April to June update

July 12, 2014

It is already July and we have been so busy with life in Mozambique, we have not kept up with our blog.  Here’s a review of the last few months.

April – The highlight was our team retreat with special guests David and Lori Long from OMS USA headquarters.  We had a wonderful time at a lodge in South Africa with lots of amazing animals running around the property.  David Long was our speaker and encouraged our hearts with a study of Spiritual formation: growth in Christlikeness.

OMS Mozambique Team and guests
Front: Steve, Katuska, Joseph, Samuel, Benjamin Davies, Laura and Paulo Almeida
Back: Aimee Howarth, Majka Kuriakova, Monica Gonzalves, Laura Almeida, David & Lori Long, Lou Sierra
Gary & Diane Gray, Larry & Susan Weil, Fernanda Almeida

The end of April we had the opportunity to attend the ACSI (Association of Christian Schools International) Administrators conference in Malta.  We had wonderful speakers and met many other school directors and administrators and brought lots of ideas back with us.  Yes, Malta was beautiful too and we stayed one extra day to sightsee the lovely island.

Valleta, Malta harbor

Early in the construction stage

May – The addition to our house is finished with three months of construction and we move to our new bedroom with attached bathroom.  We now have our laundry room inside the house and there is a pantry for storing extra food.  We are so blessed.

Our new bedroom

CAM 2014 grads: Elizabeth, Amanada, Jin, Caris, Luc and Ashley

Larry & Susan presenting the CAM graduates their diplomas

May 31^st is graduation day for six CAM students.  The ceremony is special with each of the grads taking a part of it.  Tears are shed (by us) as we say goodbye to these wonderful students who have come to mean so much to us.  We pray for God’s leading in their lives in the future.

June 5^th is the last day of school. We have our awards ceremony, hand out yearbooks and serve bbq beef sandwiches to the entire school.  What a day!!!

June 9^th – 27^th is teacher’s training time with Diane Gray.  Susan has time to get her desk organized and meet with parents and recruit new teachers. 

Susan, Golden, Diane Gray, Mary and Eva: Teacher Training time at CAM in June

The CAM school book order arrives with much rejoicing.  Now the work is cut out for us to get them inventoried and distributed to all the classrooms.

Larry traveled June 16th to OMS headquarters in Indiana for mission meetings.  He had a terrible cold with chest and head congestion.  After four different antibiotics he is finally on the mend.  He arrived back in Mozambique on June 29^th.

Obviously the warthogs liked a nice warm fire too!

July 4^th – 10^th Time for a break.  We travel to Swaziland and stay at a game lodge.  It is cold and we are bundled up and glad for the campfire they keep going all the time.  I guess we aren’t the only ones who want to enjoy the fire.  We share it with 6 warthogs.  We were surprised the impala and the nyala didn’t join us as well. 

The last three days are spent in South Africa.  We have our shopping lists to buy things for the start-up of school and we squeezed in dental appointments and a vehicle servicing.  We arrived back home in Mozambique July 10^th with a car load of school supplies and gratefully no hassles at the border.

Construction on the CAM school basketball court and auditorium/specialty classrooms is finally making progress.  It has taken months to get the foundations ready, but we are now seeing good progress with walls started going up July 11th.

The next month will be busy with visitors, teams, construction, repairs, ministry and team Field Council.  Please pray for health, vision and wisdom daily as we serve the Lord in Mozambique.

In Christ,

Larry & Susan