my offspring (and the only legacy I really care to…) is the faith – the adventure that is following Jesus Christ to the exclusion of all else - that makes my life whatever it is.

lounge

2011-08-03T13:35:00.000-07:00

We live in a two storey, cement-block home owned by our colleagues the Harpers (currently based in South Africa). It’s unlike any house you’re likely to have seen, and it was built by generous hands and generous funders – bypassing banks, mortgages, debt and so on. It’s a ‘faith’ house. It has a small view of the Indian Ocean from one upper story, whilst our bedrooms have a wide vista of the low bush, sparkling Lake Ualote, the waving coconut palms of Maciene township and – far off - the lights and cell tower of Chongoene to the west. Our laptop ‘talks to’ that tower, giving us some internet access. Traversing sand roads over dunes and through villages, we can arrive there, at the paved EN1 (Estrada Naçional 1). To use the CSN&Y lyric, it’s a very, very, very fine house!

When completing residency applications, car ownership papers and so on we have problems explaining our address. No street number? No avenida? No bairro (suburb)? “Er, well, we live in the bush, over the dunes, near the sea…you see?” It’s not so unusual for Mozambicanos to describe their address thus, but for estrangeiros (foreigners) it’s evidently not so common. Our nearest neighbours are a 30 minute walk.

The downstairs area comprises a large open plan lounge, dining/kitchen area – and a bathroom. Our hot water, oven and fridge all run from gas bottles. We have some solar lighting, and usually at least an hour or two of electricity of a night from the Centro Bethel generator. Outside is a fenced yard, and our two pups Oreo and Tepin. These Rhodesian Ridgeback/Sharpei-X dogs are being raised by Eleisha.

A quick tour of our lounge. That pile of tents, sleeping bags and mattresses were generously left behind by a team from Crossroads Church in Pennsylvania. (They were here helping with teacher training and building of a second YFC orphanage – Casa da Esperança II.) Mark Harper wants to assemble a kit for mobile teams, and these will be part of that. I enjoyed working with the visitors on the building project too. Americans just have a way about them I enjoy.

On the desk are numerous Correspondence School of New Zealand materials, note books, CDs, writing materials and so on. Eleisha is doing Year 13 Geography and English courses this year. In English she just studied The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing, a book based in Colonial Rhodesia. Geography units have included work on the HIV/Aids pandemic and Migration. Very topical to her daily life and work here eh!

Again on the educational dimension, those textbooks, CDs and dictionaries over there are all fuel to the Portuguese language learning mountain we are climbing. Eu falo; Tu falas, Voces falam; Nos falamos Portuguese! It’s not that hard to speak Portuguese badly; to speak clearly and elegantly will require much more effort.

Why so many tiny pairs of undies, jandals/flip-flops, kids clothes in those boxes? Again, gifts from Crossroads Church. They will be distributed amongst the Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs) linked into the JEC Community Schools project led by Les Harper. (It was teachers from those Schools who attended the aforementioned training, to which Sonia contributed).

Groaning book shelf; DVD cupboard; sewing machines; portable generator; solar power batteries; Eleisha’s guitar; numerous multi-point plugs for charging everything when power is on etc, etc. Finally, importantly – the pantry! Stocked up with rice, beans, tins, pasta and all the ingredients you need when the nearest ‘dairy/convenience store’ is over 40 minutes’ drive. We just stocked up on a recent trip to South Africa, so the larder is very healthy at present. Pull up a chair, I’ll brew you a coffee and serve you some of Sonia’s famous Banana Cake. It’s a very nice house. As a husband and father I’m satisfied I’m providing well. God is good!

What story does your lounge tell about you?

work and bread

2011-07-23T13:13:00.000-07:00

Recently Pastor João and I made a trip inland to Chibuto, this province’s second city, and returned via Chissano a smaller town on the main highway. We had two main tasks: to visit the Direção Educacão de Chibuto or DEC and to distribute some pamphlets for inscription in the upcoming ‘men in ministry’ seminars we are running with some visiting Brazilians.

I first visted Chibuto in November 2000, to help with SIM’s final food distribution to families affected by the huge floods. Chibuto is on a high point overlooking the Limpopo River valley. Many hundreds of people fled to this high ground to escape the floods. It’s still a dusty, somewhat bedraggled place with some echoes of the Portuguese colonial days: a large praça or town square, with gardens and broken fountains, broken footpaths, ruined shops and a few rehabilitated government buildings.

DEC, the local ministry of education office is located on the top (5^th) floor of a 1950’s Portuguese apartment block. They built their buildings solid back then, and it’s had no obvious maintenance since ‘the Portuguese fled’ in 1975. The staff in the main office (formerly the lounge) worked under a retro 4-bulb aluminium lampshade – obviously the original lighting set-up in this home. In a crowded back room, a man called Sergio took our details and said he’d arrange a visit with ‘the Director’ who was out of town. Beside him a young man did data-entry on a computer with a ‘UNICEF supplied’ sticker. Primary education appears to be surging ahead in

Mozambique

, with lots of teacher training and new schools. YFC are in the process of ‘regularizing’ their network of community (JEC*) schools to better align them with the Government system. Lots of painfully slow bureaucracy will undoubtedly be involved!

I treated João to lunch at the Hotel Chibuto – now rehabilitated and used by a university as a tourism training school complete with training restaurant. I’d earlier spied the ‘menu of the day’ and knew that the sopa de legumes (vegetable soup) would be reliable and come with a fresh Portuguese roll. It was fantastic, and at $1.50 each a real bargain. Clean, tidy, somewhat spartan but very well organised; the waiter fully deserved his tip!

We located the local Assembly of God pastor without too much trouble and delivered some invite/application for the forthcoming 4 day training seminar. It focuses on preparing structured bible training as part of normal church life especially for men. We are relying on word of mouth through relational networks to bring the participants. In Chissano we dropped in at ‘Hope House’ a small orphanage and pre-school YFC run. Pastor Agostinho was there, and he has a wide range of contacts in that zone.

Something that struck me on our travels were the people working hard in various sites across the region. Men building a new cell phone tower, others laying water pipes at an agricultural project. Six women hoeing their machamba (garden) using a team approach. The young guy working on Microsoft treating education data. Someone was painting a fence at a new office block. A teacher with his pupils outside a brand new two room school we passed. It struck me that despite broken down towns, corrupt cops, scare funds, deadly beaurcracy and other massive challenges – every day in Mozambique there are folks working hard to construct a future for this beautiful country. We are glad to be able to join this work. Every little bit helps eh!

NEWS FROM MOZAMBIQUE

Census data for our province (Gaza)

The age structure = 44.9 per cent of the population is under 15 years old, 49.9 per cent are aged between 15 and 64, and 5.2 per cent are aged 65 and above.

Gaza is also suffering heavily from the AIDS pandemic. The census found that 40.7 per cent of deaths in the province were HIV/AIDS related. AIDS has thus overtaken malaria as the main killer in the province. 18.8 per cent of deaths were attributed to malaria, and 4.4 per cent to respiratory infections.

The literacy rate has improved -considerably between the two censuses. In 1997 52.7 per cent of adults in Gaza could not read or write. By 2007 the figure had fallen to 38.5 per cent. But there are sharp gender differences. Only 23.5 per cent of Gaza men are illiterate, but the figure rises to 48.8 per cent among women.

25.5 per cent of all Gaza children aged between 6 and 17 are not at school. Here the numbers are fairly similar between boys (25.9 per cent) and girls (25.2 per cent).

87.2 per cent of respondents gave their mother tongue as Xichangana, compared with just 4.8 per cent who said their mother tongue was Portuguese.

12.3 per cent of homes have electricity.

12.4 per cent of homes had piped water (inside or outside the house)

29.2 per cent of homes have no basic sanitation, not even a pit latrine.

Internet penetration is minimal - only 0.6 per cent of households own a computer.

45 per cent of households have none of these (phone, computer or radio).

As for religious beliefs, 37.8 per cent said they belonged to Zionist churches.

borders

2011-06-11T13:26:00.000-07:00

Ever crossed a difficult border? Around almost every country is an almost invisible barrier; some more difficult to breach than others. Essentially these social and political barriers are designed to maintain what passes locally for 'good order'. To keep the 'activist', the criminal and the poor out (normally in reverse of that order) and let others in - especially those with 'money' and or 'skills'. Mozambique is, of course, no different.

To live in Mozambique we need to gain residency. To obtain residency you need evidence of a clean Police record, an invite from a registered organisation (in our case Juventude para Cristo Mocambique), approval from a particular Government department, $75NZ, and from this a residency visa may transpire. Once you have all those boxes ticked you pay apply around $1,000US [correction to earlier low figure!] to apply for a residency card (aka DIRE)! Voila, you can hang around in Mozambique!

On Wednesday morning after pursuing various documents and completing applicable forms, the very business-like Senhor Dias at the Mozambican Consulate told us "come back at 2pm". Yeah right! As someone who has hard won experience in procuring many, many "residencial" visas for others, I wasn't holding my breath. These invisible barriers routinely take numerous visits, paper chases and deferential conversations to surmount. Think Snakes and Ladders. Think Twister.

At 5 after 2 that same day we left the consulate with 3 sparkling vistos residencias in each of our passports - a chink in the invisible barrier has been breached - in record time! Thanks God, Les, Gildo, Samuel, the Australian Federal Police - and a special obrigado to the smiling and efficient Senhor Dias!

I love collecting stamps, and this brand spanking, hand embossed carimbo - bearing the coat of arms of the Republic of Mozambique - is my new favourite.

Mozambique - Chapter 2

2011-05-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

...packing, storing, throwing, cancelling, cleaning, farewelling...exhausting. so, we get the chance to return to Mozambique after an 8.5 year absence (apart from a few weeks in 2004 and 2007). amazing really. Thanks God!

...what will it be like now we are - ahem - slightly older, and no doubt many things have changed? will I still be able to make sense of Portuguese? how will we handle rural living with sand tracks, a generator, a well? what difference can we possibly make? will we just get in the way? will anyone care?

...these and various other compelling questions will be explored over coming weeks, months and years. come along!