Visiting Dondo

Before starting Equip Mozambique, Jon and Carla worked with IRIS ministries at the base in Dondo. The directors there now are friends of ours, and we made the 40 minute drive out last Saturday to visit. The cratered, pitted, two lane road is known as the Beira Corridor. It is the artery of supply from Beira's port to Zimbabwe and other landlocked countries. At the margins of the road are small shops, parked cars (narrowing it to one lane), and many pedestrians and cyclists.

Fortunately Jon is an expert at avoiding such obstacles, and we made the round trip without accident.

I enjoyed these clouds for several kilometers.

  We did, however, have a run in with the local police. They waved us off and showed Jon with a radar gun that he had been going 80 kmph. This (roughly 50mph) is the speed limit on the national highway, but apparently near towns it is subject to change without notice, so we should have been going 60 kmph (37mph). The conversation was interrupted as the officers stopped two more drivers: remarkably both were foreign and both were travelling exactly 80 kmph. The SOP for traffic tickets is for the police to take your license, and you have to come find them later to pay your ticket and retrieve the license. Further, your license is not taken to a station but kept in the officers' possession, so you must hunt them down wherever they are patrolling. Fascinating. This creates obvious problems, especially if you are travelling long distances.
    We arrived at the IRIS base just as Eric and Tanya were returning from a funeral. One of the young men who had lived on the base had just died, probably from cerebral malaria. They said it was made more tragic because he had recently found a job and built a house, which he never got to live in. In talking with people who work here, death is disturbingly commonplace. The pastor of Peniel English said it was surreal at first. "I would leave for two weeks, and when I got back I'd ask 'where's so-and-so?' 'Oh, he got sick and died'. It was harder because one doesn't talk about the deceased, so unless you ask directly, no one tells you."
    Jon gave me a tour of the base, which is beautiful with gigantic mango trees, flower-beds, and well kept buildings. Sadly the facilities are under-utilized due in part to a lack of staff. When Jon and Carla were base directors the orphanage, boys home, bible college, primary school, and widows relief program kept them quite busy. Of these only the last two are currently functioning. It was illuminating to hear of the challenges Eric and Tanya face with there work in the area, especially since funding is not one of them. Identifying actual needs and finding honest people to work with is more difficult. Jon and Carla were able to identify with and encourage them as they worked under similar circumstances when they staffed the base.
    Tanya made amazing tacos for supper, and I remembered why I have decided it is my favorite meal. After supper I chatted with two girls from Zim who work on the base. They left medschool in the fourth of five years because they felt that God was calling them to do something different. They sold their few possessions for bus fare to the IRIS base in Dondo, and are helping with the ministry there. It was encouraging to see that God can guide with such clarity as to inspire that radical of a change in direction.