We’ve moved! check us out at:
www.thejourneyproject.org

The 10 Plagues of 2010. And we plead with God, please stop them! We are not holding slaves, we are following and believing you!

1. Transmission (car transmission went)
2. Termites (invaded our house for a week)
3. Beetles (same as above, except its been 3 weeks)
4. Lizards and geckos (in the ceiling, cabinets, on the closet)
5. Snails (in the shower, ewww)
6. Car overheating and the oil for the transmission breaking.
7. Ants. (everywhere in the house)
8. Flood (a river flowed through our house last week)
9. Cockroaches (we sprayed and they died)
10. Clients not paying when they should. Or just plain refusing to pay at all.

Jesus, free us from these plagues!! When we said we wanted to back to Africa, we didn’t mean Egypt!

How does one recycle mango pits? They are compostable, yes, but they require a long time. They pose a health hazard in Africa where, during mango season, trenches are filled with mango pits, the orange flesh rotting in the sun, covered by swarms of disease-carrying black flies.

So what to do with the mango pits?

Our ideas so far:
Compost them
Make jewelry out of them, like coconut shells
Make biodegradable plastic out of them- this is new research done by a Brazilian university, and it would take more research and time to implement in Africa
Burn as fuel for a special type of cooking stove

The ideas which may save the world come from crazy minds like mine that are trying to figure out how to set up a fabric dyeing factory in Mozambique to boost-start the economy and reduce their dependence on imports.

In Northern Mozambique, primarily Cabo Delgado province, all the women wear skirts all the time. They are no ordinary skirts, they are capulanas, wonderfully decorated pieces of cloth that serve at least 50 purposes, based on a running list that we made while there. However, the fabric is imported.

How can something so ubiquitous, so seemingly original, so country and culture-specific actually not be made in the culture that uses it?

I noticed that the fabric was dyed in Tanzania, which, for logistical purposes is close to northern Mozambique, but it also holds different tribes and different cultures.

Pemba, Mozambique is a very underdeveloped city which resembles a large fishing village. Its residents have recently moved into the 20th century by getting a Shoprite supermarket open there, rather than just the two little general stores it used to depend solely on. However, we are wondering, how can this little city develop more?

There is money being pumped into the city, its a port city, with ships coming in regularly. However, the money stays in the hands of a handful of people, and those people are usually not Mozambican (they’re Arab, Kenyan, British, Indian…). So the challenge is, how do we put money into the hands of the villagers to increase their spending power and reduce their poverty level?

We can educate them, we can even build a university there, but what happens when the kids graduate? There are no jobs. We can teach them how to use a computer, and, great, they now can do facebook and email, but what next? There are no jobs.

So far, there are 2 restaurants which have taken in a few kids from Iris’s children’s village as apprentices. That’s wonderful for those kids!! What happens to the other 150 as they age out of the system? Where will they go? They won’t go back to the villages. They won’t likely become fisherman or farmers, as they haven’t learned those skills.

What have they learned? Crafts, pottery, mechanics. Some may have the opportunity to learn sewing as a trade. Others will translate for visitors. But Iris can’t take 150 young people translating and selling crafts on the beach. We need to think concrete and in terms of particulars.

So we start a fabric dyeing factory. Well, obviously, we would either need a heavy-duty generator or the machinery would need to be able to be operated without electricity. The plain fabric would come in from China or elsewhere in Asia. The dye would too, most likely. But the workers, they would be Mozambican. And we would be able to sell the Mozambican-dyed capulanas to various seamtresses and tailors in nearby villages. And sell it at a discounted rate to vendors in Pemba. And we would be able to employ a fairly large number of women to do the work.

Then comes the other questions- what about providing electricity there? We could build and off-shore wind farm. We could install the cheap solar panels Chris is making once he gets the model right.

What about sanitation? What about recycling? What about trash disposal? Clean outhouses?

Development has to be holistic. Microloans are wonderful, but how will anyone in Pemba sell goats milk if the people who would buy it have no money either? Would Shoprite buy locally produced products like eggs and milk? Would they sell?

And so I am left with more questions than answers. More dreams and hopes than plans. And more of a need to go back and find the reality that the people there need, find what they are looking for. What development would look like to them- would it mean running water or electricity? Would it mean jobs and schools for their kids? Would it mean clean clothes and food on the table? Would it mean no trash in the streets and a clean latrine? Would it mean Mozambicans getting better education and running the ports on their own? What would a Mozambican say development was for them?

From the capital of the US, where I learned the ins and outs of the political scheme in the US, to Brasilia, where its election year this year, and I am learning the ins and outs of the political schemes here.

For example, the Brazilian version of democracy is, I believe, democracy by coercion. All people over age 18 are forced to vote. There is no free will in it. If you don’t you better give a good reason, or be ready to pay a hefty fine.

People who don’t care so much about politics in the US just don’t vote. People here who don’t care, have to vote anyway. Then who do they vote for?

On the night before elections, the political campaigners throw fliers all over the ground of the parking lot of the polling places. Think a carpet of 1/4 sheet cutsheets with various politicians on them. Hopefully someone will see them and vote for that! As I walked through the parking lot of the polling place, the guy walking in front of us was looking at the ground, stopped, moved some fliers with his feet, seriously contemplating who to vote for by looking at fliers thrown on the ground!

Then, as I was sitting in my house, enjoying a quiet afternoon, as I believe my noisy neighbors moved out yesterday or are on vacation, the political campaign trucks come rolling by. The music is blaring, shaking my house, with the campaign jingle which might as well be “the song that never ends” with what it says, over and over, a form of brainwashing.

“I want Agnelo for governor, I want Agnelo for governor, I want Agnelo for governor” is the song. The whole song. Some political campaign songs that get blared out of trucks are more creative and have whole verses to them about what the candidate hopes to do and their history, but this was pure brainwashing. Made me want to sing “Agnelo would steal as governor”. (the last governor of the DF stole so much money that he actually got impeached, and the DF was without a governor for almost a month because everyone else who would take over was involved in the corruption).

So we have brainwashing. Then we have “house-building buying votes”. A particular person in office will build sub-par houses in an area outside the city, essentially creating a slum. But the people now have houses and running water and electricity (which they pay the government for), and then when said politician is up for re-election, their campaign in those government-made slums is like this “We built your houses, so vote for us. We made your neighborhood, we can destroy it too. So vote for us.”

Corruption has no limits.

A friend of mine, actually, a friend who is a missionary and a minister working in Taiwan who we were privileged enough to have officiate at our wedding, is starting a project to inform people who have worked with Iris Ministries about ways to get involved to work against human trafficking and slavery. So far, from what I know, a few Iris school alumni have started projects working to help victims of trafficking and slavery. One of them is a friend of mine who has a project in India and will be starting one in Northeast Brazil soon! The project in Brazil will be in Paraiba, way up north, even more north than Recife.

From what I know, trafficking and child prostitution are huge problems in Brazil. Not so much in the capital region, but definitely child prostitution is a big problem in the northeast. How do I know?

I remember one night we were at the hippie fair at Boa Viagem, the beach in the center of the city in Recife, and as we were standing on the curb waiting for the bus, I saw something that I will never forget. The image of a couple young teenage girls, young Brazilian girls, in a bar, with a couple of middle-aged, light skinned, heavy-set, clearly not Brazilian, tourists. The girls were hanging at the bar to get picked up to be prostituted out that night by men traveling to Brazil for more than just your average tourism.

Though that was about 5 years ago, I can still see the image in my mind, frozen there, me frozen on the other side of the street, unable to do anything.

Then the first time I was in Brazil, working with YWAM in Recife, I saw a scene so unforgettable, it changed the very core of my being. It was like something I had only read about, happening right in front of me.

We were working with street kids in a particular park in the city that YWAM had a weekly project at, we went once a week to reach out to the street kids there. The street kids in this park were younger than other gangs, the oldest kids were only about 15 or 16, and most of them were 8-11 years old. There was a beautiful 9 year old girl there, who stuck pink tropical flowers in my hair, and I stuck them in her hair. I didn’t speak Portuguese, but I spoke Love to her. She was a little fiesty girl, but precious as any of God’s children. When our program was almost over, she started to leave, and an older boy started fighting with her, hitting her, and almost beating her up.

YWAM’s policy is to not get involved with kids fighting, as outsiders getting involved can oftentimes mean later dire consequences for the kids. So we watched, and listened, and I asked what was going on. The girl was trying to leave, but the older boy, her brother wouldn’t let her. She was going to go to a man who would give her presents and money in return for sexual favors. The brother knew this was happening, and, even though he lived on the street as well, he didn’t want his little sister to go and be exploited, again.

The little girl left, stormed off, rather mad. We couldn’t do anything to help. We couldn’t change the situation. At that point, there was no house open for street girls in Recife.

I pray that my friend’s project in Paraiba will reach out to many girls like the ones I remember, the girls being sold into prostitution, the ones selling themselves into prostitution. Maybe they aren’t being trafficked across borders, but they are being sold into sexual slavery. Right here. In my new home country. Jesus help us all.

For more information about stopping child prostitution and exploitation, go to www.ecpat.net

Well, I am taking a sort of voluntary hiatus from blogging, at least for now. At least on this blog. Since this blog is supposed to be mainly about missions stuff, I’m going to put it on hold for awhile.

We’re getting married this weekend and with that, we’re taking a year off of doing ministry/missions. Doesnt meant I dont think I will be involved in missions in the future, quite the opposite. We’re building a foundation for our life this upcoming year so that we can sustain a missions and ministry lifestyle. We’re going to learn how to receive so we can always be filled and be able to pour out.

The journey has not stopped, its just going down a different road this year.

Reality is looking into the eyes of an orphan when he realizes he is never going back to the orphanage because he’s found a family.

Reality is seeing the kids on the street put away their glue bottles for a minute-long prayer and a few minutes of worship to God.

Reality is giving what little clothes you’ve carted on a boat up the Amazon away to a family living in deep poverty there, because, even though you didn’t take much on this trip, they have less than you have in your suitcase.

Reality is kids picking through a garbage dump to find food, clothing, and shelter.

Reality is out in the world, not inside a church or conference bubble.

Reality is Christ giving food and clothing to the homeless man who had his bags stolen from him.

Reality maybe isn’t pleasant, but its real, and wholly necessary for life.

7/4/07 (Pre-Africa)

And they have turned their backs on You
Oh, let us not turn our backs completely on You
But turn back, turn back before the ashes
The ashes consume us before all the land
Is laid waste, all land forced to be fallow
Rivers flooded, rivers shallow
Is this to be our resting place?
Our final fate for debts of late?
We killed the black child, the mulatto as well
The mestizos were disappeared
What if I were next? These dreams and treaties
Promise only underceasing wealth
Not care or not abandon
Our wishers wish us well
From high seats in granite palaaces
We bemoan two deaths a day
While our young African brother
Rejoices when only two a day lay silent
Somehow the world is at our fingers
Yet slips by our clumsy feet just the same
Red dirt, red dirt roads run out
We know and build and kill the same
Lessons learned in past lost lives
Remain seeded in a ground forever never
To bloom and blossom into knowledge
The rend the earth at peace with us