We spent a week in Moz two weeks ago with a pastoral group from the US. They were there to help a mission team run three days of training and teaching sessions for local pastors, some of whom had traveled for over a day on rickety bicycles to attend.
The missionaries there have also been working for a long time with the inmates of the town prison where 130 men share a 5m x 5m room. They are often in there 24 hours a day and only get one cup of corn meal and a cup of water per day. The inmates are imprisoned for anything from murder to stealing bread, and some can be detained for up to two years before their trial is even heard. Daily, the missionaries have given them medical and spiritual input but the highlight of this trip was when 20 men were baptised.
Last Saturday we flew a joint trip with Mission Aviation Fellowship and took another US team to the coastal town on Inhambane. It was a long day (8 hrs flying and over 1000 miles) as we just dropped them off and ended up flying back to SA at night. A year ago we had taken a small exploratory team to various places in Moz as they were searching for somewhere to start an outreach (see 19th Mar 2006, 'Where to plant a church'). It was good therefore to be the first to fly a large team in to the location they had chosen.
Today (Tuesday) we were out again assisting Zumat with a couple of flights. We took some people down to Natal and then picked up some pastors and flew them to a mission station just north of Durban. Not in itself too spectacular, but the one hour flight would of taken them the best part of a day to complete by road. This was yet another day that ended well past sunset.
Mercy Air team
