Some more pictures of the Conference

A pastor perusing a Bible in the bookshop

Here are just a few more pictures, I am still wading through the hundreds that Rick Denham took for us, and also still recovering, I don’t feel quite myself  yet… Yesterday Gilson preached in our little church, which was a great blessing, and thereafter I had a wonderfully relaxing Sunday. Today Kevin helped me to pack up the bookshop, but we can only move back to town tomorrow, so ultimately today wasn’t so productive - I am rather dismayed at the mountain of work ahead of me.

In the midst of the chaos...

With Karl’s daughter Elsa

All things have to come to an end

I can hardly believe the Conference is over, it seems quite unreal. After the relative inactivity of Tuesday, which frustrated me, the rest of the week was quite hectic, but a blessing for those we were there to serve. On Wednesday I still had the chance to participate in some of the sessions, and Gilson and Ronald were really wonderfully balanced in the way that Gilson preached more doctrinal messages from the first 3 chapters of Ephesians, and Ronald more practical ones from the last chapters. During the intervals we soon got busier and busier with many people coming in to look at books, and I also stole away sometimes to make copies, do printing etc. Our system in the bookshop, tried and proven by Dr Woodrow over some years, is not to let people just buy whenever they want, otherwise people here tend to make overhasty purchases. This is also because we still do things by hand (hopefully to change soon!) and some pastors from far away buy 20, 30 books, which take a long time to process. Therefore they could mark their choices on a printed price list, leave the list with us, and have us prepare each packet of books Thursday afternoon, and only on Thursday evening and Friday did we have more “spontaneous” purchases. I was dreading Thursday, but although at one point I felt really overwhelmed, the Lord really helped me with 4 Mozambican young people and also Kevin Millard who quietly and yet perfectly came to offer his services - I set him to helping me write receipts and the young people went back and forth getting each person’s books together. Ultimately it didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would, and then later Karl made sure that EVERYONE didn’t come and pick up their books at the same time, so it was far more streamlined than last year. I was still very frazzled though, tensions were pretty high and the day didn’t end well… and consequently I had tremendous trouble falling asleep and tackled Friday having gotten only about 4 hours.

The Lord helped me, though, and it was mostly a pleasant day where I could leave the bookshop more and more, having the volunteers go on there, as I was trying to get all the sales data we had up to then into the computer, as we like to know by the time we get together on the morning after the Conference how many sales we had and what the income was. So I was set up in SIL’s computer lab and going back and forth, also verifying and completing a big order for a Bible school in Mocuba. The next big hurdle was burning the cd’s of the messages - there was a time crunch on this as many pastors had to leave soon or in the middle of the night to catch their transport home. We tried to prepare for this by having 5 laptops ready, but the total files were pretty big, we even had to delete some of them, and my computer was very slow (thank you, Vista…), and the one belonging to Kent Woodrow, who had done all the recordings, kept giving errors. Dr Woodrow’s and the Stolk’s were steady and fairly fast, but if we hadn’t had Gilson’s laptop I don’t know how long it would have taken us - I’m green with envy of his wonderful machine that has 3 gig RAM… At one point I decided it wasn’t even worth it using my laptop for burning as it took so long, so I thought I would go on with my work. The file had had trouble closing, however, and when I tried to reopen it it gave a massive error and I had lost about 5 hours’ work! Perhaps this was a way the Lord made things easier for me though - the way I was doing this took extremely long, and this way I ended up just taking the receipts, counting the books, booklets and Bibles sold and totalling up the money - it perhaps took me 2 hours, but I think even less. I got home around 22h30, very tired but very relieved that Dr Woodrow had just told me that I didn’t have to pack up the bookshop today if I didn’t want to. This was wonderful news!

All I therefore needed to do today was go by SIL with Dr Woodrow, get the money and one or two other things I needed from there, and then go with him to their house for our official post-Fiel meeting. Last year this was a terrible rush, since Karl and the speakers had to be on a plane at about 11h30. Today they only had to be at the airport at about 13h00 though, so we had enough time to discuss the conference fully and throw around ideas for improvement, all of which I think is terribly important. Time did catch up with us, however, and suddenly it was time to go to the airport and say goodbye. Fortunately I will still see something of Kevin, whom I hardly got to talk to, since he is sticking around to accompany Gilson, who is giving a post-conference seminar on expository preaching until Tuesday. It was especially hard saying goodbye to Karl and Ty though - Ty had been a tremendous help, willing to do whatever I thought of asking him to do, master-packer of books, bringing me food… And Karl is so much more than just a colleague to me, though I also love working with him, so I lamented the lack of time we could spend talking. And poor Rick who had been our wonderful photographer and full of such terrific ideas and information about Fiel in one really good chat we had - the rest of the week I’m afraid I was too stressed out to be receptive of what he was saying to me…

Goodbyes said, I spent the first Saturday afternoon not working since 20 June! There remains an incredible amount of work to be done, but I desperately needed to sort out things in my room and rest and just collect the threads of my psyche again…

From left to right: Gracie Woodrow, Elsa Peterson (Karl's daughter), Julie Woodrow, Hilda Stolk, Sarah Beth Woodrow, Christine Hallett (who did the ladies' sessions), me, Karl, Ronald Kalifungwa, Ty Knight, Benaiah Woodrow, Andrew Woodrow, Rick Denham, Kevin Millard

The first day

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And we’re off! Registrations alreay started unofficially yesterday morning, as some people had arrived on Monday evening. After 14h00 it got very busy though, in fact we should have had more people handling registration, but we weren’t set up for it. And I was so bored, as I don’t get really busy until Thursday, when we start selling books (until then people just browse, to prevent overhasty decision-making - not my idea…). I truly hope to be more useful today. The first two messages were already excellent and that is what it’s ultimately about, the way these men’s ministries will be impacted by what they hear this week. It was quite a late night, mostly because of waiting for a ride home, but I trust everything will be more sorted today and we will experience the Lord’s blessing in this week.

The long-awaited day arrives

The Fiel Conference starts today! A quick recap of all some of the prayers the Lord answered in this regard:

- several boxes of books we ordered from Editora Fiel and other publishers which were delayed - the last ones arrived this past Thursday

- Bibles I ordered from the international Bible Society in Brazil, which were held us by customs (even though we’re not supposed to pay duty on Bibles) - it is still a mystery to me why it didn’t go to our post box, but they  couriered the boxes up to Nampula, and yesterday morning I got an exemption from paying duty (still had to pay a handling fee, not very impressed about that - they shouldn’t have handled it! ) and was told to return at 11h30. After inspecting the boxes the official finally let me go.

- the tent for our meetings that wasn’t sent from South Africa in time - it arrived last Saturday and has been set up since Thursday last week.

Aside from these long-term matters, there was some anxiety, at least on my part, when our colleague Karl Peterson let me know on Sunday afternoon that our visitors coming from Brazil weren’t on the plane! Their plane had left late in Brazil, so they missed their connection in SA. They finally arrived in Maputo about 20h00 on Sunday evening - without their luggage. Eventually it was discovered that the luggage had arrived on the original flight, but it took quite a long time for them to get hold of it. The poor guys went to bed at 1h00 and had to be up at 4h00 for an early flight to Nampula.

I was so blessed by one of my friends who let me borrow her bakkie all of yesterday - I had so much to do! After running many errands in town yesterday morning, I was back out at SIL putting more finishing touches on the bookstore, laminating signs etc. Karl came by at around 13h30, as well as Ty Knight, a 19-year old guy who has been helping Karl’s church in Barberton with construction projects and various other things - he was gratefully put to work setting up tables and benches and carrying sound equipment! We thought we would be a whole group of people who could make quick work of putting together the registration packets - but then it was mostly Karl and I. O well… We were done about 16h30 and I left around an hour later, stopping at the flat before the big welcoming dinner and prayer time at the Woodrows. I could finally meet:

- Rick Denham, son of Editora Fiel’s founder, a great guy who had a VERY successful marketing company in the music industry in the States and is now working with Fiel - the prospect of picking his brain on Fiel’s possiblities in Africa is positively scintillating!

- Kevin Millard, the head of what we call the “Pastor’s Library” project - it’s so great to meet the man behind all the emails at long last. And he brought me goodies, so I like him already

- Gilson Santos - one of our two speakers, who has been here for a previous conference, a lovely man who I am looking forward to hearing

- Christine Hallett - a lady who was a missionary in Beira way back before Independance, who will be doing the ladies’ sessions

I somehow didn’t manage to speak to Ronald Kalifungwa, our other speaker…

After a lovely dinner, we went around the table introducing one another and sharing something about those we know well, and then had a time of prayer about the conference, followed by dessert, fellowship and some more work for some. Having everyone here at last really lifted my spirits and made all the frustrations and feelings of failure of the past few weeks worth it and, in comparison, truly insignificant. It’s such a blessing when the Lord helps us take our eyes off ourselves and see His blessings, His goodness and His beauty in new ways! May He truly be glorified during this week!

What a week!

Quite a mind-boggling amount of things have happened (or not happened) since Wednesday. We moved all the books and bookshelves over to SIL and got things fairly sorted out on Wednesday, after being delayed because the police wanted to fine us for parking the truck in the street in front of the bookshop. On Thursday I was over at SIL for a while, but didn’t have some of the things I needed, so went to town and got fabric for new tablecloths - I got 20m, thought I was being totally extravangant, and now I need a bit more! In the meantime, my hairdryer broke and my computer isn’t working - the latter obviously a much bigger problem, it may need to be taken down to SA… We have also had a guest in the house, Melissa Easton, who is helping out at the SIL school for a few weeks. She’s lovely, it’s just different having a strange person in the house. Our househelper hasn’t been in, because of her sister dying last week, so even though we have had some help, in this crazy week we still had to find time to take care of laundry and dishes. My emotions are all over the place, I have had really good days and then days when all the big and little things going wrong were just too much… I know I can really do nothing but leave everything, once again, in the Lord’s hands and trust His perfect sovereignty, even though at times I wonder why certain things had to happen this week of all weeks… 

I made a lot of progress setting up the bookshop yesterday and today, but am still not completely finished. The last of our books arrived, so that was exciting, and on Monday morning first thing I need to go get the Bibles I ordered, which are with the customs officials. On Monday our speakers and colleagues arrive, and then things will really get busy. Esp. now that I don’t have a computer of my own available, blogging during the Conference will probably be sketchy…

Thank you so much again to everyone who prayed for the books, for the tent and all the other arrangements - please continue to trust the Lord with us that He will be glorified in spite of all the hassles!

Less than a week to go!

It has been a fairly rough week so far, and yet the Lord is so faithful. On Monday I was quite frustrated, because I had this mountain in front of me of doing inventory and packing up the bookstore, and yet the whole morning slipped by with us getting the contents of the conference manual finalised. It was 14h00 by the time I got to the bookstore and naturally, I didn’t get done, but I did feel better organised than I normally am. Yesterday it me and two helpers about 5 1/2 hours to complete everything, which included reorganising our extra stock, which is kept in boxes in the back room for lack of other suitable space. I was sitting on the floor, counting books and putting them into the boxes, and altogether performing too many sideways-turning movements… when I got up from there my back really hurt! I was a bit worried about moving over to SIL today and quite discouraged when I got home. After lying down with some heat applied for a while I started feeling much better, though, praise the Lord. I got some work done late afternoon and early evening, but still the days just speed by with not enough being wrapped up - I will be very grateful once the bookshop is set up and I can focus on my other work.  We have reached about 205 registrants, and I am truly encouraged to see so many new men coming. May the Lord help us all, in spite of our frayed nerves, to strive to se Him glorified through this conference!

Come now, you who say, “Tomorrow we will…”

Yesterday was a sterling example of how fully we should be prepared to leave every day in Jesus hands’, as things so often turn out differently than we expected! I wanted to get so much done yesterday, and eventually didn’t do much. The morning flew by with work and doing some urgent things in the house, and I received the happy news that so far 3 of the boxes of books we ordered had arrived. In the meantime we found out that the funeral/interment (not really a service like we would think of) was starting at 13h00, so we arranged with our empregada’s husband, Alberto, to meet us somewhere so we could go the rest of the way with him. We left here a little late, at first missed him at the meeting place, and then it was quite a long walk to his wife’s parents house, where the funeral was being held, but since all the proceedings took such a long time I’m not really sorry we missed some of it. We didn’t know what we were supposed to do, where we should sit etc, but he asked us whether we would like to see Lisete (our empregada - househelper) and we said yes, so we were taken into the house where the casket was and some women were comforting Lisete, her mother and others who are possibly sisters or cousins, I never found out. They were weeping bitterly, all covered up in capulanas, and sitting up or lying down the whole time we were sitting there and the women were singing. Although she apparently came to faith before she died, the sister had been Catholic like her parents, so all I could make out from many of the Makua songs was that they included references to Mary and the saints. At one point we also prayed for her soul in Portuguese, and the Hail Mary that was said was unmistakeable. The singing and sitting in the hot stuffy room seemed to last forever, then they moved the casket outside and opened it (I don’t know why), and everyone filed past. The mother and sisters’ wailing and screams as they passed by were terrible, though from what I’ve heard it’s typical - might I say expected? Then, to my great relief, we didn’t all go to the city cemetery, which is what I thought you had to do - we only walked perhaps 4 minutes away and buried her in the bairro (it’s quite a quiet, leafy, spread-out bairro, you couldn’t do this everywhere). We stood by the graveside and listened to the singing for another eternity, some things were said in Makua, and then the grave was completely filled up while we waited. Just when we had come out of the house everyone took branches from some shrub that some of the women had big bunches of, and I kept wondering what we would do with these - at last we stuck them into the ground on the grave, covering it in green. Then we went back to the house and Angie and I could finally talk to Alberto again and ask him what was happening next. They seemed to expect we really need and want to speak to Lisete, so we sat and waited for her for a while, then sat there and didn’t really know what to say, talked a little about how the lady had died, the comfort that she is in heaven (?) etc. I was very relieved when we could finally leave, being accompanied out of the bairro by one of the pastors that Angie knows, because he works at SIL. Unfortunately, his wife was there too and she just had a grand time strolling along and chatting to Angie - some of you will know how fast I normally walk! And then, just when we were finally at the road and I thought we could get a chapa (this was after 16h00), they wanted us to quickly come to their house, which was close by. At least we managed not to stay too long there - but long enough to be offered and in our ignorance to accept maheu (don’t know how you spell it) - fermented maize flour. It was awful and I could only get a few mouthfuls down from politeness. Then another slow stroll back to the road and we were off.

We got back to the flat just about at 17h00, I by this time quite anxious about all my work. I had just turned on my computer and opened my web browser when the power went off… Somehow it made it worse that it wasn’t our area or even our whole block, it was just our building! I really wanted to burst into tears. I did some work by candlelight, and then went over to Clemilda and Cornelia’s, since I was just wasting time. I worked there for about an hour until the power came back on. Ultimately I could get quite a bit done, but Dr Woodrow phoned about all sorts of other work that we need to do this afternoon, so I am not sure whether I will get it all done today. I can only do my best, I guess…

Friday? Already?

This week has just flown by. Mostly every day was much like the one before, going to Woodrows and doing various Conference-related things, trying for example to get petty stuff like the meal tickets out of the way so that next week I’ll be free to concentrate on setting up the bookshop. On Wednesday at about 17h30 Angie came back from Murrupula, a village about 10 hours’ drive away where she and another single missionary had gone for a holiday, so my working-at-home routine of recent evenings was a bit interrupted, but it’s lovely to have her here again. Last night I felt I really needed to get to Bible study again, though it was basically a social evening. Pastor Ossne, at whose church I attended the Seminario Orvalho in February, had gone to Brazil for two months with a small team of people from his church, and they all came back last night, so it was arranged that we would welcome  them as soon as they arrived from the airport. We got to the pastor’s house late, then they were late, and of course, everyone who had gone had to say something, and then we ate. I wasn’t in the most social mood, but it was quite a fun evening nevertheless, I guess everyone’s good spirits have a way of rubbing off on one. I was a bit upset because just before I left my househelper had phoned to say her sister was gravely ill, and could we help them with transport to the Marrere hospital (where Dr Woodrow worked previously), which is a ways out of the city. I passed the buck to the SIL director, but still felt bad, though at the same time irritated because Angie and Allison spent a whole day and a lot of money just 3 weeks ago to take this sister to a clinic, and yet nothing was helping and I feel I lack so much wisdom in dealing with all these endless demands for help, not just from her… In the night I got the message that the sister had passed away, so now of course I feel even worse for my lack of true compassion. Angie and I might go to the funeral, but I have to work and I actually need to be here so my handyman can work on the flat, so I’m not so sure what is going to happen. I just want life to return to some degree of normal!

Things progress

Yesterday, in spite of not feeling great, I had the satisfaction of tying up quite a few strings. I opened a Mozambican bank account, so that I can get a cellphone contract, and also to handle funds for the book programme and other Fiel matters more easily. I had to wait a while to deposit money to make it active, but it could have been a lot more hassle. The social security people were giving us a little trouble with our monthly report, and I rather dreaded going over there to sort it out, but thankfully the “dragon lady” didn’t even get up to give me a hard time and the man who helped me was very friendly. I also am solvent again - I have been a bit paranoid about withdrawing money, after what happened last time. And then, when I really needed cash, none of the Standard Bank ATM’s had any money! On my way to Social Security yesterday, though, I thought I would just see if my bank card worked at the machine at the Girassol building (a big expensive hotel, but also an air conditioned complex with nice stores, a travel agent, the Internet company, a nice coffee shop… a little haven of civilisation for me). For some odd reason I had always thought you needed a VISA card, or somehow I had just assumed my card wouldn’t work.Well, it did, and it was so much better than withdrawing out on the main street where anyone can see you! After my time in town I spent about 5 hours at the Woodrows and finished calculating the bricks we need (probably made loads of mistakes, but oh well…). It’s rather depressing, if we do order them from SA it’s going to require about 9 containers, each costing a few thousand rand… Therefore we may look into getting them made locally, although that would be a hassle.

I left work early, watched a movie and then got back into Conference work. I had a little bit of excitement when I went to take a shower, pulled the shower curtain, and out ran a rat! Yuck! I think he got in because we haven’t fixed the screen on the veranda since the burglary, and where the steel door was put in they had to remove the wooden door, so there was nothing solid keeping anything out. I am so thankful that my guard was here, he killed it and carried it outside and cleaned up the blood - I can’t imagine having had to do that myself!

Today my handyman put the wooden door up at the other side of the doorframe, so the rat issue is once again solved, and I made some progress with figuring out how many people we have coming so far that need lodging. According to our numbers so far it looks like we’re going to have a record number of participants this year!

Thank you for everyone’s prayers, and please keep praying that we will get everything done and that all will go smoothly.

Fiel matters

Well, praise the Lord. after some more phone calls and impatient waiting yesterday morning, just before 11h00 the bank finally called and said we could go get the money we needed. It took us about 2 hours since we left the house to get the money from Standard Bank, go across the street and deposit it at another bank, drive to the house of our friends who work with MAF to go and fax the deposit slip to the customs office, and drive home. We accomplished so much more than during all that waiting on Tuesday! Now, Lord willing, the tent should be with us soon, depending on how many other stops the driver has to make, I suppose.

Today I ended up staying at home all day, because my regular handyman had made me a steel door/gate to replace the dinky door between the kitchen and veranda (where the burglar got in), and even though he first was late, even had he been on time it was unrealistic of me to think I would still go work at Woodrows or go to town, it took about 5 hours for 3 guys to get everything welded and what have you. Not that I was complaining - I had lots to do in town and so, but this gave me the opportunity to update the registrations we have so far for the Conference. We are currently at about 155 participants (I’m not sure how many staff members I put on the list already), and quite a number of these have never attended before. Additionally, many men on our mailing list didn’t receive any information, in quite a few cases because a whole church’s pastors share a mailbox and then somehow the mailbox wasn’t paid for and closed down. So we seem to be headed towards a good number even taking this into account! It is gratifying to see the Lord us word of mouth, or our efforts at promoting it, or something, draw more pastors to the Conference.

Now I am still waiting for my book order to arrive (please continue to pray with us!) and many, many administrative tasks lie ahead… Earlier this week I was a bit stressed because I was trying to deal with Conference matters, but also trying to calculate some figures for Dr Woodrow so that we can order some more building material as soon as possible. Lord willing I will finish that tomorrow, and quite a few nagging tasks would have been completed this week. The Lord is good to us!