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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Glenn and Kathy Kendall

Still here and still kickin'!

Though we are winding down our work in Southern Mozambique, we are still here and still kickin'!

Here are the highlights of the last couple of months.

wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas with our boys which included a fun family camping trip...



Family photo shoot...

and senior pictures for Andrew. This wasn't the best one, but the one that really shows his cheeky personality!

Christmas dinner prepared by our family for the MozOvos Egg Farm employees

We've been team leaders for 3 beautiful young families

Dr. Brian and Megan Meyers

Rob and Heather Blanks

Dave and Amy Terpstra

We've also been part of the planning for the weddings of two of our Mozambican sons who have both found lovely women to marry.

What's next?

We leave Mozambique for our home assignment in June, but until then...

A trip to Mozambique Island by bus for Rodger and our Tanzanian missionary in early February.

More team leading.

More training and mentoring of our MozOvos leadership team and church leadership.

More relationship building and prayer times with our two young couples who are preparing for marriage.

A trip to Kenya for Dad to see his boys play basketball at RVA(Andrew made Varsity and STephen JV) in late February.

A visit from Africa Directors, Glenn and Kathy Kendall in early March.

Worldventure Southern/East Africa Leaders Meeting in Nairobi, mid-March

A soccer tournament outreach event for boys 11-18 years of age hosted by Lakeside Church and MozOvos Egg Farm in late March.

Worldventure Mozambique Field Conference in Mid-April.

A road trip to Mozambique Island to take personal belongings and for the boys to get to know their new home in late April.

Moving out of our house and in with colleagues for one month in early May.

Our adopted son, Luis's wedding in early June.

Time with our boys in Kenya and Andrew's graduation in June/July.

September 2011 update and pictures

Our boys with their brothers










The highlight of the last few months was our 2011 graduation celebration. This year, we only had one graduate, the only one of his group to persevere for all three years. We are very proud of Emilio and look forward to walking alongside him for the next steps God has for him.
In addition to our one graduate, all of our interns were awarded certificates of completion for the year or years they have been with us. Perhaps the most thrilling of all is that
two of our interns are products of the ministry our interns have been doing in two different communities. Guito (second picture above) was hired from the community of Agostinho Neto as an employee of MoOvos. Through the influence of our interns, he became a Christian, was baptized and discipled and is an important leader to the church plant there. Manuel (3rd picture above) is beginning his third year with the internship. He is a young neighbor who became a Christian through the influence of our interns in the community of 25 de Junho and was baptized and discipled by them as well. He currently serves in leadership in the local church but also sits on the leadership team of MozOvos. God is using MozOvos to shape the hearts and minds of young Mozambican leaders. As we reflect on the vision for ministry God gave us almost six years ago, we are speechless at all He has done. Yet, there is so much work still to do! We
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have had to make some tough decisions and take drastic measures to keep the International Internship in Mission and MozOvos financially healthy and sustainable. We have had to close down the residential portion of the internship, meaning the interns no longer live together and have all returned to their own homes. We strongly believe in the power of the “Life Together” aspect of the internship, but needed to make these changes to survive financially Please pray with us! During the month of October, we, along with our leadership team and 4 national pastors, will be re-inventing the International Internship in Mission combined with MozOvos.
In preparation for our up coming home assignment, Rodger is stepping down as the director of the Internship and MozOvos. He is assuming the role of advisor to the leadership team allowing them to grow in their leadership and facilitate the change process cultivating an atmosphere where the leaders gain more experience and grow in confidence and ability. We are so proud of these African leaders and how God is using them individually and collectively
We are so thankful for your continued prayer for us and all that God is doing here in Mozambique

Rest, Relaxation and Robbery
After graduation, we took 2 weeks to go away to a quiet place of rest, to pray, read and restore our souls. It was a wonderful time and just what we needed and we returned, ready to face the challenges ahead. One huge challenge we DID NOT expect was that our house was robbed the night before our last day of vacation. Though we don’t have much in the way of valuables, the thieves took $3,500 worth of things we use on a regular basis such as our fans. video projector, voltage regulators, and generator. We also are needing to put steel barred doors on the existing wooden doors(see picture below) and repair the broken wooden door.



CAR ACCIDENT: Just a few days later a car side swiped our truck,
crushing the passenger door, ripping off the running board and fender. The driver of the other car was a young kid, with no insurance and no way of paying this bill. We are working
with him to cover some of the cost but the majority will be with us. Please pray for the added expense this event has caused.
If you would like to help us with these losses, all funds can be sent to our “Ministry Account” at WorldVenture (See below).

Schmidt Home Assignment in 2012
Our second term in Mozambique is fast coming to an end. Its been a long one as we have not had an extended home assignment for more than five years. After our oldest son, Andrew, graduates from high school in July 2012, we’ll all be heading back to the States to connect with our families and supporters. We are just beginning to plan our time and will be contacting our church partners, individual supporters and friends in the next months to schedule our time together, celebrating our friendship and all that God has done in Mozambique. We have a full schedule here in Mozambique until then, but be on the lookout for a phone call or e-mail seeking how we
can reconnect and share all that God has done and the big plans for the future. blessed to partner with all of you in life and in ministry.

Rodger and Lynne Schmidt WorldVenture, Mozambique: Field Leader International Internship in Mission MozOvos Lda.

We would love to hear from you. We can be reached through the following:
rlschmidt@worldventure.net
rodgerschmidt99@gmail.com
WorldVenture 1501 W Mineral Avenue Littleton, Colorado, 80120 720-283=2000
Financial Gift: Please reference: Schmidt/Mozambique/658

End of an era and New Beginnings

Change is never easy! This change may be the hardest yet. Over five years ago we began praying and dreaming about a ministry that would shape the hearts and minds of young Mozambican men. Five years later God has blessed us with MozOvos our egg farm, a house full of young Mozambican men who are being shaped as Christian leaders caring for their soul, being challenged in leadership skills, how to lead in ministry and in the end work to cover the cost of their lives and ministry. Several have already graduated and moved on to life and ministry. Living with these guys has been the highlight of our life here in Mozambique. We are so grateful for the four years the Internship as we know it has made a difference here in Mozambique. However do to financial realities we are forced to make some big changes.

For Over a year now MozOvos our egg farm has fully funded the international Internship In Mission. Our life together was a 3000.00 a month bill that was payed for by MozOvos. Earlier in the year MozOvos suffered a financial set back due to to a drop in market pricing of eggs nationally in which we could not compete. This led to a snow ball effect of debt and late payments. MozOvos just did not have the capital in reserves to recover form a few months of bad sales. We realized that if we did not make some major changes not only was the internship at risk but also the business.

In lieu of going bankrupt and or loosing our good reputation, the leadership choose to shut down the internship, for 60 days, terminate 6 positions at the business, create one strong leadership team and reinvent the whole ministry. Now that we have cut the budget by several thousand dollars a month and closing down the internship the newly formed leadership team will work to reinvent the internship philosophy into the day to day life at Mozovos. These changes comes with great cost and a loss as living together is such an important element in philosophy and actual shaping of a leader.

We hope that by making these hard changes MozOvos will one day have more reserves financially, be able to invest in itself and have greater cash flow. We pray to be able to build office space, an egg dispensary, bio security room and even an internship house on our own property. We pray the hard decisions and sacrifice made today will allow the ministry as a whole to grow from a position of strength and realize our dreams.

Update

Dear Friends and Family,

We thought we would give you a short update on our support progress. In the last week, our personal support need has been reduced by $175.00 a month. We are so grateful for this. Our current deficit is now only $1,250 per month. We are still praying that God will provide and we will be able to stick to our scheduled July 2012 home assignment and return to the States.

In the meantime, even while still on the field, we are in the process of seeking new supporting churches and individuals to join our team. We need this additional support to cover supporters lost in the last few months and compensate for the immense jump in cost of living here in Mozambique.

Even if you feel you cannot commit to supporting us long-term, would you consider an increase to current support or a one year commitment that would carry us through until we arrive home and meet with pastors, churches and individuals face to face? We know supporting missionaries is a sacrifice and we honor you and you honor the Lord.

As always, we love you all and pray for you and your families and all our supporting churches.

Blessings in the Harvest,

Rodger, Lynne, Andrew and Stephen Schmidt
rlschmidt@worldventure.net

The Last Year of a Very, Very LONG 5 1/2 year Term

Hi Friends! Guess What? We're coming to the USA! Actually, not until July 2012. We still have 12 months to wrap things up here in Africa before a nice long visit will all of you, family and supporters. Andrew will graduate from High School just before we head back to get him settled in his new life and then start the many miles of travel over a nine month period to catch up with you face to face, and spend some much needed time with family. We have much to share, but we also look forward to see how God is making a difference in your lives as well. We are excited just thinking about it! However, we have 12 months of hard work ahead of us if we are going to be ready. Please pray with us for these ministry challenges that face us over the next 12 months. MozOvos Leadership: Our leadership team needs to be confident and capable to completely run the business without Rodger's day to day presence. The team is already doing many of these tasks but need to grow in confidence. Internship Leadership: Our new leadership team is growing daily in their confidence and maturity. We are so proud of how these guys are taking on difficult leadership challenges these days. We are confident they will be ready to take on the internship all on their own while we are stateside. This is a huge request as this team is key as they live out what they have learned over the past five years. The months we are away will be a true test of who they are as leaders. Andrew and Stephen: Please pray for Andrew as he prepares to launch a very new life in the United States. He has many decisions to make over the next few months. Also for Stephen as he begins the high school years without his brother in close proximity. We are thankful that our sons love each other and the Lord. Our Team: Pray for our three new families who are all continuing to learn language, settle in to life and ministry. We are so proud of these families and the impact they are making. Support: This last year has proven to be the most expensive of all 8 we have lived in Mozambique. The world economy and loss of supporters has really changed our financial situation. We actually realized this past month that 10 supporters who had supported us faithfully for many years were forced to withdraw their monthly support. The cost of living in Mozambique has increased drastically including our resident visas which now cost us over 3,000.00 a year. These rising costs are not part of our budget and have caused a major deficit. We have cut our budgets on every level including our housing costs and ministry budgets as much as we can. After all the cuts we find ourselves 1400.00 a month under supported. Starting August 1st we will be affected significantly due to this shortfall. Please pray with us concerning this challenge. Raising personal support is very difficult to do while on the field. We still have 12 months to go before home assignment and for the first time in 8 years, we find ourselves significantly under supported We are praying for increases in current supporters where it is possible but also for new support from folk who have followed our work over the years and would like to join the support team. As always we need a ton of prayer and trust your prayers and financial support will get us through the next 12 months and beyond. As always, we trust God for it all! Please contact us at rlschmidt@worldventure.net or you can contact WorldVenture directly If you want to make a commitment to be a regular supporter, follow this link: https://worldventure.com/Give/Make-A-Commitment.html And if you want to make a one time contribution, follow this one: https://worldventure.com/Give/Give-Now.html Blessings, Rodger and Lynne Schmidt

Life the last 2 weeks: A brief update.

Just wanted to update you about the 4 major events of the last 2 weeks.

Luis Manhica: from the post previous to this, you know we almost lost our much loved Luis. Since then, Luis is home and we are all learning about diabetes and how to cope with it. Luis shared with me this week that the hardest part for him are the emotional high and lows and picking up on all the cues his body is now giving him. Please continue to pray for him.

The amazing, even miraculous news is this: while in the private hospital, we learned that his insulin shots were going to cost about $150 a month. while he does have a job and salary, this is just a massive amount to consider every month for the rest of his life. Through some further research, we have found that he, in fact, CAN get the insulin through the national health care system for much, much less every month. Please pray for us as we help him work through the details of all of this. Thanks to those who contributed to help MozOvos recuperate the cost of Luis' hospital stay. You will be blessed to know that the 2 local churches we started together with our interns have also taken up love offerings for Luis. This is a testimony to how much he is loved by all. If you would still like to contribute, there is still a need. Please see the information in the previous post.

Jonathan Edwards(the seminary student, not the famous preacher of long ago!): We welcomed Denver Seminary student, Jonathan to live and work with the interns as part of his needed field internship for his degree at Denver Seminary. Jonathan arrived the day before Luis was put in the hospital and fortunately for him, he is an adaptable, flexible, easy going young man! :) He sort of just jumped into our chaos and has done really well in this business of working at the egg farm, life together, church leadership, etc. He is a joy to have around!


Andrew and Stephen: God gave Lynne a gift in the form of an unusually inexpensive plane ticket to Kenya to spend time with Andrew and Stephen! The boys were on their mid-term break and we spent time together at the home of our Worldventure colleagues who always so graciously welcome us. We were able to continue time together back at school when classes started again. It's always a blessing to be with them, spend time with their friends and get to know the people who are a part of their every day lives. Just 4 more weeks until they will finish their school year. Then we will have a senior and and 8th grader. YIKES!

Island house: Just this week, we were able to start some small projects to get our house on Mozambique island ready to live in. This is something we have been hoping and praying for this last couple of years as we continue to take steps toward dividing our time between our internship ministry here in the south and beginning other projects in the north including MozOvos north and another project that we will soon be able to talk more about.

Thank you so much for you prayers and love for the Schmidt family. Oh! Another important event happened this month! June 4th marked 8 years of life in Mozambique. God has been so good to us!

How MozOvos saved a life

Early friday morning, we rushed the assistant director (Luis Manhiça) of the International Internship in Missioin to the hospital (Heart institute of Mozambique) with what we thought was an infection in the bloodstream induced by an abscessed tooth and root canal gone bad. When we got to the hospital Luis was unresponsive and his breathing, which had been labored, had all but stopped. He was immediately admitted to the hospital.

After a few days of constant care he is recovering slowly but has also been diagnosed with type I Diabetes. He is 27 years old and had no idea of the condition as it was a sudden onset. He lost almost 10-15 lbs within a 10 day period, complained of dry mouth with constant urination and need for water. The night before he became unresponsive, he complained that his fingers and toes were numb. By the time we realized something more and more sinister was at play he was on the verge of diabetic coma.

As we were not willing to risk his life we chose to take him to the same hospital where Rodger was treated for staph infection. We were not convinced that this was the right choice until others, including medical professionals and our Mozambican friends confirmed that had we taken him to the central hospital here in Maputo, he would have surely died just waiting to be treated.

We are so grateful for his recovery. However, he now faces a life time of insulin shots and diet modifications. We know that many people in the world suffer from diabetes and lead healthy and normal lives. This is comforting and we continue to pray for him as he recovers.

For many of you who have already been informed of this situation, we wish to thank you for your prayers for Luis during this time. He is a faithful servant and wise leader. We are trusting that this new development will only make him stronger in his faith, more compassionate in his leadership and even more passionate about the calling of God on his life.

Our choice to take him to the heart institute resulted in a $3000.00 hospital stay. We believe that our son Luis is worth every penny or, in our currency, centavo. We are also so thankful for the fact that MozOVos( our egg farm) exists as it was due to MozOvos that we had this kind of cash available to pay the bill (We must pay in advance before any treatment is offered). Many of you have prayed, sacrificed and given to make MozOvos a reality. Not only has this little business provided funds for the internship ministry but now, it can honestly say that Luis is alive and well in Mozambique because MozOvos exists. We praise the Lord for Luis, MozOvos, and all of you.

Though we are grateful that MozOvos was able to cover these costs in Luis' time of need, this expense is not part of the budget. If you would like to assist MozOvos in the care of Luis during this time we invite you to send a one time gift to the internship special project at WorldVenture (see address and account number below).

Please continue to pray for Luis as he faces a lifetime of insulin shots and dietary restrictions in a country where both are challenging at best.

WorldVenture

1501 W. Mineral Ave.

Littleton, Co. 80120

Att: Internship Special Project 6484-910

Blessings to all our family around the world.

Rodger and Lynne Schmidt

Happenings: A pictorial review of the last few months

All the day to day ministry and life go on as usual and we see God at work. Today, however, we'd like to share some of the highlights via photo.

Lots of anniversaries: April 6, Rodger and Lynne's 20th anniversary

April 7, the anniversary of MozOvos egg farm

April 14, the third anniversary of Evangelical Community Church of 25 de Junho

In April, we were delighted when two intern graduates too the money they had saved in their three years as interns and opened their own business. They are raising fryers to sell.

Also in April, we welcomed back our dear Blanks family who had been gone on medical leave.

We met with all of our Worldventure Mozambique colleagues as well as field leaders from Madagascar and South Africa for our annual field conference.

Sweet friends from one of our partner churches came to do a program for the missionary children.

Two lovely ladies from two different partner churches came to cook scrumptious meals for us.

We enjoyed times of worship together

And did work together as a team.

We all benefited greatly from time with our International Ministry Directors, Glenn and Kathy Kendall. They love, encourage, counsel and share out of their ministry experience and wisdom.

We enjoyed time together with our colleagues.

And their children

We have been richly blessed!