In August 2024, five church members from Hoogeveen will travel to Mozambique to strengthen somewhat watered-down ties. They take us through their experiences.
Finally back in Mozambique
We disembark at Nampula airport. The temperature, the smell, the sounds, the slowness of the system: it's a world completely different from ours, but how familiar it feels. That feeling becomes even stronger an hour later when we ride in the van over the bumpy streets, together with Rev Texeira, from the Bible school, and the driver. The familiar voice, the hearty smile, the warm greeting.
What preceded
Between 2007 and 2013, a group of church members from Hoogeveen to Mocuba in Mozambique. We visited the AMITEM bible school, which was then called Infortem, and the diaconal organisation Codesa, which was then called AEMZ. We had wonderful meetings with the Christians there and helped build the Bible school and goat pens together with the students and residents of Mocuba.
Then things fell silent in Hoogeveen. For various reasons, we didn't really succeed in reviving our connection with the missionary work in Mozambique. It hasn't let go of us all these years. The people in Mocuba have found a place in our hearts and a friendship has even developed with some of them.
Ten years after the last visit, we wonder if we can't go again ourselves, if there won't be a new project from the church after all. Just on a personal basis, as fellow believers, as friends. Yes, we know that flying is bad for the environment and that you can also spend the money for the trip as a drop in the ocean of poverty. And yet the desire to meet again in person is very strong. With us and with the people in Mozambique.
A warm reunion
And so, in August 2024, we drive from Nampula to Mocuba. It is a day-long journey, in that familiar van with the bad suspension, touring the road pushing cyclists and pedestrians to the side.
We are staying in an AMITEM residence for a week. Missionaries Van ’t Spijker and Vos used to live here. The reunion with the cook is cordial, as are Rev Nahoma (the director of the Bible school), Pastor Pedro and Pastor Tivulua.
We get to join a church service twice. We pass up the invitation to preach ourselves; you can overestimate yourself. Such a church service is a long sitting of about three hours, which is certainly not boring. All the choirs that are there perform. Instruments have not yet made their appearance, but the polyphonic singing sounds fantastic. Of course, the translation into English does not help either in keeping the service short.
Everywhere we go, an official introduction follows. For the pre-eminently informal Dutch, this is always a bit of a switch. It is quite funny to note that Rev Texeira and we have introduced ourselves to each other several times in the space of a week. At the same time, at and around those official moments there is always room for generous humour.
Overdue maintenance
On the way to AMITEM Bible School, we buy paint and brushes. In the ten years since we were last here, a kind of building materials shop and a Chinese supermarket have come up in Mocuba. Together with the pastors, we paint the interior walls of a couple of classrooms. It is their first DIY experience.
Frankly, we are shocked by the maintenance situation of the buildings. The roof is no longer watertight everywhere and the effects of leakage are becoming visible in several places. The tech-savvy in our travelling party are certain that repairs are urgently needed. If not done now, the risk is that drastic and much more expensive measures will be needed. And no, that observation is certainly not because we are looking (only) through Western glasses.
We share our concerns with the pastors. They share them and try to work their way to a solution. They depend almost entirely on money from the rich West.
The passion with which the pastors carry out their work at the Bible School remains impressive. Beautiful results are being achieved in Mocuba and the wider area. We often get quiet and sometimes feel embarrassed when they speak carefree and confidently about God's guidance in beautiful and difficult moments. It feels like Sunday 12 of the Heidelberg Catechism comes into its own there much more than with us. You know, that Sunday about the providence of our almighty God.
We enjoy the hospitality, e.g. when we get to join the pastors for dinner at their homes.
Food security
The second purpose of our visit is no less still-moving. We go out with Pastor Silva of the Codesa organisation. Together with local churches, they help very practically to make daily life more bearable. We visit small fields, where Codesa trains people to grow various vegetables so that they can eat a variety of food. What the people don't need themselves, they can sell. With the income from that, they can then send their children to school again.
We get to be there when a Codesa employee explains to mothers how to use peanuts through maize porridge to make food more nutritious. It is impressive to see how they then distribute that porridge to a whole group of children.
We meet people for whom we built goat pens years ago. It is a feast of recognition. We get the honest stories of how the goats got on. Sometimes well. Sometimes not at all.
See you again, Mozambique
Our last night in Mozambique we stay in Nampula, in one of the buildings on the Wycliffe grounds. There we have some time for a personal meeting with one of the pastors and his children, who live nearby.
It is with a little pain of farewell that we return home. We hope that in the summer of 2027, a group of church members from Hoogeveen will land at Nampula airport. It will be exciting, as most have never been there before. What will such a project, so far from home and in such a different culture, bring them? We, the five from 2024, think we know: growth in faith, in love and in connection.
Are you helping?
With a story and photos, the experience of meeting does not succeed in getting the spotlight right. You have to have been there. And is, of course, not possible for everyone. What everyone can know: it really is a poor country, with a lot of violence in the north, with corruption and so much more. And what we can all do: pray and give.
Jeannette van Dijk and Allard Gunnink, in the travelling company of Anne Miek, Henk and Wim
