Happy New Year ! 2013 is Here!

Before we begin with 2013 

We must catch you up on

2012!

The last time we posted about our mission was back in August.
Let us catch you up just a bit and as quick as we can.

We did not fall off the face of the planet. We were in Mozambique!

During the months of September, October and November we were doing many things . 

This is a post from 2013 ! I never posted but I need I our journal. Skip over! 


First:

We have been working on bringing 300 wheel chairs and 100 crutches and braces into Maputo since the day we arrived. As you noticed we were able to finally receive these in November. This is wonderful and now our challenge is to get them distributed properly. You would think this would go very smoothly as the Ministry of Health would like their poor to receive these. Not so. We are still working on and encouraging the Hospital to organize itself in order to distribute the chairs.

 So this is an ongoing project for us.

Second:

In between our journeys to the north we run the distribution center for Mozambique. We take orders from the other couples in the country and try to get the materials they need distributed as swiftly and inexpensively as we can. (This usually involves us taking what we can whenever we journey to the North.) 

We make sure the distribution center has the items needed by the members and so we order items, receive orders and have to account for the book work. Tis time of year is the process involving the upcoming year curriculum and with a change in curriculum it has added some interesting problems to our work. We also do all the other things involved in a distribution center in Africa. We have learned a lot in this part of our call.

Third: 

We help in the T-3 branch when we are here and help with the missionaries if the President asks us to.

This is nice to get to know the members in this struggling little branch. 

You can see they get so discouraged. Being a member is hard in Mozambique. Their new life as members is different from the rest of the peoples lives in Mozambique.  Here is where we could use so many Senior Couples, Just to show example and encourage the members.

This is Elders working with T-3 and the branch Presidency and Elder Fernandez.

Elder Fernandez on the Left just left to MTC Brazil and then to Cape  Verde.

 But the project that took most of our time and effort was our clean water project we were doing in Quelimane, Zambezia,Mozambique.

It was on the Island Of Idugo. (Ilha de Idugo)

We finnished the preparations of contracts, planning, purchasing etc., for the project in September and sent our Site Monitor (Naldo Ujembe) up to Quelimane to begin the process of giving the Ilha de Idugo clean water.

The Plan: Amizade, a new member of the church in Quelimane, has family members on the Ilha de Idugo and speaks the language of the people(Chuabo). Naldo, will go to Quelimane, and in Portuguese will teach Amizade how to make traditional hand dug wells that are cement lined. Amizade will teach this to the people of the island in Chuabo. Naldo will also teach them about Hygiene and Sanitation in the same process.

The church donated all the materials. This includes the steel forms for the cement rings, A Steel Handcart ,cement, sand, gravel, rock, shovels, levels, cement tools, wire cutters,steel, rope, pulleys and buckets and whatever tool you could think of that went with the project. Everything but the Steel forms and handcart could be purchased in Quelimane.

All the materials had to taken by canoe or hand built boat to the Ilha.

The Church  paid the boatmen to transport the materials to the island. So that is the plan.

So  September Naldo went to Quelimane and began the process. 

Amizade was to make sure the construction work was done. Naldo would make sure Amizade learned the correct way to do the construction work.

How did Naldo know how to do this?  Elder Wollenzien taught him.

So the last part of September Elder Wollenzien and I loaded our truck with the Steel forms, the hand cart and anything else we could fit in to distribute for the distribution center.



( Yes Devon, we have our own little UPS service Mozambican style.) and we headed to Quelimane...again.

Now being loaded so High and so Heavy we had to travel slower than ever to miss the biggest pot holes and just maneuver the rest of the road. 

 
The road to Quelimane takes 3 days this way. First we go to Inhassoro and stay (we cant drive at night). 

 

The second day we drive to Chimoio and stay at the Bank's house (the CHiomio Chapel). There we can play a  little Ping Pong and get a really good meal.

 

The third day we drive to Quelimane but that's the worst road by far.
All the distance though is beautiful. Mozambique is beautiful and interesting and we have now seen it at every season. Our favorite is to look for the Boabab  trees along the way.    

  

 

Boabab in early spring.

  Once we