wolves dressed in sheeps clothing

meet the Prairie Bible Collage team from Three Hills who came to serve with SAM Ministries here in Mozambique Africa. these girls may have the impression of innocents but spend two weeks with them and their true colours are soon revealed. it all started with the second night of their stay at the farm; due to lack of better things to do after the sun went down a few of the nurses though it would be great fun hiding in the darkness of the trees to scare the rest of their team. i fell victim to this plan of attack.....twice! also i had the joy of retrieving my bedding from the trees one late night before retiring for the evening.....but sweet revenge was to be had. i will tell you of that in moment but first let me explain how the pranking escalated. on their second last night at the farm, the Jortosh team decided they wanted to get in on the fun as well. they came to our site late in the night to steal our shower curtains and all our utensils. naturally they suspected myself (i can't imagine why) they then turned their blame to Lynn and Dwight because they also had reason for revenge on the girls. i believe it had something to do with their front door being duck taped shut..... and maybe some corn syrup plastered on their door handle and garbage lid. the conclusion was finally made that the Jortosh team was to blame. the girls waved good bye to the Jortosh team as they headed out to visit one of the local churches......then the wolves were unleashed. these girls were were relentless!! they strung Nat's clothes on a line through the trees. they duck taped a bunch of stuff to the branches in the trees. they hoisted a tent into the air with string between the trees down the path that they would have to drive down. they stole a bunch of things (some of which is still being found) they put hot sauce in their jam and stole their dinner meat. oh, they also hung Nat's bed in the air on string and duck taped it. the came site looked like a tornado ran through. after their evil deed was done for the day we all left to visit a local church as well. to confess their sins maybe. many more pranks were executed though out the rest of the Prairie teams stay but the one i enjoyed the most was getting up early on the last day to seek revenge on the bandits responsible for my bedding finding it's way to the trees out side my tent. after locking the girls in their tent with a suitcase size lock i proceeded to remove the tent poles allowing the entire tent to fall upon them. i felt my mission was accomplished when one of the team members out side the tent attempted to bring the girls comfort my shoving pancakes through the small opening so the girls could eat.....it was loads of fun.....however....the last laugh was on me. after returning from saying good bye to the nurses at the air port i was welcomed home by a dead furry animal tied to the zipper of my tent....complements of Nat Zook. you may, in the near future, find a picture of my friend on Nat's blog. if you are really interested (in his ministry on the farm of course) the link can be found under "my friends" on this blog.
meet the Jortosh team! aside from all the pranking the two teams really did make some positive impact in the community. I spent most of my time with the team of nurses taking them on home visits to the orphans and widows supported by ASAM, however I often joined the Jortosh team on some of their leisurely activities. the Jortosh team specializes in children's ministry which involved skits and games done at the schools and churches. they also spent some time helping Nat work on his house. if you are interested in learning more about their ministry visit http://www.jortosh.com/

we are now on our way back from showing the Jesus film. one the way there, Amber and i stood in the back of the truck, with no hands, to see who could last the the longest without falling down. (we called it truck surfing) on the way back our only concern was keeping warm! so you might be asking "what is the Jesus Film all about?" well a projector and screen are hauled to a requested location to show the movie of Jesus's life and death of the cross. the movie has been translated into the mother language, showna. because very few locals get the chance to see t.v, let alone a movie, this events can draw up quite a large crowd. at the end of the movie the audience is welcomed to come for prayer for either the acceptance of what Christ did for them or simply a sickness they are struggling with. it seems unfair to categorize the request of prayer for sickness as 'simple' but i have come to except that this is, unfortunately, life for the Mozambican people.

Spending time with the nurses and watching them interact and give medical attention made me question my adamancy against becoming a nurse. I know I told many of you that I wanted to do something in the medical field but didn't feel that nursing would be my venue. Well I may be wrong. I felt very charged up when the nurses were teaching the locals basic sickness prevention and what to do in the event of a accident. We also went to visit a man who was bed ridden and I felt the sing of the need for medical attention; a need that is evident in many parts of the world. who knows what the future hold but i guess this was my reason for coming here

so i finally got to do something i have been waiting to do since i arrived in Mozambique two months ago. you can not truly experience the culture until you ride the shoppa. the shoppa is a communal taxi that is often in the back of a pick-up truck or a over stuffed van. Matthew, Nat and myself got up at 6:00am to catch the next shoppa which never runs on a fixed schedule. we could have waited for a van but chose to settle for a truck since we had been waiting for twenty minutes and there was no guarantee for another one any time soon. everything was fine until it started to rain. Nat and were fine because when the rain came the driver offered us the front seat but poor Matthew was not thrilled with the idea. to appease our good friend we stoped in Vanduzie to switch to a van.

this is were i became a object of this sweet child's curiosity. most young babies see a white person and shriek with fear as though they have seen a ghost. this little one could not contain her desire to explore my face! i honestly can't say i minded much.