Zaccarias and Paulina

Zaccaria pictured here with his wife Paulina, was healed of a chronic chest problem during one of our outdoor evening meetings. He had worked for the past thirty years underground in a mine. Now his whole family are coming to church!
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It's exciting opening a church in a new area, Our evening meetings help to carve a pathway for these lovely people to come to faith in Christ. It's a bit like driving a bulldozer through a forest...! Very noisy,very exciting and a bit messy....! But it's here that we see God touching peoples lives.
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Sunday morning in Malova

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..Our new church in Malova is now up and running. We had a fantastic Sunday, with around sixty adults and children coming in. Some were a bit afraid, and stood for a while outside under the trees, but soon came in as Philimon led us in worship. It was thrilling to recognise the faces of some of the people we had seen among the crowd in the evenings. Many of these had just received Christ into their lives only days before.
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Some of the local ladies who had cooked the food, which we had provided all week, served us all up with a bowl of flavoured rice after the service. I was deeply touched, knowing what it was costing them sacrificially to do that. These people have virtually nothing. Even now food is scarce, as they wait for the coming rains to swell the meager crops of maize and cassava so they have something more to eat.
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Zito is now heading up the pastoral side of this new church under Armindo's supervision. He is one of a few new pastors we will be helping to support, as he gets his new church off the ground.
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Malova

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We had a good few days with our outreach events in the little village of Xigiane, with around two hundred local people coming along in the evening, and around ten new Christians in to our first Sunday service. Our heart is to plant these small churches in areas where it would be otherwise difficult for the local people to get to a church to hear the gospel and receive good teaching.
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We are now in the middle of building our next church plant in Malova, near Massinga. It's a beautiful area about ten kilometers out of town in a very rural setting. We are camping out this week with the locals, there is no electricity here or running water, and our food is cooked on the open fire. It's a beans and rice and maize meal tonight, which is great, but I find myself longing for the occasional bacon sandwich!
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These lovely people are hungry for the gospel. The presence of God was especially strong last night, many responded to the invitation to receive Christ, and it was great to see the people meeting with him in a real way.
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Our worship time later continued till late on into the night as the people danced. It is becoming increasing difficult to close the evening meetings as the people want more and more, and don't want to go home.
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One elderly man who had been working in a South African mine underground, and for thirty years had been suffering with a chest problem. He announced this morning that God had healed him as he yielded his life to Christ last night !!
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We are continuing with our evening meetings tonight and tomorrow, whilst the building is going up during the day. We finish our week with our opening service on Sunday morning. This time Zito, another of our trainee pastors, will be looking after this church. It is on his land we are building the church.
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Zito has a great heart for the people in his community, and already has a number of new believers that he is looking after. Please join us, and pray for us, as we continue our work.
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Thank you so much, and God bless. Peter and Armindo
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Xigiane

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.I have been back up in Maxixe for a few days now, and our new pole and reed church at Xigiane is finished. Last night we held an introductory evening. The local people are invited to bring their friends and neighbours to join us each night, as Philemon, sitting at his keyboard, leads the people in a time of worshipping God.

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We follow that by showing the Jesus film, an excellent visual in their own language and then give the people an opportunity to respond themselves to Christ's invitation to come to Himself.

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It's always an exciting time, normally the whole neighbourhood show up! They have never seen any thing like this before and nor have we!! We get lots of women and children, then there are the opportunists who quickly set up a stall selling goods. A little later the drunks arrive. They love it ! Dancing to the music, in the dust, under the lights: often the police insist they come along, in case there is any trouble.As a result they hear the message as well. It always amazes me how the most unlikely people respond to the invitation to pray, and receive Christ.

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The church that has just been built, is where the new Christians will be taught and looked after by Jose, another of the trainee pastors that Armindo has been training. Please join with us, and pray for us, over the next few evenings, and for our first Sunday morning meeting, as we open the new building. We need your prayers.
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Thank you so much. Pete and Armindo

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The Twins

One of the most moving experiences I have had so far, came out of a conversation I was having with Martha, chatting late into the night about our project. She told me that a lady called Regina who works for the government as a community worker in a near by town called Manhica , had some months ago received some alarming news!

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A pairs of twins barely three years old, had been brought into hospital by their father suffering from severe malnutrition. Their mother had died some time ago, and the father was struggling badly to feed and look after his family as well as going to work.

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After several days in the hospital a mentally disturbed member of the father's family came to the hospital and stole the still very vulnerable children away. No one knew where they had gone, or where they lived, as there are no addresses in the bush, and having heard no news of them for several months, every one began to fear the worst.
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Martha and I decided to try and find them. Regina's work is doubly difficult here as she has no transport with her job, and far away places in the bush are not easily accessible. The hunt was on! We visited Regina who was keen for us to help, and contacted the local police who needed to be involved.

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We had a clue that the father worked at the local sugar plantation, and with a few more enquiries we managed to make contact with him. He was happy to see us ,and informed us the children were still OK, but badly needing help. Hope began to rise in our hearts as we drove along the sandy narrow tracks, between the trees and shrubs, out to where he lived.
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Some time later we arrived at his home. A group of people were gathered in the centre of the clearing. I could see some children, most of them seemed to be in good enough shape. Then I saw one of them, a little boy called Alfredo standing alone. He turned as he saw us coming, and began to walk very wobbly towards us. There was now no longer any doubt in my mind that this child needed help now! Turning to look for the other one, I found Selina his sister to be even smaller than her brother.

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She was tightly clutching a piece of dry bread with her tiny hand. They both looked alarmingly thin! There was much chatting going on as things were discussed, the father asked us to take the children, he actually looked relieved. I wondered what it must have felt like to let his children go, and felt gutted for him!

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Every one seemed relieved. Regina was delighted the kids were still alive, Martha and I were excited, and even the large police lady with her hard faced exterior softened as we gently placed these little treasures in the Land Rover, and took them back to their new home. Back at the orphanage it was all systems go. Everyone was helping, the carers ran around getting water ready for a bath, and the girls in the orphanage all wanted to help .

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What do you give tiny malnourished kids to wear! Amazingly whilst in Nelspruit in South Africa just days before, I had been handed a bag full of baby clothes and a couple of blankets and toys. Martha and I looked at each other amazed as the clothes we had been given fitted the children perfectly. Many times we see God's hand at work here. Our faith is strengthened as we do, and His name is glorified!

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It's both exciting and scary work out here,working with these precious kids in terrible circumstances. We are doing what we can to help, but costs are high to run the orphanage, as well as running our feeding programs, together with wages and medical expenses. The slump in the world economy has hit us hard, pushing food prices up. We were already hard pressed: now we need more people to come on board and support us financially!

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Thank you again, all who are already supporting our work here. Please continue, if you can, and maybe pass our website address on to others, who might also like to get involved. Please pray for us. We continue to trust God to supply all of our needs and do amazing things as we put our trust in Him!

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Peter and Martha
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Doctor ! Doctor !

I have just spent the last two weeks down at the orphanage in Malavela, and also briefly in South Africa, leaving our team of eager church builders to start work building our second "church plant" this year. I got some essential repairs done on the Land Rover and renewed my visa.
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I then spent several days at the orphanage with Martha and her team of carers with the children. A few weeks ago I made contact with a Brazilian lady called Yara who heads up the medical center, at the Iris Ministries orphanage in the town of Maputo.
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She invited us to bring our children to get checked out by the visiting doctor. Fourteen of us bundled into our Land Rover as we set out on what for the children, was a huge adventure!

We were all well received. Merlinda, the lady doctor has a great heart for the kids and gave each one of them special attention, as well as a good dose of worming and vitamin tablets, myself included! (I got the feeling we were all probably leaving with fewer friends than we came with !!)
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We are fairly regularly popping into the orphanage in Maputo gleaning what tips we can from the team of nurses and carers who run that part of the work there, and we are most grateful for their keenness to pass on information and help.
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Lazaro

want to tell you the story of Lazaro, pictured here with Madalena, one of his amazing car..
I ers. It's an appropriate name for him, as he was so weak and poorly when he came into the orphanage, that he nearly died.Lazaro was brought into the orphanage by local government officials, who recognise our work here, as we help these needy children.

His mother had died of AIDS, leaving him in a terribl.e state of neglect. He had a very deep ulcerated hole in the side of his head and another on his jaw, was very sick and weak and his little body was full of worms. Everyone whilst busy praying fervently, prepared themselves for the worst- how could this little life survive? And yet he has! And is thriving now!!!

Having been given some fairly basic treatment from the hospital, and loads of prayer, he has now made a huge turn around. I was amazed to see that not only have the horrendous wounds healed and grown over, but he has now put on weight, is starting to run around, and is beginning to talk. He can now say the names of the other children in the orphanage, who have also been snatched from the jaws of sickness and death.

Next week Martha and I are taking the children to the large Iris Ministries orphanage in Maputo, to get them checked out by the local doctor and the nurses who work there. It will be great to get our own medical centre set up here next year - as you can imagine we are all so excited about that.

Thanks again so much to everyone who is helping us financially and prayerfully to help those in such need. We are so dependent on your continued support.

Lots of love to all

Pete

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Nhambiho Tres

The first of our new church plants is now and up and running. You can see it in the background of the photo. We had a great time of celebration at the opening evening. Around 200 local people came together - we took a bold step and fed everyone! It was great to see the new Christians working together, busy cooking up huge panfuls of beans and rice and serving everyone.

We showed the Jesus film again and the night went on late, with Filimon leading the people in worship. We have just had our first Sunday morning meeting with new people coming in, and John taking up his new position looking after the new flock. He has a great programme in place, and has been busy teaching the new believers already.
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We have just purchased another piece of land and work has begun to clear the area, ready to start building our next church, this time at Xigiane.

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Please don't stop praying for us - it's exciting work, but its hard too! Sometimes it feels like everything that can be thrown at you is being thrown at you! We need and value your prayers as we take this area for Christ.

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