A great few weeks!

Bon Dia! It's around 8am, it's the middle of winter here now in Moz, everyone is complaining it's so cold.It's down to around 8 degrees at night and around 22 during the day. For me it's great, I can breathe again, and sleep fairly well when there isn't a cockerel standing almost on the end of my bed, and screetching his head off at
2.00 am instead of 6.00 am, which would be more reasonable!
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We have had a really good last month here, our plans have now been completed for the medical centre, they look great, and we are hoping to start the build at the beginning of August, once we have all the foundation blocks made.

Up at the Centre in Maxixe, we have had a great response to the foundation course we have put on every Monday night. Over half the people enrolled on the course are getting 100 percent on there home work papers. They each have a new bible in the local shangaan or portugese. The same course is now being taught in our new church plants by the local leaders, and the people are loving it! It a great course, very simple, and packed with the Word of God.
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Delfina`s shop is now open and bringing in some revenue. The ladies are busy learning all they can with the sewing project. They are busy cutting and sewing yards of brown paper, as they learn to sew.
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We had a good response from the evening outdoor events that we held in Matacalane and Jocarne. The new churches are doing well, and will benefit hugely from the new course material which they are now being taught .
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I'm back at the Orphanage now, busy preparing things for the trip which will be coming out at the beginning of August from the UK. We still have spaces available for anyone interested in coming out on the trip! I'm back in the UK during July, so you can contact me then: email peterdhouston@gmail.com
or phone me on 01625 573479
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Thanks you for your support in loads of ways. If you are reading this and feel you would like to help us financially, or know someone who might, particularly with our work at the orphanage, where we are seeking to reach out to the poorest of the orphaned children in the area. The best way you can help us there is to fill out a regular monthly standing order.
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It's a constant stretch for us to meet our monthly out-goings here just now, particulary as our pound has dropped in value. Please continue to pray for us.
Thank you for journeying with us on this exciting road!
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Great Excitement!

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There was great excitement at the Centre in Maxixe as I arrived a week ago, with the first four sewing machines out of ten that we are bringing in, as one of the sustainable projects we are starting this year in Mozambique.

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Several months ago, unknown to my self, some of the ladies in the church in Maxixe were busy praying that God would help them to create businesses for themselves, as they prayed, several of them felt God speaking to them about starting businesses with sewing machines!

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Back in the UK I had been put in touch with a church in Nottingham with a vision to help people in third world countries start up their own business, helping them to come out of poverty through sustainable projects. They have agreed to supply the funds that we need to start up the projects that we are currently involved with!

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After much thought and prayer, I called Armindo, and asked what he thought about starting a number of small businesses with sewing machines!

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Months down the road, standing in the Centre in Maxixe, surrounded by a number of very thrilled ladies and their new machines, I know now why Armindo was so excited about my telephone suggestion. We had connected with the heart of God, and He had answered their prayers!!!

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One of the ladies in the church has taken on the role of teaching the other ladies to sew. There is talk of us possibly making the school uniforms for the children at the local school!

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Please pray for us all, that we manage to get the project well set up, and that we are able to make a difference in the lives of these people who have nothing. At present many of these ladies are widows with children are on our feeding programmes. Soon they will be able to feed themselves!

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whats happening this week!

We have eventually started to make the huge number of concrete blocks necessary to build the medical centre at the orphanage, we are all very excited ! We still await the necessary documents for our NGO. One more week they say!
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Over the next two weeks in Maxixe we will be launching both of our sustainable projects here. Our shop is now finished and looks great, this will be stocked this week and opened next week.

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Today we introduce our sewing machine project, which every one is very excited about, we currently have four machines, and will bring in the other six later in the year.

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We are starting a sewing school, bringing in a lady who has a heart to help us to set up the project, which will help bring some of these destitute people out of poverty.
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Another of our projects here at the Centre in Maxixe is to continue to teach a fourteen week foundation course in their local Shangaan dialect, produced by Emmanuel Press in Nelspruit. This together with the new bibles that we are bringing into the country, in a modern easy to read translation, is what we desperately need here in Maxixe.
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Armindo and I will be starting to teach the course next Monday night, at the centre to the local church, and to our leaders of the new churches. These leaders will then in turn take the material the same week, and teach it in their own churches.
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Our other exciting opportunity is to teach the same material to the guys at the local prison. Please pray that we get the opening and opportunities we are looking for there!
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There is buzz about the place at present, everything is now starting to move forward again. Your prayers are essential to our success here. Please continue to pray for all the projects, and the lovely people we are working with, and that we will be able to make a lasting difference in the place. Thank you for all your amazing support in so many ways. I'll be posting photos next week of all we are doing!

The Conference

Steve Thomas and Steve Parsons came out from the UK, to teach and train around a hundred of our new people that now come to church, along with a number of up and coming leaders. Ten different churches were represented, seven local and three from down near the orphanage.
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The feed back has been fantastic. Seminars were held in the mornings, with time to reflect in the afternoons, then as the week went on we had several open air evening celebration meetings.
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The guys who came to the conference slept on the floor, in the pole and reed church, the ladies all slept in tents. The food was cooked on four enormous cauldrons over several open fires, the smell of cooking in the evening along with wood smoke and huddles of people singing and laughing was great, everyone had a really good time, and were really grateful to the guys who had come out from the UK, giving up their time and home comforts to sew into the lives of these lovely people.
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I am heading back up to Mozambique tomorrow back across the border this time with 230 bibles, a second hand computer. and a lot of other stuff we need, including more clothes for the kids.
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This next month we have another very exciting project which we will be starting. I will be pushing hard to get the NGO through for the orphanage project, and also get the plans finished for the medical centre. Then we will be starting to make the two thousand blocks necessary to build the centre and I will be posting photos for you to see as we go.
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My time in Maxixe will be spent with Armindo at the Centre where we will be helping the many new believers in the church to get into the bible. Very few of the people have a bible at all. We have managed to get hold of bibles in their own local dialect and will be introducing five short teaching sessions about the bible, in the evenings, alongside some practical reading sessions. At the end of week the people will each keep their new bibles, which will become a major source of personal spiritual growth for them, as they start to feed themselves daily.

Please pray God helps us to fulfill all the things He has put in our hearts to do.
Thanks so much for journeying with us.

Bless you Pete, Armindo and Martha
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