Friday, 5 April: Nos Vamos (We Go Now)

This morning, the roosters were sufficient to wake me up earlier than I would have liked. They seemed to like to crow from the hours between 5:00 and 9:00 am. The rain from the day before kept the camp nice and cool.

At 8:00 am, we made our way to breakfast. You can probably guess by now that it was beyond delicious. The main course was boerewors (pron. "bore-vors"), the ubiquitous Afrikaans sausage. This was my favorite meal so far, but at the rate we were going, it looked as if every meal was going to be my favorite so far.

After breakfast was the first session. We opened by singing It is Well with My Soul and then John had us split into groups. Our focus during the retreat was the books of Acts, so each group was supposed to come up with themes, stories, and questions we had from the book. This activity helped John to focus future sessions on what the missionaries wanted to learn.

We took a short break for tea and returned for the second session. The second session focused on the story of Pentecost found in Acts 2. First, John handed out paper and markers. He had us explain the story by drawing a picture. Then we were to use inductive Bible study to learn about the section we were given (Inductive Bible study is the method where you read a passage, focus on the details of it, come up with the main theme, and determine what applications it has for your life.). Each group shared the details of their section and then we had to write a one sentence summary of the theme. My group's sentence was, "The Holy Spirit empowering us through Jesus Christ as witnesses to save from corruption." We ended the time by coming up with applications or "I" statements from the passage.

When the second session ended, it was time for lunch. Our meal consisted of potato fritters, bran muffins, coffee muffins, and skewers of fresh fruit. Afterwards, Heather and I walked back to the campsite with Micah. Today his name was "Excavator". We asked if he was building anything and he told us he was building a tree house, a blue one for Heather, a purple one for his mom, and a blue one for me (each of our favorite colors).

Even I'll admit this is probably the cutest thing ever.

The rest of the afternoon was free time until 4:30 pm. Then we gathered for "Sundowners at the River". This is a South African term for when a group of people go down to the side of a river to hang out and watch the sunset (usually involving alcohol, but not in our case). We met at Piet and Ria's house. Steve, Doug, and Sakkie each drove a vehicle. I rode in the back of Sakkie's truck with John Spurrier, Heather, and Tonya.

Our fearless leaders, Sakkie and Steve.

Our destination was a large rock overlooking the Púnguè River. Nearby were the remains of an abandoned cotton mill that had been destroyed during the civil war. The rock was the former location of a cable car where cotton from the mill was transported across the river. The view from the rock was marvelous. The only downside was that it was inhabited by a massive amount of ants.

If you look closely, you'll notice this is a picture of a person taking a picture of a person taking a picture.

I gave this to Micah and he promptly thought it would be a good idea to show Heather. I don't she appreciated it as much as I did.

Sakkie led a group of us down a trail to the edge of the water. After hiking down the side of the mountainside, we came to some large rocks. This spot is used as a swimming hole during the dry season, but the water was high and Sakkie discouraged us from swimming because of crocodiles.

Beautiful sunset.

After the sun had set, we returned to the top and headed back to the house for dinner. Like always, a delicious meal waited for us. On the way back to Julie and Heather had a good time “scolding” me for leaving a black olive on my plate. In Zambia, they are hard to come by.

For devotions, the Mozambican and Zambian teams gave ministry updates and shared prayer concerns. Then someone prayed for each person. Afterwards, everyone headed to bed to get much sleep before an early morning for our trip to Mt. Gorongosa.