Church - African Style

Today we went to church in a remote village (non jungle setting, just rolling plains with cool trees, shrubs and ant hills the size of people). It was awesome. There were about 25 Mozambicans and our band of 8. It was in the village of Xigubuta (pronounced She-gu-butta). The pastor’s name was Alfredo Mikwawa (named after the Mikwawa tree. During the war, Alfredo’s grandparents hit enemy soldiers with the fruit of the Mikwawa tree to knock them out. That is how they were given the last name Mikwawa). It was a truly African experience. We held church in an unfinished block church building with a dirt floor. Most of the church members were barefoot, but all were well dressed and extremely friendly. The music was awesome and Roger interpreted the sermon. They served us a special lunch of Xima (corn paste which looked like mashed potatoes and tasted like corn paste ), Matapa (peanuts, leaves of the Matapa tree, coconut juice and chicken broth), black eyed peas and rice. They also gave us some Mandioca root which they dug up right before our eyes. We are frying these into French fry type sticks for dinner. We then came home and took power naps (well the men folks did at least). Now Lynn and Roger are preparing us a barbecue chicken Mozambican feast!!! Tomorrow is another work day, we are close to being done. Keep praying for us that God would bless our hands and help us communicate to these wonderful people. Larry