Hospitality

Each day that we have been in Mozambique, we have visited villages where the Outreach Foundation has built a church, a well, a latrine, a school, or a clinic ... or plans to. Each church we visit, the children see us drive up, and they run behind the car. They ring the village bell (or old tire rim, as it were) and tell the rest of the village, "our visitors are here." Men, women, and children filter in, and then they sing. And sing. And sing. Their bare feet slapping on the concrete floors of the sanctuary sound better than any percussion instrument made or bought. They dance and sing, and the children join in the harmonies, the smallest strapped to their mothers' backs. I cannot express the joy this brings to my heart, the kind of joy that brings tears to my eyes.

And then we sit, and Nedson welcomes them. And they laugh, because they are welcoming us. Greetings are exchanged -from the elder of their church, from one of our team - with Nedson translating and laughing all the way through. Then they sing another song, and we make a presentation. Elizabeth has brought banners for each church. Simple felt crosses on blue backgrounds, but still splashes of color in the cool, gray room. And then they sing again. And sometimes while they sing, a young man or two (or twenty) slips out to bring their gift for us. Sometimes it's a chicken.





Sometimes it's a goat. Seriously. They gave us a goat. Their hearts were so full of joy, and so pleased to have us as guests, that they wanted to honor us with a gift. And so we drove away with a goat in the trunk.

This is the kind of hospitality that is unfathomable to me. They didn't give it to us because they thought we needed it more than they did, or even because they thought we needed it at all. It was a gift because they love us and are grateful to God for their new church (still in the planning stages during last year's visit). One of the midwives said to Betsy as we were leaving, "In this new church, I feel like I can reach up and grab God and pull him down with us. This goat is a gift for the King" (and so we named him Rex).

The goat is the single most valuable thing a community or a person can have. You can eat a goat. You can sell a goat's milk. You can sell the goat and buy a bicycle or a piece of sheet metal so you'll have a roof for your home. And they gave us a goat.

And check out this banner, lovingly hand-made for us from the back of a t-shirt. It says, "The God who made all tribes should be praised."




Now, I had claimed the third seat by luck, because everyone else gets car-sick, but I didn't mind at all, because I could stretch out my legs and sleep. So when it came to whatever gift we'd been given, it got piled in with me ... be it bananas, sugar cane, chicken,




or goat!



But I didn't mind because it's an African adventure, right? When we had the goat, we'd stop at a new church or well site and Berry (Outreach Foundation Trustee and trip leader) would try to take over my spot. No, no, I insisted, it's fine, and it was.

We stopped along the roadside for lunch, and as we were piling back in the cars, Berry and I started into our little dance for the jump-seat when I heard Betsy say, "oh, the goat has stood up." No problem, I thought, he'll sit back down when we get moving and he's been so docile until now. Then I heard Nedson say, "oh, and there is quite a lot of waste!" and that's when Berry won. He could have the better story of riding with the poop. Fortunately, we found a place for the goat to have a happy life at the next stop, with Carlos, the pastor of the 22 Tete Province churches. (Now that's a circuit preacher!)

Oh, and the chicken? Well that's interesting, too. We took a chicken to the hotel in Tete City and Nedson said, "Do you have somewhere to keep a live chicken for two nights until we leave?" The crazy part is that plenty of hotels do! When they said they didn't, Nedson was able to ask if someone could cook it for him, which they happily did. If he'd asked about the cooking straight out, they would've said no because he should be eating in their restaurant instead of bringing his own dinner. Once he had asked about boarding the chicken, they could do it because everyone could see that cooking was the only option. So today we had chicken with our peanut butter and jelly picnic.