Chimoio Mozambique: It's All About Building Relationships

 
Sometimes the Holy Spirit places a need or concern on the hearts of more than one person. When the collective energy, passion, and gifts of those people converge the result is a trans-formative and sustainable ministry.

It happens with the Garage Sale Team. Jim & Lynne Sherman (and countless others) come together every spring and generate nearly $30,000 a year towards mission and ministries.

It happens with the Celebration! Clinic every fall when Cheryl Hayes and her team lead hundreds of servant hearts in serving the under-resourced in our community with material goods and with hope and kindness.

And it is the same Spirit of the Living God that has formed a relationship that is establishing the foundation for our Africa Mission in Chimoio, Mozambique. 

In February of 2009, Our Saviour's made their first trip to the village of Chimoio, Mozambique. Lane Lewis, Judi Schultz, Pastor Tom and James Baker, a friend of Pastor Tom's formed the Our Saviour's team. The goal of the trip was to seek a potential partnership, a relationship-to-relationship model that is part of the Our Saviour's Africa Mission Team's vision. God's Spirit led us to a committed humanitarian ministry called "Vida Humana" and its visionary director Misheck Ruah. Vida Humana is a program helping men, women, and children struggling with HIV/AIDS. The program provides spiritual support, grows its own food through a garden project, and delivers the food and medication to infected members. It also helps transport infected patients to the clinic when possible and trains people to do home health care visits. The aim of this program is to make its members strong and healthy enough to return to a "normal" life in society and to offer the spiritual gift of mercy and caring to those who are dying.
The relationships formed between Misheck, James, Pastor Mark, and others on the team, centered on the need to care for people with HIV/AIDS. This is another way Our Saviour's responds to God's calling to love ones neighbor as ones self. And, putting our love into action is exactly why folks on the Africa Mission Team interviewed James Baker to be contracted as our "Mission Advocate" in Chomoio, working side-by-side with Misheck and the Vida Humana ministry.
Some people have asked what we will do in Mozambique? We must wait to answer that question until Vida Humana and James Baker have input in those decisions. We will not walk over our African brothers and sisters telling them what to do.  We will walk with our African brothers and sisters, hand in hand and side by side in a spirit of accompaniment.

In the end, I believe that this will be a mutually beneficial relationship between Our Saviour's and Vida Humana. I believe we will learn from each other. I believe God will teach us. Our overall vision for this mission is that through this mutual relationship, the powerful ministry of Vida Humana shines even brighter, demonstrating heroic servant hearts by treating people with HIV/AIDS, giving dignity to lives, and offering hope.

We just keep building our Africa Mission one relationship at a time.