DID SHE SAY “THE PALACE”?

When I moved to Mozambique, I took with me certain expectations, many of which have already been realised.

I fully expected meltingly hot summers that lasted for half the year. I knew that clean feet would be a thing of the past and that noisy children would be raking the sand under my window at 5am in the morning. I understood that the hot water supply would be inconsistent, that the electricity would shut down regularly and that internet access would be slow at best and non-existent at worst.

I hoped for regular meals out and an occasional hot afternoon meandering slowly through the upmarket, air conditioned mall in town. I longed for adventurous drives into the bush to stay with the locals, and road trips with new friends to view the magnificent northern Mozambique coastline. I dreamed of glorious orange sunsets and clear African skies reaching on forever. I even planned some holidays, perhaps to Swaziland or Tanzania or South Africa’s Cape Town way down at the bottom of the continent.

Never in my wildest dreams did I expect the adventures of last night.

I received the call with only 23 hours notice that something was up. I was invited to a reception and was I free? Of course! I had never met the woman on the phone – she was an Australian working at the US Embassy, which made no sense to me at all. But a free night out is worth a lot to a tired, dusty Aussie living in Africa, so of course I said yes. I hung up the phone then thought, “Did she just say ‘The Palace?’”

At 10.30 the next morning, the gilt-edged invitation was hand-delivered to confirm what I had begun to suspect was someone pulling my leg. “The President of the Republic of Mozambique invites Senhora Wendy Walker to an Official Banquet at the Palacio de Ponto Vermelho...”

And so it began. I was officially invited to the Palace for a State Banquet being hosted by the President and First Lady of Mozambique, in honour of our very own Australian Governor General who was dropping in briefly during her ten nation tour. Being an Aussie living in Maputo is serving me very well indeed.

So, how to proceed? First, a quick dash to the nearest clothes shop forty minutes away. But no, the car wouldn’t start. After an hour’s delay, I borrowed a vehicle and was on my way. Then home with a new skirt to ask Laura’s help with the rest of the outfit. Only then did I think to get the invitation translated precisely. Oh no! Formal! A cotton skirt would never do.

I am an Aussie gal living in a developing nation in a compound with 300 kids. I play in the sand. I climb splintered wooden play equipment. I carry babies around at every opportunity. The only reason I wear shoes is to avoid catching those tiny little worms that bury into one’s skin and lay their eggs there. I fight a daily war against dust and grime which I will never win so I may as well signal surrender and relax. The closest I get to formal is tying a capalana over my cut-offs and swapping my grey thongs for black ones for church on Sunday mornings.

It did not occur to me to bring a formal gown from Australia to my orphanage-home in Mozambique. What an oversight.

Laura took charge. God bless Laura. “Wendy, we’re going into town. We have to SHOP! Meet me at the car in 15 minutes.” So Laura drove me all the way into town to buy clothes. She also drove me all around town showing me how to find the Palace and how to get home at the end of the night. Here I was thinking, “How hard can it be to find a palace in the middle of Maputo?” I never would have made it there and back in the dark Mozambican night without this tour.

We had less than an hour to find something floor-length and formal. For the first time in my life, I was thankful that my dress size is more Harare than Hollywood. The first thing I tried on was a floor length skirt. Perfect fit. Done. Second shop, black wrap top. Done. I believe I just witnessed a miracle. In and out in forty minutes for a job that could have taken months back in Australia.

Home. No time to sit down with just over an hour to get back out the door. I borrowed a selection of handbags and shoes and wraps and jewellery from my “ladies in waiting”, all as excited as I was. Showered then searched for the blow dryer for its first use in Mozambique. Then makeup (I had to remember... is it liner or shadow first?) and finally worked out the rest of the outfit. No time for trial and error. The last thing I did was slip on some borrowed sandals - perfect fit! I felt like Cinderella being dressed for the ball. Then Sandra took photos and sent me on my way.

I hiked up my long skirt and clambered into the big old filthy, noisy, borrowed ute, wearing very unglamorous sandshoes for the drive. It was about then that I started laughing and did not stop all night. I drove the fifty minutes through smoky, smelly Maputo, dressed up to the nines, feeling very much like a princess driving a pumpkin.

I pulled up at the boom gates to the Palace but was refused entry, even with my fancy invitation. What to do? “Nao falo Portuguese! Do you speak English?” I begged as several guards with rifles gathered around my car. Then, right next to me, an official vehicle with flags on the hood pulled up. Someone opened the back window and called, "Wendy, is that you? Follow us!" It was the woman from the US Embassy who had phoned the night before to invite me. I realised I must be even more conspicuous than I thought. I took a deep breath, waved and smiled at the armed guards then drove past them. I was in.

I pulled up behind all the clean, sleek white government cars and slipped out of the high cab of the ute, hoping not to catch my now-dusty dress on the way down. Then I realised I still had my sandshoes on. Back up into the cab, changed my shoes and got out. I looked across the road to see the official party from the other car waiting patiently for me and watching every move.

I made it half way across the road before a guard caught up and told me to move my car. Back I went, inelegantly hitched up my shiny black floor-length gown, climbed in and started the car again.

I tried to back up over the curb and onto the footpath as instructed. I was still being watched as the car chugged loudly then stalled. I started up once more then skidded the tyres trying to get the back wheels over the high gutter. Finally and after much revving and screeching, I gave up with half the hood still hanging out over the road. I motioned thumbs up to the guard then refused to look his way again, in case he made me move the car further.

Out I climbed once more and honked the horn accidentally on the way down. I scurried away from the guard, inasmuch as one can scurry in slip-on Cinderella sandals, and joined the very patient group waiting for me. I was laughing as I introduced myself. Why were they not smiling?

Finally – finally! - I walked in with my new friends who then left me on my own. I took a deep breath, walked up to complete strangers, held out my hand and said, "Boa Noite. Chama me Wendy. Do you speak English?" Every Australian I met knew other Aussies there with whom they wanted to chat so, feeling like an unwanted extra, I made for the Africans and was welcomed warmly.

At Table 17, I sat between a Presidential Aide and the Tanzanian Consul to Mozambique. What delightful company they were. I learned that not all Presidential Aides speak English, that my poor Portuguese is apparently very amusing, and that Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti are a must-see for anyone living anywhere near Tanzania. I believe an open invitation was extended. I believe...

The military band played the Australian National Anthem (oh my) and O Presidente da Moçambique made a speech which was translated via headphones on all the tables. The translator kept referring to the "Australian General Governor" which made me giggle, quite inappropriately.

We – about 200 mostly Africans with some washed-out Aussies in the mix - were seated at round tables in a giant white marquee with crisp linen, fresh flowers and air conditioning. The special guests were seated on a long table up high at one end. Imagine the Last Supper African-style. GG Quentin Bryce looked stunning in bright pink but so skinny and fragile compared to the Mozambican women that I fully expected her to be blown over at any moment.

On the table were red and white roses with a tall, wooden giraffe standing up in the middle of each arrangement. The food was part Mozambican (kassava, maize meal and bean leaves) and part “western” (turkey, prawns, citrus sorbet and spinach mousse) which was a bold blend of cultures, no less. The entertainment was provided by several apparently well-known Mozambican musicians – Amelia Moiane, Madala, Gabriela and Eyuphuro. It seems that one single name is all the rage no matter where in the world one is famous.

After three hours of superlative service by white-gloved waiters, the fascinating company of Kilibi and Cassimiro and some scintillating conversation in which I learned much about African ways, the President suddenly rose to leave. The band played the Mozambican National Anthem and we all stood and clapped. Within moments, our tables were being cleared and we were ushered out.

Everybody waited out by the road for their government cars to pull up and I realised that my big ol’ 4WD was parked right in front of the crowds waiting for their drivers. I paused then decided that any semblance of dignity had been lost when I stalled the first time, or perhaps it was when I got out of my car wearing sandshoes. Or was it the horn-honking? I clambered in, watched by about 50 people. Started up. Then stalled again. Perhaps my dainty little Cinderella slippers were the problem. So I changed shoes, started up again, pulled onto the road right in front of the crowd where the car shuddered loudly to a stop once more. Something was wrong and it was not about the shoes.

Gradually the crowd dispersed to their cars, driving around me and leaving me stranded in the middle of the road. My car was in the palace grounds, all the guests were now gone and all was silent. A dozen armed guards were staring at me, wishing I would leave so they could all go to bed.

Eventually one of them took pity, came to my window and motioned for me to get out. What's a girl to do? The man had a gun. I got out, by now an expert at hiking my skirt up and slipping off the car seat. I stood in front of all the guards in my floor length black and my sandshoes. And I laughed, smiling and gesturing palms up with a shrug to say, “I have no idea what I’m doing.” I am sure the young man on the end laughed. I’m sure of it.

The guard had the same trouble as me and kept stalling which made me feel so much better but did not help me get home. The car was stuck in 4WD and there was nothing I could do about it. So I could drive home but only in low gear, slowly. I thanked my helper, climbed in once more, waved to the guards, and called “Obrigada! Boa noite!” I smiled directly at the one on the end who, I swear, lifted his hand just a little by his side to wave back. I drove off into the night as we all breathed a sigh of relief.

This night was an adventure beyond anything I could imagine for myself. It was a free gift I will always remember. It is not, though, the presence of the President that I will think back on particularly, nor the speeches nor the military band nor even the grandeur of the Palace.

I will think back on the overwhelming peace with which I was enveloped as I walked through what had the potential to become a tense and frustrating day. I will remember the selfless joy of friends helping me, laughing with me and ushering me into a dream, blessing me with their time and energy and cars and clothes and shoes and even their money.

The magnificence of a Presidential Banquet was somehow eclipsed by the charm and wit of dinner companions as interested in my culture as I was in theirs. The five course meal drew less appreciation from me than the gracious patience of Mozambicans willing to converse with a westerner who does not yet speak their language. The frustration of a broken-down car was completely overshadowed by one guard willing to step from his post to assist me, and another smiling ever so slightly as we shared a joke.

I will forever remember the humour I discovered somewhere deep inside me as two worlds collided and laughter lessened the impact. This is the place where I want to reside, where laughter and peace lead and all else must follow.

Now, if only I could find that other slipper...

A DAY IN THE LIFE...

9.30 Anna and I leave in the "Black Panther", a low sporty little sedan, a bit beaten up and fragile. This car is a Godsend I've been leant – seems to me not the most practical sort of car to own in Mozambique but so much fun. We’re off for a morning of errands, planning to be back by 1.00. I begin to adjust to the Mozambican traffic again, remembering that trucks get right of way because they're big, two lanes mean four or possibly even five at a pinch and indicators mean nothing at all.

10.00 Airport to change US dollars to Mozambican metacais for hospitality department shopping. While I wait in the car, illegally parked, I watch a young boy of about 9, shoeless, dirty and dressed in rags, search through the bin next to the car and take out two empty water bottles. He puts them in an old rice sack, throws it over his shoulder and moves slowly on. I cry and I pray. I feel incredibly conspicuous in my nice black car. I vow to remember to buy some packets of biscuits to keep in the glove box for begging children.

10.15 Anna’s back but the car won’t start. We call Vasco (head of vehicles for the Centre) who says: "The Centre mechanic didn't come to work today. I'll try to find him.”

10.20 “He’s at home. He’ll be there in half an hour." Anna buys drinks while I wait for Julio.

11.00 Call Vasco again, who says, "He's nearly there." We sit on the ground out front of the airport and wait, receiving many second glances. I see no other white faces the whole time we’re there.

11.10 Jonny pulls up, having heard that we broke down. God bless Jonny! Opens the bonnet and tinkers. Soon a Mozambican man offers to help. He starts the car in just a few minutes.

11.30 Anna calls Vasco to cancel the mechanic. “He keeps telling me he’s almost there. He’s not there?” Mission resumes.

11.45 “Game”, my favourite place to shop. Imagine a huge Kmart and Bunnings combined, without the clothes.

12.30 Buy a new printer for hospitality. Forgot the ink, which means another trip into town another day.

12.45 Lunch at Sagrez, my favourite place to eat – right on the beach. While sitting, all we can see is the ocean, brown, hazy with scum floating on top. Cooling sea breeze, I forget for awhile where I am. Have the typical Mozambican lunch of Portuguese chicken, salad, rice and soggy chips. Hawkers hold up their touristy trinkets from the beach beyond the low green wall, calling “Sensa... Sensa...”, “Excuse me...” quietly to get our attention.

1.45 Stand to leave and notice, for the first time, the piles of garbage all along the dirty brown sand’s tide line, blocked from our view while sitting and enjoying our meal. What a mess.

2.15 Shoprite for groceries. Usually I go on the “visitors’ run” in the minibus once a week and buy very little for lack of space on the way home. Today Anna and I have a whole boot we can fill if we want to. I stock up on heavy items like canned toms and long-life milk, while Anna is here to help me carry and we have lots of space in the car. Anna buys six weeks’ worth of nappies for Gilda, the disabled girl she cares for in the girls’ dorm.

In the fresh food aisle (the term “fresh” used loosely here), a young girl, maybe ten, sidles up next to me and stands for awhile. I pull my handbag closer, thinking she has seen me withdraw money from the teller a few minutes earlier. She holds her hand in front of me and on her palm is written a word in ink: “ioma”. Then she zips her lips just like a teacher to tell me not to speak and shows me the word again. She’ll be thrown out if found begging in the supermarket. I don’t know what this word means but I suspect it’s Shangaana, perhaps for money. I look deep into her eyes and smile, and she looks back for a moment, sadder and more lost than I can imagine it’s possible to be. Then she turns and walks away, disappearing into the crowd of people shopping for luxuries like soap and cereal that she has probably never had. I want to chase after her and hug her and bring her home and feed her and tell her I can make everything better. But I can’t. Every day here, my heart breaks in a new way. Imagine how Jesus must feel.

(On a lighter note, last week at Shoprite a short, gorgeous black man started a conversation with me in the laundry products aisle. I had begun to suspect somewhere near the insecticides that I was being followed. He said he was Sudanese and he obviously wanted to chat. We talked for a moment then I excused myself, saying I had to meet my friend. He asked for my phone number, “So we can talk...” First time I’ve been asked for my phone number in quite a while. And it had to be in Mozambique, in the supermarket, next to the bleach, by a Sudanese refugee “wanting to talk”.)

3.00 I put the groceries in the car and dash up the road to Woolworths (imagine a classy deli back home with packs of ham costing $9 and individual frozen meals $13). I wonder if it's worth the effort in the heat. I nod at the guard as I enter. I buy yoghurt that I can be reasonably sure won't go off by the time I get home. I buy half a dozen eggs at almost $1 each – the only eggs I can find in Maputo with yellow yolks. Shoprite yolks are beige and, I suspect, bereft of nutrients. My weekly splurge.

3.15 We head home, Anna looking for brooms for sale on the side of the road and me looking for a bed. We see a bed, after six weeks of searching! We pull over, right outside the Bocaria, the garbage dump where the smells and the smoke are almost overwhelming some days. Today, it’s not too bad at all. We wait for several minutes for a break in the traffic then take our lives in our hands and cross in front of several shapas fighting for lane space and heading our way at speed.

We check out the silver-painted metal bed, propped up on empty cans in the sand. The maker appears and I tell him, “Nao fala Portuguese”. I don’t speak Portuguese. Somehow, he gets the opposite message, so directs all his comments to me and won’t listen to Anna, a consummate Portuguese speaker. He eventually realises his mistake and we all laugh. We take his number. Yes, he has a phone. He makes beds from scrap metal and sells them by the side of the road, in the sand. He has no running water and probably no electricity. And he has a mobile phone. Very normal here.

4.00 We get back to the Centre and wait for the guard to open the gates. I pull through and feel the piled-up sand in the middle of the driveway drag against the bottom of the newly christened Black Panther. One of our Mozambican workers appears in a car from the opposite direction. I assume he'll pull back and let us through, there being room for only one car at a time. Instead of reversing, he keeps coming towards us. He doesn’t stop – he slows and pulls to the side and motions for me to do the same. I know that if I pull into the soft sand, I’ll get stuck. He keeps driving towards me so I have no choice. I pull to the side. I get stuck. He waves and keeps driving.

We’re stuck. Anna gets out and tries to push. Another worker drives towards us. He slows, looks, waves and keeps driving. Two men walk over, look, nod, and keep walking. All the while, Anna is pushing and I’m revving and we’re getting nowhere. Then, the boys on the soccer field (really just a red dust bowl) see us and a swarm of them start yelling and running towards us. I think, “I don’t want children near a bogged, slipping car” but then realise I have no choice. And they’ll love to be the rescuers of we damsels in distress. So, seven little heroes push and push and get the car out, and cheer. We’ve made their day and they’ve made ours.

4.15 Home, groceries unpacked. We took three hours longer than expected, as we always do here. My western planning mentality seems unable to adjust to how long it takes to accomplish anything. I’m exhausted. Over the next two hours I receive eight visitors, three phone calls and half a dozen texts, for all sorts of reasons. This is why going out for a day of running errands is actually quite restful, even with break-downs and bogs and begging children in the supermarket.

BACK WHERE I BELONG

It has taken me by surprise, the ease with which I have transitioned back into this hot, dusty land and this very different life. I realise now that my heart was here all along, in a place where I must keep things simple and live just one day and one hour at a time. Here, I must resist the temptation to hurry through each day. Neither the heat nor the Mozambican pace allow for rushing.

My western tendencies to list-make and race through each job were thoroughly reinforced In Australia as I tried to get everything done before my return to Mozambique. Post-trip, it has taken a month of regular frustration to remember that rarely does anything happen fast here. Once I accepted that fact, what a relief it was.

The babies I left last June are no longer babies but toddlers wobbling around and singing and dancing. Even in Mozambique, the Wiggles are tops. This past week has seen the temperature remain relentlessly in the mid 40s so yesterday the tias in the Baby House had a creative idea. Flood the play area. Yes, indoors. Fill the concrete-floored play area with several inches of water, strip the kids to their undies and let them loose.

Big plastic tubs overflowing with water and several toddlers squeezed into each, laughing and splashing and squeeling together. Three-year-olds belly-flopping on the flooded floor and splashing each other with all their might. Carmina, who cannot walk, rolling back and forth, smiling wider than I have ever seen and, of course, wanting me to roll with her. Bigger kids gently holding babies up as their feet kicked at the water. Four-years-olds competing for the biggest splash as they landed hard on their bottoms.

And a hose. Did I mention the hose?

These moments capture the essence of why I am here in Mozambique, one member of a disparate band of international interlopers from a dozen nations, all wanting to “do something”, to “make a difference”, to “serve the one…”

Cliches aside, yesterday I was reminded that our 300 kids are free. Free from starvation, free from the terrors of being orphaned and alone and living on the streets. Free from leaking, falling-down homes ruled by poverty, neglect or abuse. Free from the fear of what tomorrow may bring.

For now, our kids are free to be kids.

It is not ideal, this community living. 300 children in one “home” does not always work as we would like. We need more workers in this overripe harvest field, and more funds and more ideas and more grace and more strength and more breakthroughs.

But it is what it is. And each day is a new day. And God is good and He is faithful. And yesterday I watched 30 kids play in the water, screaming with delight, without a care in the world. That is the miracle I witness every day here in a land groaning for help but not sure how to receive it. Just a few of Mozambique’s children are free, and saved, and sleeping in clean beds tonight under mosquito nets that literally save their lives.

Our kids will wake up tomorrow knowing that they will get three meals in the day. They will receive some education tomorrow. Their attention will be drawn at some point in the day to their Creator, the One who saves and heals and gives hope. And they will be loved and protected and taught about life.

When the lists in my day seem overwhelming, when more people are asking for my help than I can possibly manage, when my body begins to betray me once again by refusing to go one more step through the sand in the stifling heat, I remember where I am and how far God has brought me.

I watch the toddlers, some who were malnourished almost to death when brought to us, who are now walking and laughing and calling “Mana… Mana… “ and singing “If you’re happy and you know it…” with gusto. I watch Lena and Enoch learning to walk, and twins Francisco and Lorenzo racing towards me for a cuddle. I see Nemais, this time last year in a coma in the hospital, now kissing chubby, gorgeous little Louisa on the cheek, and Antonio proudly balancing his shoe on his head. I watch Alirio trying to push Minda off the slippery dip and Vasco tying a doll to Lucia’s back, Mozambican-style.

Our kids are free to be kids. How much better can it get?

Then I hear of an unnamed girl, about three years old, who was to come and live with us here. That was the plan. She was in the orphanage down the road which provided desperately inappropriate care to its children for many years. The orphanage has a new director now, a wise man who quickly recognised the deficiencies, humbled himself and asked for our help, passing 16 children to us almost overnight.

The previous director, on leaving, took a few children with him including the little girl who was to live at Zimpeto. It was illegal. It was akin to kidnapping. It was evil.

She died last week. I do not know how she died, or of what. I know that she was meant to be with us. I know that she should have spent yesterday playing in the water and squealing with delight among her new friends. I know that she was a defenseless child with no power to fight for herself. I know that she may have died anyway. Or not.

It is our job to defend the weak, to help the afflicted, to speak for those who have no voice.

But she was taken away, right on the edge of being saved. And she died.

I see life and joy and hope and it is good. I also see death and suffering and tragedy. I see evil and the pain it inflicts on the weakest and youngest of this society. And it breaks my heart again and again. I watch our babies grow and our toddlers walk and our preschoolers learn to write their names. I cry for the ones who got away from us and occasionally I point my finger heavenward and demand to know why this has to happen.

For now, our kids are free. Who knows what the future holds for them but here, for now, they are fed and sheltered and loved and carefree, as it should always be for children. Pray for our kids and for the many we have not yet met. Pray for the weak and helpless of Mozambique, both young and old. Pray for the workers here, that God’s strength and grace and creativity would lead us.

Pray for God’s will to be done and His Kingdom come here, in this corner of the world, as it is in Heaven.

I DREAMED OF AFRICA

Half a year is all I have spent in Africa and yet, to me, she is a lifelong friend. She is one of those faithful, complex friends who stubbornly refuses to let me to be anything less than all I can be in this life. Mozambique, a land of magnificent beaches and denuded, dusty wasteland has been the key to this friendship and, as she attempts to raise her head and smile at her future, I yearn to assist her somehow.

I hear talk of Africa and lean impolitely to eavesdrop anyone speaking of my beloved friend. I hear her music and my heart begins once more to beat to her rhythm. I see photos of her dark brown children and ache to be there again, cradling her babies and telling them all will be well.

I will be her friend forever and that will never change.

It is inexplicable. I do not understand. My time in Mozambique was fraught with struggles. The challenges to my physical body were great and the pressures upon my soul overwhelming. The intolerable heat melted my stamina, day after stifling day. Red dirt stained my feet and sweat tracked its way through the layers of grimy dust that collected on my skin. Acrid smoke burned my nostrils as the hot wind fed the piles of smouldering garbage on the streets. Malaria-ridden mosquitoes mocked me with their droning buzz at sunset and through each stifling night.

How could I love Africa? How could I not.

Mozambique, so poor and yet so rich, somehow won my heart. Her people are her future, the hope of a nation that has been bowed low by years of war and floods. She has been victorious in some monumental battles in her history but now fights the enemy of poverty which obstinately refuses to release its hold.

Her mothers sit in the dust on the roadside, selling what meagre produce they have gleaned from the bare earth. Her children have only a vague hope of learning more than the most basic literacy and numeracy skills. Her babies are so often deserted, abandoned for the sake of one less mouth to feed, left at the police station or on the street or under a tree or in a plastic bag in a dumpster. Her men change women and families at will, evicting the children of other fathers and forcing these little ones away from their mothers and onto the streets.

Her people, with downcast faces and pain-filled eyes, long for better but have not seen it in their lifetime. How to hope, how to grow, how to aim for better when there is no picture in their minds of how it looks? Hopelessness is a disease here, a virulent, cancerous growth attacking the soul of a nation with little strength left to fight.

And so I look, and I listen, and I refuse to let my heart stop feeling even when I think the pain will kill me. This pain – this ache for the people of Mozambique – is nothing when compared to their suffering. It is an itching flea bite compared to the gnawing, deathly throb of a lifetime of hunger and defeat. I have lived a rich, fulfilling, blessed life and have been given much. Is it possible that, from this well of good things I have received, I may be able, just for a time, to pour some of the good of that into a land that needs so much?

I am not arrogant enough to imagine making much difference. I am only one. My heart is full but how much can just one full heart achieve? So I revisit the memories I hold so close and I begin to dream once more. One smile on a baby’s face as she feeds on the nourishing bottle I hold. One squeal of delight as a schoolboy reads his first page of text at my coaxing. One high five from the teen seeing his first birthday cake and candles as his friends chant, “Feliz Aniversario”. One wildly delighted scream as a child from the streets tries to hold onto his very own cake of soap in the shower. One song sung with joy in the garbage dump as the hungry are fed and their rotting skin infections and weeping, mouldy scalps are tended to. One wave from a twelve-ear-old working the streets who is going home for the night with a pocketful of change, released from seeking customers just for a while.

One day, one person, one opportunity at a time is all I can give, and it is enough for now.

The heartbeat of this nation grows stronger by the day. There is undeniably much hard work to be done and much distance to be travelled on the road to growth and prosperity. Healing is coming surely but too slowly for the many street kids and abandoned babies needing food, shelter and love. And it is from this source that I hear my name being called.

I heed her once again, this dear friend whispering my name and longing for my attention. And so I will return to the place where my heart began to beat to a new rhythm. I return, unsure of what to expect this time around but knowing that, as much as I can give to this friend in need, much more will be returned to me. No matter how much I pour out for my friend, she pours more into me than I can contain.

This is the way of true friendship and I will be her friend forever.

DOWN BUT NOT OUT

Pitstop: when a racing car stops in the pits for refueling.

Layover: the time during a long trip that is spent at a terminal after disembarking one vehicle and waiting to board the next.

I boarded the shaky old Air Mozambique plane in Maputo two months ago. I thought I was popping home to Australia briefly to bring whatever support and refreshing I could to my weary family, after months of illness and struggles back home. I didn’t want to disrupt the rhythm that was beginning to develop in my work in Zimpeto, but knew that a quick trip back to my family was necessary.

The night before my departure, I sat on the floor of the Baby House, farewelling the one-year-olds as Francisco dozed in my lap, Alirio gulped from the bottle I held to his lips and Antonio climbed along my left leg, leaving a wet track of drool to mark his movements. I promised to return soon, telling them not to miss me even as I told my own heart to shut down now rather than endure the pain of walking away and not seeing these precious babes for a few weeks.

And then I left them, trudging through the sand as my heart began to ache. I finished packing, slept badly and made my way to the airport next morning. As the rattly plane took off to the north, I held my breath, tracking my way over the broken tin roofs of the Maputo outskirts. I cried for the babes I would not see for weeks and, even then, began to make plans for when I returned in July.

Ah, the best-laid plans…

Within a week of touchdown in Sydney, I was in a hospital bed, paralysed and unable to walk or write or even to smile. I had been hit hard and suddenly by an illness that gave no warning of its imminent arrival nor of its devastating power. Guillain-Barré Syndrome is a rare, non-contagious disease of the immune system, affecting the nerves which lose their ability to send messages to the muscles which, in turn, stop working.

After a harrowing day of invasive tests and endless, probing questions in the emergency room, I was admitted to hospital. From that moment, when the battle lines were drawn and the enemy’s name had been clearly established, I began to fight with every morsel of strength and determination I could muster. And with the steadfast support of my already worn-out family and the sustaining prayers of friends all over the world, there I stayed for six weeks.

This was a layover I never saw coming.

One day, tingling toes. The next, numb fingers. A few days later, paralysed legs. My body was betraying me with no warning, no alarm bells, no quiet whisper to prepare me for the coming trial. I was being betrayed by a body that had always served me well. One moment I was fine then, suddenly, my toes were buzzing. This body just stopped working, as if rebelling against some unseen enemy that I racked my brain to identify and blame.

Even in the diagnosis, there was nothing at which to aim my wrath, no virus invading, no bacteria causing this breakdown of my nerves which refused to do their job of making my muscles move. My body was attacking itself. My own immune system was in rebellion, eating away at my nerves’ endings, rendering them powerless to do their job of firing off messages to my now lifeless muscles.

“Your body will heal itself.” “Your nerves will regrow on their own.” “Soon, the deterioration will cease and you’ll begin to get better.” In other words, “We don’t know how to fix this”.

And so we waited.

For two very long, tense weeks, the paralysis spread, just a little each day. And somehow I coped. I refused to consider the worst. I could not allow my mind to think the unthinkable. I rejected fear and I snubbed depression. In my mind, I hunted for every positive thought and every faith–filled verse of victory and healing I could remember from my bible. And I mulled on these hour after hour, even as my blood was being pumped with round upon round of hopefully, possibly, maybe life-giving immunoglobulin, retrieved from the healthy blood of a charitable donor.

Note to self: give blood. Just do it.

Hope soared in the second week as my legs began to gain some strength. I’d hit bottom and was coming back up. I could relax. The worst was over and only good would come to me from here.

The next morning I looked in the mirror, horrified. I could not find my smile. My face was lifeless, vacant of expression or movement even as I tried to force my muscles to act. The weapon I used more than any other to fend off melancholy and hopelessness had left me. I was certain that someone was playing a sick joke, returning my legs then stealing my grin. I was smiling on the inside but my face would not obey. I looked tired and sad and defeated.

I wanted to shout, “I have not lost this battle! I’m going to win! I’m still smiling on the inside!” If I’d been able, I would have made fists with my weakened hands and shook them at my unseen enemy, threatening my invisible foe. Another sick joke: I could not make a fist.

I was scared for the first time. What if my supporters saw my dull expression and began to doubt, to falter in their conviction that all would be well? I needed them to be unwavering and resolute on my behalf. Our determination fed off each other. Please, God, help them to keep smiling for me.

And they did. My team, my cheer squad, my fellow warriors, stood firm, stubborn in their support. They kept smiling when I could not. My family, my friends, even my exhausted, indomitable nurses, kept smiling and laughing and feeding me with their good humour and faith. And so, because of them, I was able to keep smiling on the inside.

My smile deserted me for only a few days and then it made its sunny return. From that moment, I knew that I knew that all would be well. I continued to heal, regaining movement in my arms and legs over a period of weeks. My smile grew stronger daily and, when my wink returned, I knew the sun was shining more hotly than ever, bringing healing in every bright ray.

Each morning when I woke, I’d lie in bed and test my limbs: fingers first, then hands and arms. Move on now to toes then feet and legs. And, finally, my face. Smile… big… bigger… blow a kiss, make a fish-face, blink and wink. Check… check… check!

By this time, hospital had become a comfortable place for me. I began to fret about having to leave soon. What if I fall? What if there’s no one to help me? What if…? What if…? My weakened body was housing two different personalities: one brave and fearless, ready to go home and start life all over again, and one who wanted to stay in hospital where everything had become routine and predictable and safe, where I was cared for and where there were few demands placed upon me. My nurses had become my new best friends and I was having difficulty imagining how I would cope without them.

But, cope I have. Two weeks since discharge and all is well. My body grows stronger daily and only occasionally lets me down. The 14 stairs to my room have taunted me into action and helped me to work harder than I thought I could. And my heart has begun once more to wander back to the hauntingly beautiful land I left two months ago as I wonder what comes next for me.

One step at a time. The world awaits and will be there, waiting still, when I am well again.

This pitstop was not one I saw coming. If I had, I would have driven by, as fast as I could. But life had other plans. And I, despite being pummeled and bruised, was not defeated. In fact, I am now able to embrace the months of quiet and solitude handed to me so surprisingly. As my body rehabilitates, my soul has time to do the same.

This time is a gift given in the most unusual of ways. And this pitstop allows me time and space for the refueling my spirit needs before the next leg of the race we so lightly call life, which I will strive to treat with the greatest respect from here on in.

Here’s to life.

WORLDS APART

Four months. That’s all the time it’s taken. I have been lost and I’ve been found in just a few short months. I have been lost to the old world I inhabited for most of my life. And I have been found, discovering the depths of God’s goodness and His resources hidden deep within me as I have shifted and adjusted my stance to find my balance in this dusty brown land.

I am torn between two lives and I am shaken to the core by all that I have seen and experienced. I will never look at the world or myself, or at God, in the same way again. The shift has been colossal for heart and for mind, and I know I am not yet through this inner renovation.

In a week I will travel back, just briefly, to the home I left in January. Already I am disconcerted by the culture shock setting in, even before I’ve thought about dragging the suitcase from under the bed.

I know that everything will look different from now on. It is unsettling, to say the least. Viewing the world from here in Mozambique, I have discovered a thousand colours I never knew existed and now all the world has taken on the hue of this fresh palette. Some of it is to my liking and some does not suit my tastes at all. Everything is different and bears little resemblance to the world from which I came. This is the point at which the fiery testing and the rich adventure of new exploits collide.

I look back and realise that the Egypt I left behind seems dull and unexciting, holding no challenge for me now when measured against the tests I’ve faced here. I cannot go back.

I cannot stay where I am – transition is all about getting somewhere. Settling down to inhabit the place of transition is a dangerous plan because, in transition, everything is out of balance and nothing is clear.

I look ahead and see mountains so huge that they will be impassable with anything less than superhuman effort and the miracle of God’s perfect leading.

And so I move forward one small step at a time, refusing to glance back at the comfort and ease of the land I have left, and forcing myself not to panic as I look ahead to a land I do not yet recognise.

The old world is lost to me forever. The new land beckons but is not yet clear. I take one step and then another, trusting in the leading of the Creator, over whom time and distance hold no sway.

My life is no longer my own and so I follow the One who goes before me. To where, I know not, except that He is ahead of me, shining a light to guide me. As I journey into the unknown, I follow His lead and I trust.

He is the beginning and the end. That’s all I need to know.

HUMANITY DEFINED

Last week, a friend asked me a question:

“Been thinking about you. Does it feel like you have slipped through into a different world that actually bears far more relation to the majority of humanity than the rarefied life we enjoy here in Australia?? (Just a thought …)”

My response (copied below with some edits) surprised me. I tend to err on the light side when it comes to describing regular Mozambican life. It’s hard to know what people want to hear and how much of “the whole truth” a hugely varied audience can cope with, without disturbance.

Quite possibly, though, this is the height of arrogance, thinking it my role to control the flow of information about a nation bent low by so many years of unutterable suffering. Perhaps disturbance is why I’m here. To challenge the status quo. To speak up for those who have no voice by telling the truth plainly, without embellishment.

The truth I confront every day in this nation needs no embellishment.

Perhaps this is the most important job I have ever had – describing what I see. And perhaps those who read will be stirred – to give, to go, to pray, to send. To allow the plain truth to sink so deeply that their hearts are torn in two, the way God’s heart breaks each minute of every day for the people of Mozambique.

Following is my response to my friend’s question:

“Interesting question. I think I'm in some denial because life for most people here is just so unimaginably hard. I can't process it within the framework I have for understanding what a ‘good’ life is. I hear of someone I know, or know of, dying every week. Many of the kids in the school live in canesu huts - straw walls and, if they're lucky, a tin roof held down with rocks, usually leaking. I work with kids in the school who don't know they live in Mozambique and who go home into the community at the end of the day to find rats roaming through the puddles on the floor of a one room hut. I teach teachers who've never seen a jigsaw puzzle or a map of the world.

“We received a one-year-old a few weeks ago who had been cared for each day for months by her siblings - three and five years old - while the teenage sister went to school. She was literally dying of starvation. No idea how to process that, so I think I just don't.

“Some of our babies have big scars on their bellies where a witch doctor has cut them as part of some ritual.

“One of our babies, Lucia, was here for a couple of months when her mother suddenly showed up. She told us that her family had stolen Lucia and given her away as retribution for something the mother had done. How do I process living in a culture where this happens?

“No matter where I go, even here at the Centre behind barbed wire with guards on duty 24 hours a day, I can't put my keys or other belongings down because they will vanish instantly.

“There seem to be no rules to live by and no law that can be enforced. The police pull you over and demand bribes to let you go. Men swap women like cars and children seem to be viewed as dispensable and of little value. How to process all of this, to live here, to love and bless and stay full of hope? How to offer dignity to a people so beaten down by years of starvation - physical, emotional, spiritual - that they've lost the ability to value themselves and each other?

“And how to feel anything other than powerless in the face of all this?

“I'm thankful every day that I'm here, living in the midst of it, albeit in my cushy apartment with running hot water, tiled floor, electricity and a screen door. I LOVE my screen door! And I know that, without some comforts and ease to my lifestyle here, I’m not sure I’d last the long haul. Sad but true. I wish it weren't.”

The Bible says that to whom much is given, much is required. I have been given much. This year, this challenge, this time away from all that is familiar and comfortable and predictable – this is one of the most precious gifts I’ve ever received. The question for me now is, “What do I do with this gift?” How do I respond?

All I know to do right now is walk carefully through each day, one step at a time, and every time an opportunity presents itself, grasp it violently and with both hands and refuse to let go until I’ve given love away, the very best way I know how.