Start of Flood Relief

We are in Maputo now, leaving early Wednesday morning to drive up to Caia where we will be basing our relief effort. We spent the past 2 days buying items to take with us: water, baby formulae, baby bottles, matches, candles, cups, plastic carry bags. It was quite interesting, this is the first time that I drive in Maputo - its scary enough just being a passenger, so braving the chaotic traffic was quite nerve wrecking.

We've packed large black crates/containers with all the water, food etc to make it easier to transport and handle - all the thousands of Rands worth of stuff we bought seemed so little once it was neatly packed into the crates - we are believeing for multiplication!

Melodie (My Mother) packing the baby supplies - we have enought for about 45 mothers (130 kids)

I wish we could take more, but we only have 2 4x4s and right now they are packed to capacity!

Me packing all the plastic cups we have into one container - its only 350 cups, but one per family will at least be something

A container full of soy porridge, its really nutritious.

In total we have 10 such containers and 200 blankets. And the 3 of us going up in 2 vehicles.

I got an update from one of our missionaries in the Central region - she was able to find out from our local pastors just how bad the situation was.

Looks like most of the roads are still usable, so that wont be a problem, but just in Caia 450 homes of Iris Church members have been destroyed, and not jut their homes, but all their crops too. Harvest time is in 2 months and is meant to supply them with food for the rest of the year Now they have nothing. We will be buying corn to give out too - 20kg costs about $4 and is enough to feed a family for a few weeks. Cholera is quite a problem in Morrumbala: this is where I spent 2 weeks last year building a house for the 50 orphans being cared for by Pastor Cebala (see the story here), the sad news is that apparently the church has been destroyed and at the moment we believe that Pastor Cebala's house is severly damaged too. I dont know the state of the house we built, and part of me is too scared to ask.

I dont think that I will have any internet access while I'm up in Caia - I will have cellphone contact though, so if anyone wants to call and encourage us/find out how its going you are welcome to call me! +258 82 550 9842

Please just continue to pray for us as we travel up and camp out next to the flooded Zambezi helping the poor.