Mozambique Trip - 2010 - Day 6

Day 6

Today we headed into Maputo to meet with Fr. Juliao Mutemba, an Anglican priest, and head of the Leadership Foundation of Mozambique, the sister organization to Partners in Ministry - the Leadership Foundation of the Texas Hill Country. Fr. Juliao is currently completing his doctoral studies on "The Theology of Garbage". He has for some time worked with children and families that live at the dump outside of Maputo. We had planned for this day to go to the dump and visit with some of the people living there, but unfortunately we ran out of time. The compound where the church is located has an area set aside for construction of a future guest house. Fr. Juliao explained that Mozambique is extremely short on trained medical personnel. He would like to someday host medical missionaries from other countries and house them on the grounds.

After touring Fr. Juliao's house and church, we headed out of Maputo to the south and west of the capital city. Fr. Juliao wanted to take us to visit a clinic he was working with that served a small outlying village. I snapped the picture below on our way out to the clinic and was taken by the similarities that this area had to the Hill Country of Texas. Unlike Marracuene, which is very sandy coastal plains, this area was slightly hilly with lots of brush cover and rocky soil.

Once at the clinic we visited with a man named Jacinto who headed up an organization called "ARPA", the english translation of which is "The Association for the Eradication of Absolute Poverty." Jacinto works with a group of men that were former military, but now serve as "activists". Jacinto dispurses these guys out into the vast and unmapped countryside, where they identify needs and seek to try and provide for them. The primary thrust of their efforts is to provide much needed medical attention in rural areas. We split into two cars and left the clinic with these guys as our guide and headed back into the wilderness. We were almost immediately separated from each other. Pat was with Jacinto and several of the activists in a truck. Michaela and I followed them in a car. The roads got bad and we got lost. We eventually found our way back to the main road and waited for hours for Pat and the others to return. Fr. Juliao took it upon himself to go and borrow a motorcycle from the nurse and go and look for the others. When we asked him if he had ever ridden before, he smiled and remarked, "No, but I always wanted to try." Then off he went.

Pat and the others finally returned from the bush, where they met individuals and families that were far worse off than those we had visited in the village of Possulane, outside of Marracuene. There were many very ill people, some near death, and although the clinic was a resource available to them, getting there met a four hour walk through rough country. And, their first effort would be to make the appointment. They would then have to walk back the day of the appointment.

Pat snapped the picture below of a meal that was being prepared at one of the homes they visited. I'll pass.

Once we made it back to town, we stopped and visited another ministry run by Kate DeTomb, called Project Purpose. She ministers to prostitutes in and around Maputo by trying to provide a way out for them. She also takes in many of their abandoned children and provides a home, food, clothing and education to them.

Chris and Kate DeTomb were recently married. Chris had been married previously and his wife died from cancer. Kate has been a missionary in Mozambique for several years and Chris had a ministry in South Africa. They met two years ago at a conference that was happening while Sheri Pattillo was in South Africa on her initial trip there. Interestingly, Chris and his wife Kate grew up 20 minutes from each other in Michigan, but never met prior to South Africa. Pictured below is one of the DeTomb children holding on of the orphas they care for at Project Purpose.