Sunday, April 29, 2012

This might just be the last post of it's kind!  Our lives are changing and, along with it, our blog.


We are moving out of our house and finishing up our second term in Mozambique. Nine years of ministry here! We'll still be around for a few things through the month of May, then will be moving into a time of rest in June and then into our home assignment time.


We've just enjoyed a jam packed month with our boys home for school break.  During that one month, MozOvos hosted a citywide soccer tournament.  The purpose was for the churches involved to get unbelieving boys in their community on the team with believing young men so that relationships could grow into transformed lives for God.  Helping us make all this happen was a team from the United States and South AFrica.  One of our supporting churches, Lakeside Church in Folsom and a church from Pretoria joined together and were AMAZING at stepping in and doing whatever was asked of them.  All in all, everyone was thrilled with how it went.

Soccer Tournament 2012
1st pic:  2 of the participating teams. 2nd pic:  the action!  3rd pic:  3CI and Lakeside Church 






The following day, we left with Andrew and Stephen and two of young women from Lakeside Church to prepare for our Worldventure Mozambique Field Conference in South Africa.  We did loads of food shopping, cutting and preparing food for our team of 21 to come together for a time of prayer, worship, business and being together.

Worldventure Mozambique and Special Guest Speakers, Barbosa and Sinara de Oliveira
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( missing colleagues Brian and Megan Meyers, Jordan, Eden, Zion and Kidron who were on home assignment)

We then had one day at home and left with our boys and the same two young women for Mozambique Island, our new home.  It would be the first time for both boys to see our house there and the final time for us to visit until we move there in 2013.  We spent 61 hours in the car coming and going(3 days there and 3 days back)!  Mozambique is a huge country!



In the near future, we'll be posting Maputo goodbyes, graduation photos and then will transition this blog into a blog about our excursions in the States.


Sunday, April 1, 2012

Someone else's perspective...

In the month of March, we had the privilege of hosting our supervisor, Glenn Kendall, and his wife Kathy. s.They are sweet friends and valued mentors. We always appreciate their input into our lived.

We thought for a change, we would give you there perspective of the Schmidt's work in Mozambique these past 5 years.

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Glenn and Kathy Kendall Update #216 March 18, 2010, Mozambique

Protocols, procedures, best practices, methodology and research are some of the thought processes we entertain as we start new ventures or as we pursue old ones. Most domains have sets of guidelines that we refer to so that we might minimize mistakes and learn from history.


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Starting churches is no exception. There is much literature which has been written on this topic. These past days we have had the privilege to observe and participate in a newish church that has been started through a manner unique and unusual to us. It’s rather fun…the church and the method. It’s rather enlivening…the church and the method.

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Several years ago, our colleagues in Mozambique had a multitude of ideas which they wanted to incorporate: internship for young men, discipleship for young men, leadership training, learning business skills, doing business with integrity, community living. These ideas and more coalesced into an egg project.

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Reality is that this project became one with 8,000 chickens laying about 7,000 eggs a day; all of which means feeding a lot of noisy birds, cleaning up poop from lots of busy birds, collecting eggs from many laying birds, cleaning eggs, packaging eggs, delivering eggs, selling eggs…and that is only the surface big picture items.

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A group of young men were nominated by their churches in Mozambique and Tanzania to participate in this project. In the process they continued their academic education, learned business, chickens and eggs, played soccer with neighbor boys, discussed and reflected on Biblical teaching. These young men also started two churches. It wasn’t the goal of the project.

It just sort of happened because these young men were making such a positive impact in their communities where they lived and worked and played soccer that people were drawn to them. People asked what they were doing, the purpose of their project, who they were…and finally if it would be possible to ‘do church’.

Last Sunday we had the privilege of worshiping in one of these churches led by some of the interns and neighbor boys who have grown into young men. The building in which we worshiped was donated by the community because they appreciated so much what the young men were doing. The worship was vibrant. The service was joyful. The people were full of life.

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ChickensBold and churches: new partnership giving life in many delightful ways.

Glenn and Kathy Kendall