Zaccharias

We finally have better internet, email only by day and internet after 5 pm, but it's more consistent. I still can't upload large files (or even medium ones). I was trying to put a video on from the village, but haven't been able to yet. Things are better as we get more adjusted, and actually I like it here quite a lot. Here the purple Jacaranda trees are blooming they are beautiful, it’s getting hotter everyday as we head into full summer. I've been out to some of the villages now a number of times, there are so many needs... and I need prayer to know where to focus my efforts.
I also feel that the spiritual battle here is more obvious. In the US we are sort of lulled to sleep in our comforts, so much so that we don't think we need God. Here there is no question of that. Yesterday I was in a village near the border of Mozambique, and we saw a boy with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis whose disease is so advanced that his many of his joints have become immobilized, His name is Zacharias, and he's 18, but he has not been able to feed himself lately so he's basically starving. His grandmother is elderly and can't lift him to bathe him so 2 other nurses and I bathed him. One of the nurses gave him her lunch and he wanted his picture taken with her. so we took a few, and we’ll bring him some prints when we go back.
It broke my heart, and I don't know what I can do to help him long term.
Anyway, Jerry and I are impatient to start working while I study language... Well God bless you. Thanks for your prayers and support, it means so much.
Love, Elizabeth

Mudzalephera

I’ve just been thinking of the Kingdom of God, of what Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount. I traveled to a tiny village yesterday, one where a small group of people have been putting forth focused effort and money to transform the health of this community under crushing poverty. As I spoke to the workers, I was told of the multiple problems and a year’s efforts seem to have come to nothing. This is not a picture of the kingdom of God.
This place needs the life, cross and resurrection of Jesus, they need the Good News that comes with hope and power. I met a beautiful lady with her baby, I introduced myself and told her in English how beautiful her baby she smiled and told me his name. Then I asked her name, she told me “Mudzalephera”. I carefully repeated it and smiled at her. Then someone next to me told me her name means “You will fail”. This is why we need the Gospel, Mudzalephera”s life has been saturated with injustice and the heavy fatalism of her environment. The Kingdom of God that Jesus preached is GREAT news, light and fresh air. We all need it, and it makes my heart ache to offer them that hope and life.
Elizabeth