Final Mozambique Thoughts

I have had a lot of people ask me about the Mozambique trip. One of the questions they always ask is "was it a good trip" and "did you get done what you wanted to". I had to think about how to answer that.

The short answer is "yes" and "no". Let me explain.

It was a VERY good trip. We had a great team and wonderful help from the Woods family and Tim. Our team was a mix of "veterans" of previous trips with a good number of new recruits. They were all tested by the conditions (tents, open-air toilets, limited showers, rainy and humid nights), but were able to bond as a group. One of the takaways from this year is to focus MORE on the team building so that we all get more of a chance to know each other. This year gave everyone a glimpse of what conditions most missionary and volunteer groups work under. I think we will all have a greater appreciation for the mission trips where we are staying in hotels.

The Woods family and Tim are long-term volunteers that are spending years in Mozambique and dedicating parts of their lives to the cause. I can't say enough how much respect I have for them and that they put God's mission first in their lives. A lot of us say that, but they are truly showing it and I really admire that. They were such a help and an inspiration.


As far as getting done what "I" wanted us to, well, that is another story. The problem with the question (and my attitude going in) is the I part of it. I certainly did have expectations that we would complete our half of the school. I felt that we had an experienced group and a large enough group that we would be able to finish. Things happen. God has other plans and when I don't turn things over to him, I inevitably get frustrated when they don't go "my" way. We didn't complete the school, but at the end of the day, that is OK. We know that Maranatha will complete it and we got done what we could, with God's help. This year was a lesson to me in turning things over to God right away and in humility. I was EXTREMELY frustrated with the situation and in my leadership abilities because we weren't making the progress that was necessary to complete. Once I realized that things were out of my hands and that there was nothing I could do, I turned it over and had a much more relaxed week.

I found out after the trip was over the reason why our block was in such bad shape. Maranatha had purchased our block WELL in advance of our arrival. They had inspected the block and they were great, uniform, well made block. When the crew went to go get the block about a week before we arrived, the company had sold the block to someone who paid more money! So, they had to scramble to find the best they could. That is what happens sometime and we have to roll with it. Maybe that other building needed it more than we did---who knows.


I wouldn't change the experience for the world. It gave all of us a lot of valuable experience and I will take some things away to help plan and execute further trips.


Thanks again to all the participants on the trip - you were all troopers and did great work. Also thanks to all of those that were praying for the trip. Thanks to my wife Rachael for all of her encouragement and for posting the blog entries when my phone wasn't working! Thanks to Tito Charneco for all of your encouragement and help with the sermon. And the biggest thanks to God for giving us all the gifts that we use every day and for guidance on the trip.


We are starting planning for 2010 in Mexico, so more information to come on that!

Last flight home!

We all made it through security--finally. Eliel reeves had some trouble in agriculture and they took a LONG time. He made it to the gate just as we were boading. Praise God!

The flight crew on our flight from Joburg called me up twice during the flight because we had two people sick. If we would have had more get sick, they were going to potentially quarantine the entire group--potentially in Senegal or Atlanta. I was able to explain that it was isolated to just Rachel and Dale and luckily they didn't do anything more.
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Back in the USA

We have arrived in Atlanta. We now have to get through customs and get to our final flight and we will complete our 36 hour journey.
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One leg down

We have landed in Senegal after an 8 hour flight. No issues other than some sicknesses Rachel Wolff and Dale got sick on the plane, most likely from food they had earlier.
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On the plane back to the USA

Well, we made it to the Joburg airport with no issues. We had allowed for enough contingency and had 30 minutes to spare! Everyone got checked in and though and we are on the Delta plane now.

We pray for a safe and uneventful flight.
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Delay in Nelspruit

Loading the bus to Joburg


Dale sleeping on the way.

We were making good time on our way to the Joburg airport until we reached Nelspruit. The local police had a roadblock set up and all buses have to get a "road test" today. So we drove back 15 minutes to get a test done. We were supposed to only have a 5 minute test done. We went and talked with the boss man and explained that we had a plane to catch. He said no problem and that we would be done by noon.

Well, we didn't pull into the test station till 12:26. We got the test done and pulled out of there at 12:50 with a passed test!

We will have to travel fast with no more delays to make it on time. God is in control and we have to trust that there is a reason.
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Baby Hyenas

I updated with a better picture. This was on our way out - what a neat experience to see them that close up.

Last cell phone pic from the park. These we're no more than 20 feet away

Great day at Kruger

Stork

Kudu - the antlers were huge

A hornbill. One of my favorite pictures - not sure why.....

This giraffe was literally on the road as we were headed out of the park. If we wanted to, we probably could have reached out and touched it.

This was from another person in our group, but love the picture of the Kudu jumping across the road

This elephant was alone down by the river happily eating grass.

This was taken by someone in another jeep, so unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to witness this.

A HUGE rhino. I had no good concept for how large and powerful they are. We realized pretty quickly that if they got upset and charged the jeep, we were pretty much toast.

A group of giraffes we saw right as we entered the park

We had a great day at Kruger. We got here and got on our safari buses. We were out all day and saw a lot of the main animals. We didn't see any lions or leopards, but we did see a python take out an Impala! The guides said they have never seen that before. We got quite a few great pictures of it.

We came back to the hotel and are really enjoying our stay here. We will leave tomorrow am for the airport.


An outside shot of the hotel


Our final night - playing Mafia




For the group: Pictorial evidence of the meal that spawned so many upset stomachs

Python 1, Impala 0

This provide a much better view of the Python than my cell phone camera did. Our guides say that this was about an 18 foot python. We were a little too late to see the takedown. Once the impala had died, the python uncoiled and we thought it was going to swallow the impala. However, by that time, there were about 20-25 vehicles and the guides think that the vibrations scared the python away. We came back after lunch to see if it was swallowing the impala, but there was nothing there - no python, no impala. Something took it away. The video shows the rest of the impala "herd" waiting around and trying to do what they can to get the python off of their family.

Sweet!! We hadn't expected this and the park rangers say that they haven't seen a python take down an impala in over 50 years.

Thanks to Rachel Wolff for this totally sweet video. You can hear some of the commentary and see the other impalas.

Elephant in kruger

About 100 feet away!

Giraffe in kruger

About 20 feet away!

On our way to Kruger

The 4:30 departure time made for some sleepy travelers.

We just passed the border into South Africa so we are getting close to our safari. No issues on the border crossing so no worries on that front.

Safely in Maputo

We had a safe flight to Maputo and made it to our hotel. We have a nice hotel room with a good bathroom and shower--that is all we can ask for!

Dinner at the Indian restaurant in Maputo. Dale's new favorite place.....

We had a great dinner at an indian restaurant tonight. We have an EARLY morning--we have a 4:30 bus. We have the hardcore group of Uno players in our hotel room. Only Gino, Claudell, Bobby and Danae are playing tonight.

Bobby didn't do so well at this game of Uno. He drew so many cards he needed a two level hand.

We are looking forward to our safari tomorrow. My only hope is to get a picture of a lion taking out an animal!

Sabbath in Beira

We are now in the airport in Beira waiting for our flight to Maputo. We had a rainy and windy night and a lot of peoples tent covers blew over during the night. A couple of folks had water come into their tents so it made for a wet final night.

We had a great worship at the seminary in Beira. Mell and Lovely sang for special music and I preached my first sermon. Tito Charneco helped me prepare for it and I had a lot of prayers that helped me not be nervous.

Our group at the church on Sabbath

Church members

Mell and Lovely singing

Me preaching

Me and Julio, the Maranatha jobsite foreman - he was a great help and was glad to get to know him

We had our final meal and Susan Woods had made ice cream for our last meal! It was a fabulous ending to our time in Beira.


The Woods family were fantastic! They have dedicated two years of their lives already to the Mozambique project and have another year to go.

We are headed to Maputo to spend the night and go on our safari in the morning.

End of the work week

We completed our work week today. The medical team treated over 30 patients today, mostly dental.

The job site as we completed our work. We didn't complete as much as we thought we would, but we know that it will be completed!

Most of the work crew worked till lunch today. We took our team pictures and gave the official project team shirts to the local work crew. They were a great crew and we enjoyed working with them very much.

Team picture

Our wonderful Maranatha crew members with their team shirts

The "Wolff pack". We have one family that has grown in attendance and brought others into our team

The Grout Team

One of our block teams - they named themselves Team Bob Marley

Aunt Geneva - she has been on so many trips I don't even get to tell her what to do anymore - she just knows it and does it.

One of our block teams - they named themselves WWS (Wolff, Wilson and Spencer).

Spencer family - throwing some odd TCU sign.

Our Hydraform teams. They had to learn a new system that none of us had used and did a great job for their first time on a project.

Meron and Glenn (below) - our Rebar team.

Another block crew - they called themselves Xmen

I don't have a picture of the final block crew (Eric's team), but here are two of his team members with the rest of the end wall crew.

After we ate, we all went to the Seminary in Beira to distribute beans to the church members. Eight of us came back to the job site to try and finish the classrooms. We would have finished if the Maranatha crew didn't have to tear two walls down to fix a problem.

Distributing beans at the church

One of the bonuses on Friday afternoon with having a small crew was that I actually got to work (shocking.......). The team occasionally gives me a hard time that I don't do any work, so this is evidence that I DID actually do some work.

They were getting ready to install the windows and they realized that the window grid was too wide. They had built the steel wrong. So they tore the wall down, cut it off and re-welded the steel. Then we still got pretty far on that last wall in the afternoon.

We were SO close to completing all of the Hydraform. We just had that little bit left to complete.

I got a bit of a shock today--literally. Per usual, it rained overnight and again today. I had been cutting holes in the block for the block teams, but had to go run the wet saw for a minute. Shen I got done, my gloves were soaking wet and not thinking, I grabbed the concrete saw and started cutting block again. Well, I got a pretty good shock and put the saw down quickly! After I recovered and out a new pair of dry gloves on, no issues the rest of the day, thank God!

Me and the shocking saw.

The rest of the group went into Beira in the afternoon for some sightseeing and shopping. They seemed to enjoy it and got some souveniers to take home.

A shipwreck on the beach in Beira

We had a great worship tonight and were singing songs around the table when it started to rain. Everyone scattered to their tents to try and stay dry. We are praying for no rain in the morning and especially no rain at 1:30 when we load our luggage and head to the airport.

It has been a good week, but a faith testing one as well. We have learned a lot this week and about humility for me.

We look forward to church tomorrow and to starting our excursions.

My "alabama chromed" shoes

My trusty steel toe boots that I have used for the past 4 years have reached their limit. My soles are detaching from the boot and I am trying to make them last. Luckily, I had two people bring duct tape as a precaution. I didn't think I would have to use it for my boots.

They were holding up till today. My left sole detached so my foot is very uncomfortable. One more day though!

Our jury-rigged form

We are missing our electrical panel so we had to create a form to cover the area and work around it

Claudell and his block

I'm not sure that claudell has enough mortar for his block

Michael and Glenn in matching outfits

Tent mates leading worship

The LAM flight to Beira

Our prop plane flight to Beira

Next to last day

We made very good progress today. The medical team was working at the seminary today. They saw 55 patients today. They were without power for a couple of hours so that made them run late.

We got all the way up to the 12th course today. It is always tought to do the 11th course because of the door and window headers take a while to set. We had cloud cover all day and that helped with the heat. We had about a 40 minute rain delay but that was it.

Most of the group is going to distribute beans to the church members tomorrow afternoon and then go into town. We had a few folks that wanted to stay back and finish up a couple of walls so I will stay back with them to get them done. Thanks to Mell for volunteering to be my personal shopper!!

All the rain collected on a tarp covering our eating area. We had to empty it a few times during the week. Friday night it rained so much, it collapsed alltogether - luckily, we didn't need it after that. Here are a few of the group getting the water out on Thursday

Wednesday report

We had a rainy night. It started raining about 10 last night and drizzled all night. It was a gentle rain to start the day and it was nice and cool. It was a lot easier to work because it was cool. It rained really hard twice and we had to stop and take cover.

After lunch it stopped raining and was nice and cloudy. We got quite a bit done. However, our saw blade died at about 3:30 so that really brought us to an early end. In addition, we didn't have our wood to brace up our headers so we couldn't finish our walls. We were making really good progress up till then.


Job site at the end of day 4

We all helped bag beans for us to give away on friday. That was a bit of a diversion after dinner. We are going to have Claudell lead us in a game of Mafia.

Bagging Beans

More beans - we had about 200 pounds of beans to bag!

Claudell leading out in Mafia

Meron says hello to Ivan.

Gino's team hard at work

Here is how Gino works his team!

Halfway through the week

We are halfway through the week. It was a very hot day and we had a few folks that had to sit out for a while because they were a little dehydrated. Nothing too bad though.

The medical team finished up their clinic in Dondo. They saw 76 patients today in very hot conditions.

We are only up to 8 courses and we needed to be up to 9 and starting 10 to have a chance at finishing. We have our work cut out for us!

The block continues to be a challenge as it is differing sizes and brittle. However, we are going to continue to do our best!

Another monday update

Dr dewar and team treated 46 patients on their first day. It was a good first day for them but it was pretty tough conditions

We are having our own version of wild kingdom here. We have seen a bunch of different animals. Tonight playing uno we saw a bat and a millipede! Mayra got attacked by a bug during worship.

We have spiders crickets and lizards in the block pile, so it makes it exciting to get block!

Second day on the job

We had a rough night last night. At about 12:30 am, the skies opened up and the rains came. It poured and popped a couple of tent poles. So, a bunch of people got up to help adjust the tents. We all had trouble getting back to sleep.

Once we got up, it was still sprinkling. We got a later start since food wasn't ready.

We did a little better today and got up to 6 on some walls. Still having trouble with the block--it is very brittle and has different heights.

Jobsite at the end of day 2

We have a plan to complete with goals. We will see how we do tomorrow.

We also had some excitement today. The electric went out at around 4 pm. We worked as long as we could without being able to cut block. We have a generator but it wasn't working.

We cleaned up and went to clean up. At about 5 or so, Tim, one of the drilling crew, finally figured it out and got it running! It was a good thing because we wouldn't be able to take showers otherwise. They wired it to the pump and we got to take showers!

Tim, our shower saver!

We had a lot of prayer today about no rain and to get the power on. We ended up on a good note.

We may post more later.

First Day Part I

We completed our first day on the job site. It went a little slower than we would have liked. We had a lot of block to move and some normal first day learning curve issues.

Job site as we arrived

The block line

We almost got to the third course on the block and made real good progress on the Hydra-form brick.

Progress after day 1

We will make better progress tomorrow now that we have the hang of it and know how we are going to stretch our block lines.

Getting Settled

We made it to our camp with no trouble. David Woods and his family met us at the airport and we got here quickly.

The camp is nice and everyone is settled into their tents. We had two great meals and our first worship. We have a great cook and the Woods family are wonderful hosts.

Tent Camp City

Everyone's favorite bathrooms

No words necessary

Our Shower room

The team is ready to go and anxious to start. They are getting to know each other. We had a first tonight in that we had someone able to recite back everyone's name, home and profession after only hearing it one time. Veronica Dorsey was the first I have ever seen do that.

Our dining and meeting room

We have our standard Uno game going and Claudell is already cheating.

I hope to be able to post to the Blog myself soon (Rachael is posting for me). Currently, I have been able to receive email, but not send it.

Finally Here!

We finally made it to Mozambique. We started the day early and made it to the Johannesburg airport on time. Air Mozambique (LAM) stood by their promise of allowing extra weight and we didn't have a problem.

Our prop plane to Mozambique - surprisingly comfortable and they served better meals than most US carriers

However, our flight was delayed due to the aircraft arriving late. We had a pretty tight connection in Maputo, so they said they would hold our connecting flight. Once we finally all got our luggage, we ran to the counter where there was a mad dash for the LAM reps to check us in and our bags. We all made it on the plane to Beira. Oddly enough, LAM has fed us on both flights even though they are only 1 hour long! They have been very good to us.

Once we landed in Maputo, we had to go through Passport Control. Robert Joseph had trouble because they had never heard of Antiqua! Eric Griffin had to get a Yellow Fever shot, but no one else had trouble. AND, everyone got their bags (even Dr. Dewar).

Safe at the hotel

We finally made it to the hotel in Johannesburg. We had to wait a while for the bus and it had to make a few trips as it can only hold about 6 persons

We made it though and had dinner and worship. Everyone is off to sleep as we need to be on our way to the airport by 6 am to catch our flight to Mozambique for our final leg.

Keep us in your prayers for tomorrow as it could be challenging

Waiting for the bus to the hotel

Everyone made it through security and we are waiting for our bus. Wit can only take about 8 at a time, we we go in shifts

So far so good!!

Landed in Johannesburg

We made it! Now we need to go through customs and get our luggage. A long trip to say the least

The flight crew let us know that a group of about 50 other Maranatha volunteers came the day before. We will find out where they were headed
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Landed in Senegal!

Stir Crazy on the plane




After a long flight, we are in Senegal. We unfortunately don't get off the plane. We have to sit in here while they cater and clean the plane. They will come on board with security and check our luggage.

The plane was very cold so we are glad for long sleeves.

Everyone got good sleep except for Bobby.
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Leaving Atlanta

All of our group made it here and we are boarding now for our LONG flight. We hope we can get off of the plane in Senegal to stretch our legs.
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On our way to atlanta

We are on our way to atlanta. We have made it through security and are finally on the plane. No issues so far. The plane is a few minutes delayed, but we should still have two hours to make our connection in the Atlanta airport.
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Fun with Flight Tracking!

All;

If you are interested in tracking our group as we make our way to South Africa on Thursday / Friday, you can click the link below to track our progress on our Delta flight 34 from Atlanta. You may have to mess with the flight dates as we will be traveling both Thursday and Friday (groan.....).

And before you ask, NO, we don't have flight tracking for our flights on Air Mozambique!

Share in our fun 16 hour total flight time! Pray that our group makes it safe and sound (and that we get some sleep along the way!)

Delta flight 34 Tracking