Planning and Reviewing in Maxixe for 2009

So here we are again....
.... sitting in the shade underneath the coconut trees, alongside one of the most beautiful beach fronts ever. It's deserted, except for a few locals fishing. The surf pounds in over the reef a couple of hundred metres off shore, producing a swell of white water in the pale blue ocean. Whales can be seen here regularly earlier in the year. The sea breeze cools our faces as we look out to sea. It's a relief here after the high temperatures inland, where it's up around 38 degrees now. It's almost a year ago since we were here for our last reviewing and planning session.
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Armindo and I have dragged ourselves away from our busy programme. It's hard to get away with so much going on, but essential to the success of our work out here. Taking time to seek God, and time to reflect and plan for the future, we choose this place as it's so quiet. There is no phone access here, or any thing much else for that matter. There is one small restaurant on the top of a hill with a great menu, but no food. Thats Africa! if it doesn't drive you mad, you´ll love it!
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Last year...
..... we sat here and allowed our selves to dream. We asked ourselves questions such as - what did we want to see happen this coming year, in 2008? What had God got planned for us to do? We have a number of leaders that we felt would be able to pastor new churches by mid 2008.
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God has given Armindo and myself the same dream to reach this nation for Christ, but how would we get there, and how would we finance such a dream? There is one great question that I love to ask people, to help them find their ultimate calling in life, and to dig out what God has already planted in that person's heart, it goes like this... "If money wasn't a problem and you knew you could not fail, what would you do with your life, for God?"
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The idea being, that if God is going to call you to do something, He would have to provide the means for you to fulfill that calling, and with His help you would succeed.
Having already prepared in prayer before our time away, we both felt it right to start a number of new churches locally this year, spreading a net out over the surrounding area.

We are sitting here again now, in this beautiful setting, reflecting back on the work we have been given to do. We now have our few churches up and running, each with their own leaders, all of them in fairly rural areas. We have kick-started them with our evening outreaches, which have attracted many people. Quite a number made some kind of response, and some of them have started attending the new churches. Over this coming year, more will come in especially though the evangelism programme that each church is running
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So where do we go from here?
Armindo will now be looking after and continuing to mentor his leaders who in turn are now looking after their own new churches. It has been a joy when we can to go back to some of the new churches we started this year and sit in on a service. We find ourselves moved as we recognise faces from our outreaches, now in church praising God.
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I will return to the UK on Dec 12th 2008 for a few months, to organise our trips for next year. I will be speaking at various places about our work out here in this beautiful country, and how other people can get involved.

What about next year and the future?
The truth is we never stop talking about it or dreaming about it. We feel this next few years will be a time for bringing in teams, to help us train and teach new leaders and pastors, to teach the mothers, the youth, and the children.
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For some time now Armindo and I have had it in mind to build a bible school here in Maxixe, which we are now calling "The Centre". We have drawn up some rough plans for a building, and are excited about what we feel God has put in our hearts. As we teach and train up new leaders, we can then proceed to plant more new churches, spreading the gospel throughout the area, reaching this nation with the fantastic news of Jesus Christ!
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Please keep praying for this essential work, and that each of our new churches would get well established. Thank you for working with us.
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I will be continuing the blog weekly with photos and news, when I get back to the UK, so please stay with us and follow what God is doing in this nation.

I am back at the Orphanage for a week now, before returning to South Africa. Today we brought in three beautiful, needy, new children to the Orphanage. I will be writing this later in the week, thanks for praying for us all out here. Pete, Armindo, Martha and the team.
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