Joy and X-Burgers.

18:08, October 18, 2009. My room, Tete, Mozambique.

 Ola gente! Oh, man, what a good day – I feel like I’m bursting with satisfaction at the moment. Ha!

 Okay, people, I have a confession to make – something that is going to strike a lot of you as weird, probably, but something that I think you’ll get over. I didn’t mention this in my post about Beira and hanging out with Greg the Pentecostal, because I wasn’t sure what people would think and was honestly a bit unsure what to think myself, but this morning I read a couple of passages that sort of convicted me to suck up my fear and go for it. So, now that you’re all worried (ha, I can picture my parents proceeding with trepidation at what their crazy son has gotten himself into), here goes:

 I’ve been thinking and wondering about the ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit’ for a couple of years, after reading about it all the time in Scripture (there are lots of examples, but the story in Acts 10 is especially interesting to me), and have always been a bit curious as to whether or not I’ve experienced this. It seems obvious in the Bible that accepting Christ and being filled with the Spirit are two separate things (although they often happen at nearly the same time?), and examples of people who were followers of Christ, but didn’t receive the Spirit until someone else laid hands on them and prayed for them, have intrigued me for quite some time. I’ve talked with a few different pastors about the subject, and borrowed a fascinating book from John Mark last year about fifty great evangelicals’ views (ask me for the title if you’re interested), which helped a lot. Long story short, I’ve pretty much become convinced that there’s something out there that I’ve been missing – not anything to do with my salvation (don’t misunderstand me…I know I’m walking on extremely sensitive ground for those of you who, like me, don’t talk about this stuff), but simply in terms of the intimacy of my relationship with God and the way that that plays out in my life.

 So, back to Greg the Pentecostal – knowing that he would be familiar with the idea, I talked to him about my desire to investigate the matter, and he said that he’d love to pray for me if it’s something that I really serious about. I was definitely excited to see what, if anything, would happen, and I absolutely want more of God in my life, so I emphatically agreed, and we went for it. It wasn’t anything weird, to be honest, and after praying for me for awhile we went inside and ate chicken. Pretty normal, right? Think again. This is where it kind of gets weird…in the five or six days since this happened, I have had this inexpressible joy and peace shooting through me, especially when I’m spending time alone with God or am at church (this morning being the only example I have of the latter), and my hands will sometimes get really warm when I’m reading Scripture or praying. The Word has come alive to me, as well, and it seems like the number of things that have stood out to me as significant or that apply to my life directly have multiplied dramatically. I’ve had several people ask me what I’ve been smiling about in the past couple of days, and from time to time I’ve just started chuckling, for no apparent reason. Ha! It’s the weirdest thing, and I don’t know how else to explain it except to say that something must happened that night, and that there’s Someone working in my life in a new way now. I’m definitely hoping that some other crazy stuff happens, both because I think it’d be sweet and because I’d like to offer some more quantifiable proof to you all, but for now I’m pretty much convinced. As far as why I’m sharing this now, instead of keeping it to myself and avoiding all of the emails I’m going to get from people who don’t think that this should fit in my theology (and, by the way, I’m totally open to receiving those and learning more, but please be prepared to justify your complaints within a biblical framework, because that’s pretty much all I’m interested in working with here), I’ll just point out two verses that I happened to read this morning – the first is from John 3:5, where “Jesus answered, ‘I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit’” (italics mine), and the second from Romans 1:16, where Paul says “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” Neither of these are foundational in my understanding of what’s happening in me, but there was enough of a connection for me to realize that I’m somehow ashamed of sharing what wonderful, amazing things God is doing, and that doesn’t make sense at all. God is so good (seriously!), He’s alive, and if you somehow stumbled onto this post expecting some sort of travel journal, and don’t know Him…you don’t want to miss out on this.

 Okay, with all of that background, today was very good. I got up early, before anyone else, made a latte with my new espresso maker on the charcoal stove (success, yes!), and spent a bunch of time reading the Word and talking with God. I then walked to church, totally jazzed about being there, and had a great time worshipping in Portuguese, Chewa, Shona, and some other languages (I only knew the words to the Portuguese songs, ‘cause I borrowed Adriene’s hymnbook, but I danced and clapped and hummed a lot with the other ones). I’ve finally been to the church enough times to be considered “normal”, so people there greet me warmly, but I don’t have to go up front and make speeches anymore – definitely a plus. Also, as I walked in Adriene handed me a handful of mail (!), which I’ll get back to in a just a moment, but I just had to mention that to continue framing the overall joyous experience. Anyway, the service moved on, and I didn’t understand most of the sermon, but I noticed that a guy near me had an English-Portuguese Bible, so I made a mental note to talk with him after everything ended. I did so (actually, he technically introduced himself to me), and found that he’s a businessman from Nigeria (nephew of the guy who spoke two weeks ago, and husband of a Brazilian missionary who used to work with the church/Adriene, but is really sick and had to go back to Brazil for treatment…sucks), and speaks perfect English. He actually lives pretty close by, I think, so I was excited to meet him and exchange contact info.

I walked home from church to change clothes before going out to lunch with Adriene, and greeted everyone I passed (which is really fun, actually…most people glare at me as I approach them, trying to figure out what a white person is doing in their neighborhood, so when I greet them warmly in Portuguese they’re a bit taken aback, and instantly shift from indignant local to polite neighbor). I came across this awesome-looking rasta guy with dreads, about two blocks (about that distance, anyway…there aren’t any blocks on this street) from my house. I said hi to him, he said hi back, and asked me in English where I was going. I was very surprised to hear him speak good English (more than just the “Hello, how are you?” that everyone knows), so I stopped and talked to him for a bit…he told me that he studied in England for seven years, married a Russian woman, moved to Russia for two years, and got some sort of advanced engineering degree there. He now lives like two minutes away from me in a pretty nice looking (from the outside) house, apparently with his Russian wife, and invited me over for lunch. I had those other plans with Adriene, so I had to turn him down, but he said that I can stop by anytime to eat and hang out/play guitar.  Tight, eh? Also, his name is Zelito, which is pretty awesome. I was a little bit wary towards the end of the conversation, mostly because of the fact (generalization alert!) that he looked like the type of person who’d be playing guitar on the street next to Pike’s Market, and that doesn’t fit very well with my paradigm of a European-trained engineer, but I’m fully planning on stopping by at some point. I later told my family about the encounter, and Julio said that he’s pretty sure that the guy is a drug addict and has mental issues, Nanda, Carla’s visiting sister, told me that I should demand to see his Russian wife before I go into the house, and Carla added that he’s probably part of the mafia, but they all encouraged me to check it out. What a strange culture this is. Ha!

 I spent the afternoon eating pizza and talking with Adriene, which was pretty terrific. I feel like I’m learning a lot of Portuguese just by hanging out with her, and I started teaching her some English today, which I have high hopes about as well. A significant part of our conversation revolved around housing, and that’s definitely something worth sharing about, especially given my comments in a previous post about my own desire to move at some point, and a conversation I had with Steve this past week that I don’t think I ever shared (where he agreed that it’s  a good time to start looking for a place for me to live, either alone or in a ‘dependencia’ (an apartment on another person’s property), and said that he’d email Tiago about it). Anyway, back to Adriene, apparently the housing situation isn’t working out for her at all right now, and she’s currently “living on the street” – that is to say, she’s taking care of someone’s house who’s out of town for a month, but doesn’t have anywhere permanent to live. She’s getting pretty desperate, and is seriously thinking about moving to Chimoio or Gondola to work with the Mennonite church there if she can’t find housing here. I asked her if she’s considered constructing a house, and she told me that the group that supports her in Brazil actually wants to build some sort of housing compound for missionaries in Tete, but that it’s just a matter of finding the property to do so. I later talked with Julio about the availability of property, and he said that it’s not hard at all to get it if it’s done through the Mennonite church (aka through Mozambicans), so I’m going to try to connect Julio and Adriene in the next couple of days. I feel like this could potentially be pretty amazing if it works out – MCC could potentially develop their connection with the Mennonites here (a goal in every country that MCC works in), Adriene could continue her ministry in Tete, and I could have a potentially sweet and cheap place to live. I’ll let you know how and if this progresses, but for the moment, this is definitely something that you could be praying about. 

 I also asked Julio about the original conversation between him and CCM, in an effort to try and discern what he understood about the length of my stay (I don’t want it to seem like I’m anxious to get out of their house or anything, because I love spending time with their family, so I wanted to confirm that they knew I’d eventually be looking to move), and he explained a couple of different options that I hadn’t heard about before. Apparently Tiago and he talked about two possibilities before I came…first, Julio and Carla are having their house completely remodeled in December, and they’re cool with the idea of building a dependencia for me on their property; somewhere that I can live alone, but hang out with them every now and then. Second, apparently Tiago had said that he has a couple of dependencias on his own property, and that I could potentially live in one of those. Pretty cool. As things were wrapping up I also talked with Julio about getting a desk for my room here (paid for by MCC, another thing I talked to Steve about), and he said that he’ll take me to look around later this week, after I return from Carata. So, then, there are a lot of things to think about, but there are definitely options out there, and I’m looking forward to some welcome changes in the next weeks and months.

 Oh, shoot, I never talked about the mail that came today. I suppose that the order of that little piece of information isn’t incredibly important, so instead of going back and trying to find a good spot, it’s happening here. Okay, so, like I said, I received multiple pieces of mail today (which Adriene picked up for me at the post office box we share), and have good news and bad news for all of you (and me, I suppose). Out of the four things that I know have been sent to me thus far, I received three today, which means that whatever you send has approximately a 75% chance of getting here (I’ll keep a running tab and make that figure more precise as time goes by). I also learned that the mailing system here makes no sense whatsoever – of the three things that came (one from my mom, one from Suzy/Nate, and one from Lindsey in Seattle), which were mailed (respectively) on Sept. 20, Oct. 1, and Oct. 3, all were stamped as having arrived in Tete on the 13th. So, then, things can potentially arrive in as little as ten days, and as long as…well, maybe the first letter that my mom sent me two months ago will still arrive at some point, so I don’t even know. Sweet! Moral of the story: if you decide to send me a million dollars in the next three years, I would caution you against using the postal system to do so. That said, though, it was such a joy to read things in handwriting that I know, see the pictures and newspaper articles that my mom sent, and get some Starbucks coffee(!) from Linds.

 Okay, this got really long…sorry folks. I talked with Tiago briefly about this week, and will be in the office tomorrow, so I should be posting this then…I may be back from Carata as early as Friday, but don’t expect any replies to your concerned theological emails until next week! Just kidding.

 Love you all, peace.

 21:43, same as above.

Okay, two other things that I forgot to mention earlier – fun little language gems that I learned today. First, I hear people yell “Shi!” all the time in high voices, which sounds ridiculous, and I used to think that they were cussing and didn’t know how to pronounce the word correctly. It turns out, however, that it’s an actual Mozambican term used universally around the country to say something like “Gosh, that’s amazing!” Pretty cool, eh? I’m going to start using that all of the time.

Second, I learned today that the letter ‘x’ is “cheese” (pronounced ‘sheez’, but to write this phonetically in Portuguese it’d be spelled ‘cheese’), so restaurants will often advertise their delicious ‘x-burgers.’ Oh, the beautiful chaos of loan words. How epic does that sound, though? An X-Burger? For those of you thinking about starting a fast food chain, I’d definitely eat there if you called it that, and I bet all of the Portugueses, Brasileiros, Angolanos, and Mozambicanos would too.