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Since we were out of the country last week we decided to get back on track with another tuesday trivia question.  This one doesn’t center on a picture but rather asks you to put in order what is easiest to obtain in Mozambique – put these four items in order for easiest to obtain (based on opportunity/proximity/cost/availability) to hardest to obtain: water, electricity, cell phone, a 12th grade education.  Our guess for our country (USA) would be: water (cheap and at your fingertips in at least 5 different faucets in the average home), electricity (almost every home is hooked up to electricity through power lines in the States), 12th grade education (public education is readily available but we know drop out rates can be high in certain locations so perhaps getting a high school diploma isn’t as easy as it seems), cell phones (while it does seem like everyone has them the cost of a cell phone and service can be quite high and our educated guess is that more people would have access to the other 3 items on the list but we could be wrong).  That’s our best guess to the status of this list in America (but we could be off).  However, we do know the right answer for Mozambique and will share it Thursday – but before then, what do you think??

While we got several great answers for our first Tuesday trivia question and most all could/would definitely be correct at some time and in some place, the actual answer was that this water tank/trough/big bucket was used for baptisms.  Lyndy’s mom got the right answer but we waited to post her comment because I think she had “insider information.”  If you’re like me, as a fellow Christ-follower you are extremely excited for these new believers and the commitment they have made to Jesus Christ and you praise God for His redemption, grace, and love as you view the pictures below.

But you may, like me, also have a question as you look at the pictures: why did the church ever decide to baptize in a big water bucket??  These particular Wesleyan churches in Xai Xai are all within an extremely short distance to the Indian Ocean (it’s not like they’re in the middle of a cornfield in Indiana without any large body of water around).  Why not have the Easter sunrise baptismal service on the shore of the ocean and baptize new believers there?

The answer is quite simple: the Zionist churches baptize their converts in the ocean (or river if the ocean isn’t nearby).  Zionists (the name can confuse some into thinking it has something to with Israel – it doesn’t) are a group that traces their origins back to missionaries sent out from Zion, Illinois (The Christian Catholic Apostolic Church).  They are a rapidly growing group (in fact, most researchers say they are the fastest growing religious group in southern Africa) that mixes somewhat Christian practices with traditional African religions.  In other words they are a syncretistic group that is unorthodox/heretical.  Because this group baptizes their converts in the ocean, most evangelical churches choose another location so that other Africans are not confused (in other words, they want to distance themselves from this unorthodox group).  The Wesleyans baptize utilizing a large bucket – if the baptismal service had less participants, they usually get into the “bucket” and kneel down (are immersed) and then brought back up, but since this group was so large it was decided to baptize this way (a kind of “dunking” in the baptismal waters).

This whole concept of choosing a baptism “by bucket” when an ocean is right next door due to an unorthodox group made me do some thinking.  Does it frustrate you when a practice of the Christian faith is misused to the point that real Christ followers have to abandon it or change it in some ways to distance themselves from the false teaching?  In some ways, as I found out about this I almost felt like the Zionists “stole” something that was “ours” in the first place.  Is there something in our American culture that used to be a part of or practice of the Church but the culture itself or another group encroached upon it to the point it needed changed or even abandoned?  Off the top of my head I’m thinking that even if the concept of door-to-door evangelism became culturally relevant again (as it was in decades past) it would probably be difficult for evangelicals to champion it due to the fact that when most neighborhoods in America see people knocking on doors they assume it would be a Jehovah’s Witness or a Latter Day Saint.  Any other activities/practices you can think of?  And another thing to think about, what should our reaction as Christ-followers be when an activity/practice is “stolen”/encroached upon by those not preaching/teaching the truth of the Bible?

Disclaimer #1: We are here to serve the national church and deeply respect the decision they have made on how to baptize.  Further, we do not think that whether baptism is done in an ocean or in a “big bucket” changes in any way the sacramental nature of this amazing event.

Disclaimer #2: Most future Tuesday trivia questions will be completely fun and not deep-thinking type stuff – it was just this first one that had us thinking…

We thought it would be fun to have some trivia fun with those who follow us in Mozambique.  Sometimes this may be asking you what the picture is of and others it might be choosing what price tags certain items have on them in Mozambique or some other interesting question…  To give your try at an answer you can click on “comment” and write your answer.  We’ll explain what the answer is on Thursday.

One of our hopes for keeping an updated website is to be a resource – whether it’s an added perspective on those thinking about traveling to or living in Mozambique, a resource for those wanting to know more about missionaries, or perhaps a resource in some other way we’ve yet to even think about.  In this regard, I thought I’d begin sharing a few “glimpses” into our lives a missionaries – this is one of several ideas I have in the back of my mind and as I get the chance I’ll write more.  Let me begin by stating that this is in no way meant to explain why I think my life is any more difficult than yours – in fact, I don’t think this at all – I believe, as does Lyndy, that God called us to this place at this time for a particular purpose.  Serving God overseas is not any harder or easier than serving God in the States, it’s just different.  With this in mind, let me share one of those differences…

The first “glimpse” I’d like to write about is the visa.  As an American, the first thing I think about when I think of a visa is my credit card; however most that have traveled also realize the term indicates the necessary document needed to be in a country for a particular period of time.  As an American passport holder, some countries have agreements where you do not need a visa to enter – for instance if you’ve ever traveled to Canada you didn’t need a visa to get into that country (or South Africa or Great Britain or many others).  However, other countries require you to have a visa to enter and stay for any length of time in their country.  Then, if you plan on staying longer than a single entry visa requires (some countries have single entry for 14 days, 30 days, 60 days, etc) you may have to get a multiple entry visa (you pay a single rate and you’re allowed to be in the country for 6 months but every 30 days you have to leave the country and go to another and then re-enter under the same visa).  If you plan on living (not just visiting) in a country with visa restrictions, you usually apply for some type of residential and/or work permit.  Another variant in the equation is that some countries want this whole process worked out before you ever enter their country (through the embassy in your own country) and others allow you to go through the process once you arrive in country.  For those of you that remember me from my time serving in Papua New Guinea, you’ll remember that the work permit process was to take around 8 weeks and needed done in the PNG embassy in Washington, DC before I left to begin teaching.  I submitted all the necessary paperwork in March to leave in August and in the end, it took until November until the whole process was completed and I had a work permit in hand.

In Mozambique, we learned you can go through this process once you arrive in the country.  So two weeks ago we paid $65 (US dollars) each to get 30 day visas into the country.  We were all photographed and had a finger on each hand fingerprinted.  Then we filled out the paperwork for our DIREs (residential permits that allow you to stay in the country for 1 year and then reapply for the next year).  The DIREs cost a little over $600 (US dollars) each – so around $1800 per year for our family to live and serve in Mozambique.  However, upon going to the immigration office in Xai Xai, we learned the process had changed.  (It should be noted that we learned this over 4 days of filling out forms, translating background checks, getting copies of documents, resizing copies of other documents, and waiting for immigration officials around 1-2 hours each day).  We learned that first we needed to get a residential visa (the kind that allows you to stay in the country for “x” number of months as long as you leave the country every 30 days) and then upon receiving the residential visa we could apply for the DIRE (residential permit).  The man in charge said that perhaps he could talk to his superiors and see if we could bypass this and move straight to receiving the DIREs.  Then we heard back from him that the process had changed and not only could we not apply for DIREs right now, but in order to even apply for residential visas (the kind that would allow us to stay for “x” months but leave the country once every 30 days), we could not apply for these within the country of Mozambique any longer but instead would need to leave Mozambique and apply in another country at the Mozambican embassy.  All of this is brand new as the process of immigration changes on a very regular basis.  Orai and Linda Lehman were already scheduled to go to Swaziland this coming Saturday to begin teaching a 3-week course at the Wesleyan Bible College there.  We view this as concrete picture of God’s sovereignty as our family will follow them to Swaziland and we then will apply for our residential visas at the Mozambican embassy in Swaziland.

So why do I even share this “glimpse” of missionary life with you?  Well, if you have a relationship with missionaries you’re probably consistently being asked to pray for visa issues or other immigration issues.  You probably even know of a missionary that has had to leave a country before their term was up or even right when they arrived because of some immigration issue.  And if you’re like me I always have thought “why can’t they just figure this out already?!?!”  Now that our family is “living” this situation, we’ve learned how tricky it can be and how it truly is always changing in most countries.  So even when you have it figured out, there is a good chance the process has changed from what you previously knew (and sometimes depending on the day and/or immigration official, what occurs with one missionary can be different from what occurs with another).  For those of you interested in why, I’d briefly remind those of us in America of two things: 1. Talk to anyone who is not from our country (for instance, Canadians who come to a school in the States on a student visa but then want to stay after they graduate) about how hard our immigration process is and 2.  Realize that in most developing countries they don’t have control over much (for instance, their economy is propped up by international aid, they don’t have much of a military and must rely on others, even their infrastructure [road building, etc] is based on international grants and workers) and so one thing that they can control is who they allow in their country, for what length of time, and how much it will cost them to come in and stay and so they take the issues of immigration seriously.

All this to say, we’re praising God that He knows the process and He will redeem the time that it is taking to get the proper paperwork/forms/visas/permits in place for us to stay in Mozambique for the length of time He has called us to be here.  Pray for us as we continue in this process – for focus, patience, perseverance, compassion, and humility.  Pray that God will use us and teach us as we are in Swaziland (hopefully we’ll be able to be there and receive residential visas in under a week’s time to return to Mozambique and continue learning Portuguese).  Thanks for living this journey with us!

Our Antioch (sending church) is College Wesleyan Church.  Recently as a whole church body we went through a series learning about “soul shifts” – seven areas in which God is already restoring our future.  One of these “shifts” was a shift from “sheep to shepherd” – and this week two of our pastors – Pastor Joel Liechty and Pastor Mark Shepherd – shot a video discussing what our “typical” view of a pastor is.  As you’ll see, the perspective we have of an American pastor is quite a bit different from an average pastor in northern Mozambique.  The idea is not that one is better than the other, but that we truly need each other – we are better through being in relationship and being in community together!