I know.. Im a bad bad blogger. sorry.

ok... so its been awhile. I apologise! Its been a very busy few weeks, but we are now in South Africa getting some much needed rest, and catching up on a few errands etc. Ill upload a few pictures from the last few weeks so you can see what went on- it was great to have the nursing team here, and we were sad to see them go! I know the love and care they showed so many in our community will be a testimony for a long time to come!

this is seriously the cutest most squishiest kid i have seen in a long time.. what a sweetheart!

on of the Mozambiquan nursing students we worked with listens to a fetal heartbeat using something called a fetalscope or something like that. (essentially a funny shaped piece of wood with a hole in it)

the whole prairie nursing team and Sr. Da Cruz- director of Vanduzi Hospital

carleen gives one of our school kids a piggy back ride!

suzanne, cuddles with baby Kinead. Baby Kinead is the tiny baby I posted a picture of before. Sadly, Kinead had full blown AIDS, and passed away this past week. Although we are saddened by her passing, we rejoice that she is now pain free and dancing in heaven. The love and compassion the nurses showed to her and her family will be a testimony of God's neverending Love for many years to come. 

The nursing team brought Mae Marosa a new flip flop (she has only one leg), Kristine shows off the one they relplaced- held together by shoelace and string!

pouring water to give the school kids- this was to help wash down some medicines given, but the team also spent many hours serving lunch in the school kitchen!

Thank you for all the prayers in the last little while- we needed them! We are grateful to have Dwight and Lynn back here in Africa with us, and are looking forward to another couple of busy months ahead of us. Our intensive training seminars for the Bible School start in just a few weeks and we (mostly Rick) will be busy teaching there, as well as hopefully prepping for another Childrens Ministry Training Seminar in the near future. 

In other news we are pretty much half way to our fundraising goal for our new truck- It has been awesome to see God's people respond to our need- THANK YOU!

Also, we are continuing to pursue adoption here in Moz, and could definetly use some prayers in that regard. I think ill make a list of prayer requests - i always like it when folks tell me specific needs, so here goes:

1. That funds will continue to come in for our vehicle fund.

2. That until those funds come in, our current vehicle will "keep on truckin".

3. That government offices and officials will be open to our adoption request, and that the needed papers will come thru so we can "start" the process. (it can take MONTHS upon MONTHS for stuff to happen around here... and even then could fall thru)

4. That our intensive seminars will go well, and will be a great time of learning for all involved.

5. For health and safety for us as we travel and work here.

I think thats a good list for now! Blessings- Rick & Heather

Nursing Team Week 2 and part of Week 3

The nursing team has been hard at work and Ive got the pictures to prove it! Here are a bunch more from the past week or so. Ive been thruroughly thrilled this past week to have Ron Nickel, a professional photographer here on the farm. He was sent by Prairie Bible College to get some great pics of the nursing teams. He was also more than willing to give me free photography lessons (a dream come true for me!!). Thanks Ron! Here are some pics from the week.

Kristine and Tracy and a local nursing student figure out how to fill in vaccination paperwork. They are doing three full days of vaccinating- Tetanus shots, polio, measles, etc.... and each shot and vaccine needs to be recorded in the book.

EMT Scott cuddles a teeny tiny newborn. (I think he wanted this deleted so it didnt appear he was a cuddler but it was too good of a picture to pass up.. sorry scott!)

Fernanda gives a mother a tetanus vaccine. I just loved the look on the mothers face!

During community home visits the students had to get water with their host families. Mae Vaida's family gets their water from this muddy hole, at least a twenty minute walk away from their home.

Photographer Ron decided he had no excuse, so he tried carrying the water for a bit as well. He did pretty well for the twenty feet he carried it! :)

Jess and Kristine cuddle with Patience and her one month old Baby! Later, Jess carried the baby all morning on her back, Mozambiquan style, while collecting firewood!

I took time out from being Ron's reflector holder to try out pounding maize as well.

Breaking the kernels off the cob.

Vira enjoys some sweet potato on the other side of the fire from me. Thanks Ron for teaching me how to keep her in focus... not the smoke!

Yet another Ron orchestrated shot, I LOVE THIS ONE.  Woohoo for better pictures!!

And you thought those national geographic shots were just lucky shots! Nope.... bring out the reflectors, the wide angle lenses, lens hoods and photo editing programs! ( and a whole lot of talent) Here we were attempting to take a nice shot of the shrimp seller and his shrimp- they are HUGE!

A tiny baby girl the team of nurses have been working hard to bring back to health. She is only 2.3 Kilos at over two months old!

A team of nurses from Prairie College of Arts and Technology in Three Hills, Alberta arrived just over a week ago... and having been running ever since. We are sooo blessed to have them here, and have appreciated their help so much. Here are a few pics from their first week!

That dot in the middle is their plane. There was some indecision on the part of the pilot as to whether he was comfortable landing on Beira's runway... so they circled three times before finally landing- perfectly!

Exiting the plane!

Beautiful sunset on the way home to the farm... such a nice sight for your first day in Africa!

On Saturday we organised a Canada vs. South Africa badminton/volleyball tournament. I cant remember who won... (but im sure it was Canada!)

The spectators... and the paparazzi.

Scott  gets right into things.

Visiting a local church their first sunday, here they are being introduced to the church.

Praying for the sick.

Leader suzanne meets cute little girl suzanne! Both were thrilled!

On monday several team members had to attend to a former staff member who had fallen and broken his femur/hip. Please pray for him (Fred), he is not doing well.

Also on Monday we spent several hours visiting Mucombeze Interior Primary School and played lots of games with the kids. It was day of the child so the whole day was a party!

Teaching them "what time is it Mr. Wolfe?"

On wednesday we toured the Vanduzi hospital. Here Senhor Da Cruz explains the immunization procedure to the team. They will be helping with three rural vaccination campaigns in a weeks time.

Senhor Da Cruz explains the sterilization equipment to the team.

The girls had the opportunity to teach at one of the ladies literacy schools on the topics of cholera and ear infections, as well as a great question and answer session.

Ill try and post more pics of their adventures next week! For now... Blessings to all! 

(and thanks for the prayers... we and the team can use them!)

God Bless, Rick and Heather

At Long Last... the Childrens Ministry Training Seminar Blog Post!

Ok... so I have tried in vain to figure out how to move my pictures into the correct order , but apparently Blogger is having some issues and so.... all my pics are in the wrong order. So i guess I will just have to  tell you the story thru pictures backwards!  Our Children's Ministry Training Seminar went amazingly well- despite some big obstacles. It was obvious to us that Satan was not at ALL interested in having us train 25 leaders how to reach children with the saving Gospel of Christ. We battled thru sickness, incredibly bad roads, and a vehicle on the verge of falling apart (see later picture!), but God was faithful and we had a wonderful time of fellowship and teaching with the leaders who came.

The entire group of leaders- they were a very energetic group! (good thing cus they all want to be childrens ministry leaders!) They are standing in front of the church where we held our seminar.

Just before leaving on our trip home (again.. sorry about the wrong order of pics), Rick got out some trusty Duct Tape and re-attached the bull bar to the vehicle.. that lasted about an hour... then it was falling off again.

The ever present group of kids sitting at the entry way to our little area watching Rick "fix" the truck.

This little guy just melted my heart. There was definetly not a shortage of children in this community (nor in most communities here in Moz) !

Rick had some of the younger leaders do his "bad ingredients make good cookies = all things work together for good" illustration. These guys were probably only 12 years old, but were really excited about helping in church with the younger kids! AWESOME!

Hands on training.

Rick trying to learn a new game.. it consisted of slamming (gently) a bottle cap with seeds in it on the ground... the object (we think) was to get ONLY one seed to jump out. It seemed very complicated.

Talking about faith and teaching illustrations... they did really well!

The seed bouncing game. 

There were about 15-20 kids who sat in on the sessions- this guy fell asleep and stayed this way for nearly an hour. Didnt look too comfy to me.

One of the leaders playing soccer with the kids, during a session break.

this church aparently goes thru a lot of drums!

This was with the flash... he was drumming SOOOO fast!

When we arrived at the town of Baue (Boway) we found the church had worked really hard and prepared an amazing enclosure area for us. We had a large area with reed fence, a casa de banho and our very own latrine.  Let me say we were really appreciated it! The only somewhat awkward part was showering in a grass walled casa de banho with a tin can to pour water, only thirty or so feet away from a banca (store/bar type thing) BLASTING music with young people drinking and dancing late into the night.  It certainly made showers a lot shorter!

Our tent, all set up and ready to go!

The kids... they were ALLWAYS there to watch our every move.. it was like living in a big grass covered fish bowl!! 

This is part of the main road.. in fact the ONLY road that allows vehicles to get to  Mutarara and Baue. yeah. big trucks drive down this. there were several times, where driving at 25-30 km and hour (or less) the bumps were sooo bad i hit the ceiling!!

TRAFFIC!!

the wheels are in a pothole.. so deep the bumper is almost on the ground!

another good size bump- it took us nearly 8 hours to travel less than 300 kilometres. NO JOKE! I think our poor truck was just as sore, if not more, than we were at the end!

Driving thru a dry riverbed... i wonder how anyone gets to this town in the rainy season?

All in all it was a great weekend, and we had a great time. Not only the participants came away blessed, we as well learned a lot of things and are excited to organise another seminar in the coming months! Even though both Rick and I were sick during the weekend, we know it was God who gave us strength to continue!

When we returned home it was exciting to hear that we now have had over 28,000 dollars donated towards our vehicle fund!!!! PRAISE THE LORD! Thank you so much to all who have given, we are nearly half way to our goal (vehicles here are very expensive, and importing them to Mozambique costs nearly 30% of the purchase price!!). We are praying that the rest of the funds will come in, so we can put the order in for the new truck as soon as possible. This last trip up north was as hard on the bakkie as it was on us! One fallen off bush bar, a few oil leaks, and some spontaneous locking later and our truck was just as happy to be home as we were! Thank you again to all who have prayed, donated, supported, sent us notes of encouragement- each and every one of them is appreciated! Blessings- Heather & Rick

p.s. the team of nurses arrived safe and sound and is doing well- ill attempt to get another blog up soon with pictures of their visit!

Prepping and Packing

As the title suggests, we have been doing a lot of prepping and packing recently- Prepping for both our trip north to lead a Childrens Ministry Training Seminar and also for the arrival a team of nurses from Canada in one weeks time.

Both of these have also involved Packing- packing up the Bakkie , the cooler , tent etc, and also unpacking items for the nursing team- tents, dishes, bedding.

All this prepping and packing hasnt really made for good pictures.. i mean.. really how thrilling is it to pack the cooler??? But i have taken a few good ones on our walks- the cooler weather makes walking in the evenings so much more enjoyable. We will be really busy in the next few weeks, so it is nice to take some time to enjoy the beauty the farm has to offer. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.Beautiful sunset (heading down the driveway)

The fence line along the front of the farm- nicely cleared of any and all grass. This makes it easier for the guards to patrol the fence line.. and lessens the chance of fire jumping it in the dry season that is coming.

Waterfalls at the edge of our property.

Pond that the waterfalls flow into- one of the prettiest spots around!

Domingo, our shepherd with one of the MANY baby sheep that were born last week. He promised if I came at five when they go back into their pen for night he would catch me a few to cuddle. They are quite cute at this stage... once they get bigger they are just dirty smelly and really really loud.

awww. hes just soooo cute. This one was three days old.

OK- this one isnt technically on the farm, this is Domingo's brand spankin new Grandbaby. Here he is only three days old! He lives just across the river though.. so we will claim him as a beautiful things on the farm!

Tomorow (Wednesday) Rick and I head up north to teach our very first Childrens Ministry Training Seminar. Please pray for us as we travel on very poor roads for two days! Please pray for health for us (and our vehicle!) safety on the roads, and that the seminar would be a time of fellowship and learning for all involved. I look forward to posting some great pics from the trip next week! Blessings, Rick & Heather