Resurrection Sunday Mozambique 2014

Pray for Caleb UPDATE

4/5/14 Please pray for our son Caleb. He tested positive for Malaria twelve days ago and started taking anti-malaria medicine. The medicine program lasts three days and usually kills all of the malaria parasites. Unfortunately several days after taking the medicine he still felt sick. We took him back to the clinic for another blood test and he is still positive. He is now on more anti-malaria medicine combined with antibiotics. Please pray that the Lord heals him!

UPDATE 4:27am PDT 4/7/14

Doctors just came over to see Caleb. He is still sick but doing better. Doctor's want him tested tomorrow to see if he is anemic. Pray that all the malaria parasites would be dead and Caleb would recover quickly!




UPDATE 4/10/14 Thank you all for your prayers.  Caleb finally tested negative, after two courses of malaria meds. He's now on strong antibiotics for 5 more days and is struggling with energy and anaemia. Full recovery can take weeks sometimes, especially in this type of case where Caleb was resistant to the medication... But he is on the road to recovery!

UPDATE:  4/20/14 Caleb is completely recovered!

We Have Remade our Website!

Please go to transforminglivesministry.com to see our new website. 

Rainy Season

It is rainy season here, and all the mud huts are “melting” and leaking! Consequently it has been a very busy season for us. Our main focus here is evangelism and discipleship, but at the same time, we cannot ignore the temporal day to day desperate needs of the widows, handicapped, and orphans around us. Lorena has been working full time helping orphans with school uniforms, school supplies (school starts next week), building houses and putting on new roofs. Pictured below is a blind widow from our sister church who takes care of these two orphans. You can see here that the front of her mud hut (seen better in the second photo below) has fallen down due to the rain and she needs a new roof. Lorena has over 40 widows, orphans, and disabled people just on her “need housing” list. Some of these people qualify for governmental aid, but that’s only $6.66 a month! We are currently helping 160 “families” with monthly corn meal, beans, oil, soap, and other household items.

Mama Abertina, Joao, Selha, and Lorena

As we begin the year 2014, our top leaders in Zambezia and Sofala provinces excitedly plan together with us how to strengthen and evangelize this year, the hundreds of churches and unreached areas in Central Mozambique. Multiple pastoral training seminars are taking place each month, focusing on a true intimate relationship with God, and the importance of learning and teaching the Word of God. Our commissions have caught this vision, and are now passing it on! Currently we are writing our third discipleship book, emphasizing the fear of the Lord. This is hugely needed in this culture of syncretism, which combines Christianity with witchcraft. Rejoice with us as we witness together the fruit Jesus is bringing to this area!

Meet Mai Terazinha (above) with her church of widows and children, many of which are orphans. They listen to this solar powered audio Bible, as most of them do not read (including their leader Mai Terazinha). The few youth pictured in front read our discipleship booklets to the group as they study them together. Excited to have their own land now, they gather here in their unfinished “church building” under the shade of mango trees.

Kid’s worshipping at Mai Terazinha’s Church

We love you all and miss you very much!

The Wood Family

Our New Neighbor and Sofala Women's Conferences

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Escalating Violence in Mozambique

Dear Friends and Family,

Some of you have asked us for an update on the escalating violence here in Mozambique, specifically where we live in the Sofala Province of Central Mozambique (On the map we live about 30 miles from the city of Beira).  We feel very secure in the knowledge that we are exactly where the Lord wants us.  The following is from Bloomberg.com (websites listed below).

Antonio Castigo watched four men armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles grab a woman by the hair and bundle her into a car after she dropped her kids off at the Portuguese school in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo.

The abduction was one of at least 15 kidnappings for ransom last month that has combined with worsening violence between the army and a militia loyal to the opposition Mozambique National Resistance party, or Renamo, to shake the southeast African nation.

“People are very afraid; many are taking their families out of the country,” she said. “People are scared of contacting the police, because the police are involved.”

The growing sense of lawlessness caused by one-off kidnappings in cities and armed clashes between the army and Renamo in the countryside marks a sharp turnaround for Mozambique.

The worsening violence between Renamo and the army prompted Rio Tinto Plc last month to advise dependents of foreign staff to temporarily leave the country.

The Canadian government late yesterday advised against non-essential travel in the provinces of Nampula and Sofala, the scenes of recent clashes between Renamo and the army, and called for a “high degree of caution due to violent crime, including a recent significant increase in cases of kidnappings.”

The Mozambique National Resistance Army, the opposition group known as Renamo, accused the government of planning to kill its leader, Afonso Dhlakama.

The government on Oct. 21 attacked the main base of Renamo in the central Sofala province and there have been a series of clashes since then. A military official, who asked not to be identified because an announcement hasn’t been made, has said that 58 people, including 17 soldiers, died in a battle at Maringue in the province on Oct. 28.

“Since last week a large quantity of weapons was moved to Sofala to start a big military raid in Gorongosa and Maringue mountains to chase and kill President Dhlakama,” Fernando Mazanga, a spokesman for Renamo, said at a press conference in the country today.

Renamo, once backed by the white-minority governments of Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, and South Africa, fought a 17-year civil war against the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique, or Frelimo, until signing a peace agreement in Rome in 1992. Renamo last month said the peace agreement had ended after its base was attacked.

The attack followed earlier clashes that disrupted public transport in Sofala and the movement of coal by rail to the coast from mines owned by Rio Tinto Plc (RIO) and Vale SA. (VALE5)

Four soldiers were killed and 19 injured in an attack by Renamo militia today in the Vunduzi region of Sofala, Lusa, a Portuguese news agency, reported, citing people from the region.

State-owned Televisao de Mocambique and privately owned Soico Telvisao reported that there had been two separate attacks including an ambush of military vehicles. The television stations showed footage of bodies and soldiers being admitted to Beira Central Hospital.

Some of the injured are in a critical state although most are stable, Cesar Macome, director of the hospital, said in an interview with Bloomberg.

Renamo also rejected a call by Mozambican President Armando Guebuza for talks in Maputo, the capital, on Nov. 8, because it had been communicated via the media and attacks on the opposition group haven’t stopped. “That invitation is simply a joke,” Mazanga said. “That is poisoned candy or political propaganda.” Dhlakama is currently in hiding.

All of the info above is from Bloomberg.com

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-05/mozambique-s-renamo-says-army-plans-to-kill-dhlakama.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-07/kidnappings-cast-shadow-over-mozambique-s-gas-fueled-growth.html

Below is the US Embassy in Mozambique’s warning to US citizens.

Over the past week, there have been several violent clashes between Government of Mozambique (GRM) security forces and armed Renamo elements in the central province of Sofala.  These clashes culminated in GRM forces occupying Renamo’s main camp in Satunjira and displacing Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama.  The GRM has increased its security presence throughout central Sofala, and specifically within key towns and villages along the EN1 and EN6 in the region.  Moreover, Renamo’s spokesperson stated publicly that Dhlakama “no longer controls the response of his forces” and indicated that there could be unauthorized retaliations. 

Due to increased violence in the region, and the current possibility of reprisal attacks, the U.S. Embassy has reiterated its internal standing guidance that travel along the EN1 and EN6 in Sofala Province is prohibited for its employees except under exceptional circumstances.  U.S. citizens should avoid driving outside the urban areas of central Mozambique. 

http://maputo.usembassy.gov/messages102313.html

Our plan is to stay close to home as we watch and see how things progress here.  It is impossible for us to stay off the EN6 since this is the only road that we can use to drive out of our center.  We plan on holding all of our seminars here at our center for the near future.  We will also be concentrating on our new 8,000 square foot church sanctuary building project. 

Thanks for your prayers!

Blessings,

Brian

Bad News, Good News – Romans 8:28 in action!

The forests of Gorongosa in Sofala, Central Mozambique, house the Renamo rebel party headquarters.  These days are tenuous, as negotiations are not going well with the current Ferlimo party in office.  But this is the place three of our on fire pastors felt led to go this weekend, conducting a seminar on Marriage and Foundations I, two of our discipleship books.  Soldiers escort traffic in convoys on the National Hwy due to random guerilla shooting of innocent citizens in busses and cars passing by, but these pastors were insistent.  We prayed together last week and sent them on their way with Bibles, discipleship books, and audio Bibles for the illiterate.  Today they returned with stories of miracles and amazing reports!  

(left to right) Lorena, Brian, Pastor Wilson

Sacrificially bringing goats and chickens to share, these subsistent farmers eagerly came to hear the Word of God.  Believers from five churches gathered, many walking up to 50k (31 miles) to get there.  One pastor had severe malaria.  Another had a stomach problem (no diagnostics in the bush).  Jesus healed them both!  Our pastors showed us a video of them dancing in the front of the church on their second day!  

Some of the believers who gathered

 Because political tension is high in this area, a radio station crew man came to investigate what their “real” objective was with this seminar (if they had a political agenda or not).  Satisfied, he decided to record the entire seminar and broadcast it today for their entire district!  “I’m getting calls from many churches in that area today, saying they also want seminars because they heard the broadcast on the radio,” reports Pastor Wilson after returning last night.  So “bad” is turning into “good” as the Word of God fills this area full of turmoil.  

More believers - proudly holding their booklets

Romans 8:28,  “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.