4-25
Maputo

Took a bus into Maputo – really nice busses here! Then got a text that I should meet the Children’s Cup folks at 2001 motel. A kind lady from the bus told me she would arrange it with a taxi for me. I find this all the time – so many people are able to understand enough English, and so many are glad to help, even going out of their way to help with a thought of payment. But she happened to find the most desperate taxi driver. By the sounds of his car he does not charge enough! It was amazing that it rolled down the street. It sounded like the back left wheel lost all it’s grease, lost all it’s ball bearings, and lost plenty of it’s axle! It was grinding and screeching all the way. When he would slow down it would bang and clank. When he took a left turn all the noises joined in at once! It was hilarious.

Children’s Cup is a compassion ministry that is operating in Swazi and Zimbabwe for many years, and for the last 1 ½ years have been doing a Care Point (feeding orphans at least – more depending on staff and resources I think) in Maputo Mozambique. The leadership and most of the staff seem to come from a church in Baton Rouge Lo. Now that church has sent out a couple to plant a church at this location as well, and they sent out a 10 day discipleship school mission team to do the final touches on the church before their grand opening this coming Sunday when they plan on feeding 1000 people who will be invited from the surrounding community. So we joined in for a couple days – painting, sanding doors, putting in an electric well pump to replace the hand pump, putting a large tank on a tall platform and trenching and connecting all the hoses.

Then at 2pm they would feed the children. They would start wandering in at about 1, bowl and spoon in hand, gawking at the foreigners and the things they may have never seen before (I showed one little guy in the bath room which has 6 stalls with flush toilets and two sinks – all brand new. The guy was really checking out the toilet, looking it all over like he was not sure what it was). The grannies are cooking the soup and rice in huge pots outside over a little stick fire for hours. Finally there are about 200 children, a granny gets them to line up – the smallest first – and they start filling their bowls one by one. The kids then sit under the tree and eat. This happens 5 times each week. Their goal is to not only feed them food, but spiritually as well. Eventually they will start telling Bible stories (the discipleship kids did some skits and puppets and crafts and handed out a tee shirt to each one), then they will start a school for the ones that are too poor to go to school, then will be a medical clinic, and so on. As I understand it, the vision for the church, of which this is the Maputo campus, is to reach the lost by serving and ministering to the poor and needy. And from those who are brought to be disciples, God will build a great and mighty church.

The young couple (Isaac and Carol Williams – around 25-30ish) who are pastoring the church have not been married hardly a year. They are Brazilian, so speak Portuguese and English perfectly.

So would anyone want to get in on this opportunity to help out with a new church just getting started in this wonderful community? Portuguese is much like Spanish. isaac.williams@healingplacechurch.org .