Yesterday we made a quick drive over to South Africa and back to pick up our Chronological Bible Story Telling materials from our missionary friends with African Outreach. This marvelous material is used throughout the church multiplication work OMS is doing in Africa and is the kind of material that really effective in the local languages as it is something you can study at home, in small groups, in Sunday Schools, and it presents the Bible as one story, which it is actually. We use it in our Village Church Planting program and in our seminary program as well, teaching people how to 'tell the story'.
Ann had coordinated the translation of this material into two of the 42 tribal dialects spoken in Mozambique (we have three total now for the larger tribal language groups). We had a couple of starts and stops because some of our 'translators' really weren't and receiving notebooks full of hand-written text that no one could read, complete with running ink from rain drops and the like, just wasn't what would work! So, she finally found folks who were fluent in Portugues and the tribal language, or English and the language, or all three in one case, and they were able to do the translation and email them to us and an independent verification of the translation. In one case, the fellow had attended the training we gave one year on the material and was using it in his churches in Nampula.
This material will be going to Mocuba for the conference next month and we are excited to see what God will do with this material. It is most exciting.
We met with Franz Benz, our friend with Africa Outreach who we have partnered with in several training sessions here in Mozambique and it was exciting to see how his ministry is expanding as God blesses this program that he and his wife Brenda have adapted. He had just returned from Egypt where he was training people how to use the material and has been all over Africa, plus Vietnam, India, Indonesia, to mention areas where this material is being used. It is always so very exciting to see how God works - you won't read about this in the newspaper, but under the surface, this program is transforming lives because it helps people study the Bible and understand clearly God's redemptive plan.
We filled the back of our vehicle with these books, in Lomwe and Macua, and where wondering how the border crossing would be. Large quanities of these kinds of things can be difficult from a customs standpoint, as it would appear that we are going to resell them (we aren't!) and thus, there is a duty to pay. And, on Friday afternoon, the border is always insane (well it is nearly always chaos on the Mozambique side - just worse on Fridays).
We talked to the customs agent, showed him the books, opening and example one. I explained the program and how we had paid Mozambican pastors to translate the materials and were returning the completed books to them in Zambezia and Nampula provinces. I used the time to talk about what we do in Mozambique and after a few minutes he graciously said 'ok'. So, we said 'thank you Lord' and headed to the gate; he left with an ice-cold coke. However, at the gate, another agent stopped us and looked in the back and shook his head and made us pull over. He comes to the window and says that we have a big problem (why is it always a 'big' problem?). So, we go through it again and have a nice conversation, and he then he sees a car with a trailer full of stuff that is clearly for resale, and lets us go. Thank you Lord.
It isn't that we did anything wrong - we aren't selling the material or profiting from it. But these kinds of things can go any which way in Mozambique. There isn't a lot of consistently in how things are done or regulations are applied and it is often up to the individual official who is often paid for his assistance. That inconsistency causes alot of subtle stress in your life, for example, when you approach the border your heart rate increases a little as you begin to anticipate what the chaos will be like today. But it is getting better (or we understand the chaos a little better or have the language to negotiate the process) and I can forsee a day coming when it will not be so unpredictable. It is an order of magnitude better than when we first arrived.
As another example, when we left today, there is a form they give you to 'export' your car from Mozambique and you turn it back in when you bring your car back. They give me a different form and it says that it is for importing the car - what a minute, I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday. I explained that I wasn't importing the car, I was exporting it. The explanation? We're out of the other forms, so just use this one. The good news? I understood everything and when we were done, I thought, "gee, I didn't even have to think about that Portuguese interaction - it just happened." So, how do I keep this up while we are in the States?
But once again as I have done so many other times, I digress!
"Therefore, if I do not know the meaning of the language, I shall be a foreigner to him who speaks, and he who speaks will be a foreigner to me." 1 Corin 14:11
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