Obstacle course

Students love it when you take them through an obstacle course. Why is it so fun to have obstacles? It makes the course interesting and challenging. The kids who don’t like those activities at first, admit they enjoyed it at last. Well, I feel like we as a family maneuvered ourselves through some kind of an obstacle course in the past weeks.

We were send on an assignment to our neighboring country Mozambique. We had never been there before. We only knew two weeks in advance that we were actually going. So, while we were in the busyness of teaching and all we started prepare our trip. It would take us at least, if all would go smooth, two days to reach the destination.

I googled for ‘things to do with kids on long road trips’. Most of the advice made me smile, they were not made for trips in rural Africa! “Make plenty of stops at playgrounds, picnic areas, bathrooms or restaurants.” There are no such things on the way here. “Number plate-Bingo.” We counted about 25 vehicles on the second 8 hour stretch…all Mozambiquan. “Read lots of books.” I tried, but the bumpy roads made the words all blurry and I had to quit or my eyes would have gone bad. Coloring and writing were equally challenging then.

Bringing a metal cookie tray is a great idea if you have magnetic toys! The kids also enjoyed drawing pictures on the windows with whiteboard markers. The bumpy ride gave it a funny effect. The baby wipes I brought for cleaning dirty kids hands were all used by dirty daddy hands from changing the flat tires, three in total. Singing and words games are great too. One thing that made a big difference was the bed my husband made in the back of the car. The kids all took turns ‘sleeping’ there, the car was less crowded. In Europe there is no way you can do this but the police on the roads here were very interested and would nod their heads in approval.

Buying bread at the local bakery.

The many hours of driving on extremely bad roads didn’t do a lot of good to our twenty-plus year old car. We always bring wires and duck-tape and it always comes in handy. Our lights and many things under the bonnet of which I do not know names are connected and fixed with those things. We lost our number plate, probably after a big ‘dive’ through an enormous puddle. We reached a place called Cuamba at night. A typical African dirt road town. We were so surprised to see streetlights!  We slept in a simple catholic guesthouse. I am so thankful for good kids, they will go to sleep anywhere we bring them to. The next day was hard as we continued the bad dirt road while our bodies (especially my back) were hurting from the previous day. Again, so thankful for how our kids handle life! They were very patient. Cees downloaded a course of Portuguese and so as a family we listened to the CD and practiced a new language. Moses did so well. First thing he said to the Mozambiquean police was “Obrigado” What a relief to reach the beautiful new tar road and finally reach the city of Nampula.

We were invited to stay with a missionary family here and soon we were shown around in their spacious house. Meanwhile my husband went to town to get money changed….well, not the money, but our whole situation and stay in Moz changed! As he tried to cross the street by foot, a motorcyclist passed by and grabbed the bag with everything in it. Cees chased after him but without success. Money, passport, drivers licenses, sim cards, bank cards, visa etc…all GONE. What happened in an instant took much frustration and time to get sorted. Meanwhile we did get to have meetings with the people we needed to see and talk to and it turned out, we got plenty of extra time to do that as our trip got delayed for many days.

Through all this, I kept thanking God for so many blessings I suddenly saw. None of us got hurt or sick. We were not separated but stayed together as a family. Our kids were watching us as parents in these circumstances of course…. They also heard how people were praying for us. No, our prayer for a speedy recovery from the lost documents was not answered the way we would have liked. It took the officials 13 days to actually get done what could have been done much quicker. Problem was, they promised us every day “tomorrow”….so we would be all packed and ready to go….to just find out at the end of the day tomorrow meant something else then what we thought it would mean. But prayers were heard, in a different way. The family that hosted us told us we could stay as long as we needed to. WOW! Can you imagine having six extra people in your house while your normal work goes on, not knowing how long it will be! Also, they had Lego…..so, the kids played and played and played with lego. They started doing stuff that they would never do together at home.

At the Indian Ocean, Mossuril

We were also able to borrow money and go to the Indian Ocean with the kids for a few days. That was so SPECIAL. The palm trees in Mozambique are so exotically pretty.  The water is unrealistically crystal clear. The shells are extraordinary. The brightness of the sun light reflected on the white sand hurts the eyes…good thing we brought sunscreen, sunglasses and a big umbrella. Our older kids, Joas and Rhode turned 15 and 13.

Teenagers

We enjoyed snorkeling…even Moses couldn’t stop diving into the water and watch all the interesting ocean creatures pass by. We sailed to an island with a local Dow, it kind of took forever but it was great to roam around on a lonely island with lots of coral, shells, crabs and fish. Besides creation we learned much about the history of Mozambique as we sailed to on of the most interesting Islands around here; Ilha de Mozambique.

The local sailing boat, Dhow, we used to get to the Island. 

The former capital of the country with a very rich history. Here we saw Europe (Portugal colonized Mozambique) and Africa (Moz is independent since 1975) meet on one tiny Island. It was HOT and we were very tired, but it was very interesting. The boys loved the Fort the best of all.

Europe and Africa on one small Island; Ilha de Mozambique. The Dutch trouble makers came here in 1607, trying to attack the Portuguese, but were not success full as the Fort had a large fresh water cistern, and still has.

We walked all around the Fort, went inside and on top. The white building on the left is the oldest European building in the Southern hemisphere; The Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte.

Finally we got the call; your temporal documents are ready! As Cees hurried to the office, I packed up all our stuff in about 20 minutes and we were on the road…..left at 11.30am….1000 km to go. We decided to take the southern route back to Malawi, hoping the road would be better. For most part the road was better indeed, the stretch from Mocuba to Milange was worst as we have ever experienced….We got our information from someone who passed that road before the floods….. As we were desperate to go home we decided to continue driving through the night. (We never do that in Africa because of all the risks like getting stuck in the middle of nowhere but also for security reasons.) There were moments that I thought my heart stood still. The ‘puddles’ were so deep and big, our lights would actually go under, it would be totally dark…the engine would quiet down….and every time we reached the other side. All we saw was 2 meter tall grass, swamp, water, mud, dirt and……above us MILLIONS of stars!!! When I smelled fire Cees got out and found a light bulb had come loose, burning the rubber wire….the wire and tape came in handy again. Hour after hour passed....slowly by….going 20 km an hour on average...then the engine died out. Cees lifted the bonnet again….looked….waited…..prayed…..looked at the stars…..okay, now we could have a very safe bathroom stop…..no one on the side of the road or anywhere near. Cees tried the engine and the lovely sound came back. Thank the Lord again! The kids didn’t sleep a second, I understood, how can a person fall a sleep, being shaken into all directions continually?! But they were so patient again, trusting that daddy and mammy knew what they were doing (….!...).

We had a nice time at MAF with their staff. Bringing back so many childhood memories for me. 

We made it through a very interesting course of trails and obstacles. We have learned and will still learn from it. Life itself is a challenging course and the world and everyone around us is watching how we deal with it. We need God to make the finish line in victory. Jesus is going before us, we simply have to follow.

In Gods time we will follow up on the assignment. God never shows us a big piece of the course, otherwise we might get discouraged. He shows us what we need to see to be able to follow Him, simply trusting that He knows what He is doing!

We are home now, at least, our temporal home. Thank God for that!

Good thing you always take pictures of the good things only. The obstacles will fade in our memories, the good ones will stick.