Here is a video overview of our three month trip to Africa with Mandate school and other young people this spring. If you want to see more video from the trip check out orphan hope on you-tube and all the best pictures on Picassa. Click on the links that follow.

http://www.youtube.com.orphanhope

http://www.picasaweb.google.com/orphanhope1

Another orphan home in Maputo

Another orphan home is built in Maputo! Here is the report and the pictures.

How many more hundreds - no, thousands - could be built to help with such a horrendous situation!





















Kyle Showalter is a great young man - about 22 years - who loves to travel and do God's works. He traveled with us from Orphan Hope for a while in Africa, and met the people from Kutwanana in Maputo. He wrote home about how we had built a house and the need for more. Within a couple weeks they had enough money ($1600) to build another house. Kyle traveled with us for another month then returned and helped to build the house.







This house is built by Kutwanana which is a home based care ministry of Christian Mission Church in Maputo. The leaders are Patrick and Grace Mulenga and their 22 year old daughter, Shula. We have mentioned them many times, as they are doing such a wonderful work for God and the "least of these" orphans and AIDS victims.

This house is for Mrs. Jaime and her 5 grandchildren shown here.















You can see her given the key to the first house she has probably ever had with a door and a lock!















Kutwanana says they would love to have a full time team working on new homes for orphans and grannies. One situation we have seen is two little 5 and 7 year old orphans living with their granny in a reed shack that was so small - probably about 10 x 8 or so. There was only room for the granny on a make-shift bed, the two kids slept on the floor with the rats. Their feet were chewed from the rats. The granny has AIDS so when she is too sick to cook the little ones need to somehow find fire wood, find some little food, cook, and clean up. These little ones got sick one time at the same time the granny was sick - they were all going without food until Patrick and Grace Mulenga stepped in and took the two little ones into their home. These two had never seen an apple before or milk!

But praise God, we are able to see progress amidst the great distress of this land. Pray that more will donate so we can build another house or two or 5 or 10!

Here are some words from Kyle on his experiences in Africa:

"by far the most challenging thing is seeing all the need here in Africa.....i have met countless orphans who are in desperate need as well as seeing Aids victims on their deathbeds. it can be very overwhelming at times when you look at all the hurting.....being with hundreds of children who have been sexually abused and who now have no parents and often times are going to bed with little or no food and little or no shelter. it seems like a daunting task, but then God reminds me that He loves each one of them and that I can only help those He has called me to.....and usually that means one at a time...or one family at a time. (like the boy throwing back the
starfish on the beach)"

"this trip has definitely had a huge impact on my life as God continues to mold me into the son that He desires me to be. i think one of the main things i will never take for granted again is the fact that i have a loving family and loving parents. after being around so many children who have grown up alone with virtually no love, i will never again think having loving parents is "normal".....i will know that God has truly blessed me and that I have a responsibility to bless others with His love. (the abrahamic covenant....God blesses us SO THAT we can be a blessing to all nations.) also, really loving reading the Bible and praying.....this trip has made me seek Him for guideance, and I have done that through prayer and reading His word. It has
never been more alive to me than right now, and that is something i will take with me for the rest of my life....a confidence in His word and a confidence in the Holy Spirit to guide me."

"advice to others......PRAY FIRST....if you dont feel that God is saying a big fat definite "no" then go for it. Take a trip away from the comforts of home and let God blow your mind. Be open to a completely new way of thinking. God is going to shatter your "american dream" and replace that with the will He has for your life, but first pray and get your heart in the right place.....dont come over to africa and think you are going to save the world.....instead come over here and be open to God showing you new things and new ideas.....He may call you back for something more long term, but during that initial trip just be open and sensitive to His Spirit.....and
get into His Word. It's brilliant. It's life. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." "The word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit; joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."

Cob house builders

One of the places we visited while in Northern Mozambique I did not mention in these blogs, but now so many people are finding out and are extremely interested. Therefore, I must include it for all to see.

While in Lichinga, we visited some American missionaries who were invited to build a compound in a Yao village. Their ministry may appear somewhat natural, but it is exceptional, and I believe God is using it. Not to mention what visions it is stirring up in us for a base of our own!

These missionaries met as young couples in college preparing for service to Africa. Then they moved over to Mozambique - two couples are here in Lichinga and three others are in another location.

These two couples were allowed to make a compound in a Yao village near Lichinga. They wanted to make things that could be built of all natural and locally available materials and be useful for the Yao people. So they found a cob house building book (published in Oregon) and began to build. (Cob is a mixture of earth, sand and straw.) The places are amazing! So artistic, creative and free.

They also designed a wood stove that is amazingly efficient - it will cook 21 pots of water with the same three sticks of firewood that would normally only cook five pots of water. This is such a great benefit because the women travel four hours each way to cut firewood and haul it home on their heads. The stove was "marketed" in this way-- they would come and build it for free for a person (it is made of cob, as are their houses), if he will find two others who will come and watch the process. Then the three of them will build stoves for the other two. This stove project has caught fire! They are all over now.

These missionaries are planting sunflowers and developing a cold-press to make oil for cooking. They have a tilapia pond from which they take daily scoops of fertile water for their hydroponic garden; they plant the "miracle plant" moringa, which has so many health and nutritional benefits (many relief organizations hope it can make a big impact on poverty world-wide); they designed a "chicken tractor" to contain their chickens (which most Africans don't) and fertilize their ground; they give out a breeding pair of rabbits with the condition that when they have babies, another breeding pair are given away again; and the list goes on.

See their website for the full story: www.yaomission.org/images/holtons/construction_site/construction_site.htm

Look what God can do with a vessel who is submitted to his instruction and whose aim is to love the poor. God will give us creativity and wisdom. He will use the schooling and experience we have and go far beyond that for His purposes. No one should think himself/herself unqualified to be a missionary. What skills do you have that God can breathe on for His glory - handyman skills, mechanic, nursing, teaching, gardening, ditch digging, love for kids, horticulture, construction, diaper-changing, midwifery, agriculture? The list is endless.

When we walked with care workers through Maputo, I first began to get discouraged at the endless sea of need. No one had an income he could depend on; everyone had an orphan or two or four they were trying to feed; some were chronically sick - probably HIV. Then God began to put hope in me that there is a solution in Him to the insidious poverty, disease, ignorance, and social and familial dysfunction. His answer? You and me. He sent us into the world to be his hands and feet, to be his salt and light. A community of Christ-bearing servants can do miracles in such a place. Lord, send your workers!