A Day in the Life

Today has been an interesting day but not unlike many of our days here as strange as it may be.

First came home schooling. I love that my boys are older and much more independently lately in their schooling.

Second came turkey time. Ok, so I have planned to butcher my own turkey's but our friend, Manuel, a Mozambican, thinks he need to do it for us so here it the first of the four we will be getting this month. Now, if you look at it you can surely see it is a bit skinny but hey we are not complaining because it is meat filling our freezer. I was busy this morning just pulling out the final few feathers, cutting off the neck which I don't care to use, and washing it well before I put it in the freezer to be enjoyed at a later date. We were supposed to receive two today but when Manuel went out into the bush (2 hours by bicycle to where the turkey's are being raised at his in-laws) they could only wrangle one and could not find another one. I am still working on convincing Manuel that I can kill it myself and do it if he will help me by teaching me what to do. We will see how that goes.

CAUTION this one is graphic for the weak of stomach. Third, came an urgent call from another missionary to Marc for the number of the police. After getting a little more information we discovered our neighbor Dan, another American missionary was a couple of blocks away trying to run interference in a bad situation. He had come across a mob of about 20 men that had tied up two guys that had stolen a cell phone. They were roughing them up and trying to put tires around their necks to light on fire to burn them alive and teach them a lesson. This vigilante justice is common practice here. This is the third we have heard of in the last couple of weeks. Fortunately, for these two guys Dan was able to call the police and intervene and save these guys lives. The mob of men couldn't understand why he was getting involved and asked him "Missionary don't you have some church to be preaching at?" WOW is all I can say.

Fourth, was making sure my hubby was taking his antibiotics that I have prescribed for him to take. He has some type of infection in his belly button area. We are not sure if it is just an infection or a result of tick bite fever but as a precaution I have him on a weeks dose of antibiotics and am applying antibiotic ointment. You never know when you have to be the doctor around here.

Fifth, was my going next door to lead a ladies Bible study. We are so blessed to have the material to do the Beth Moore study "Living Free" as a group. It is a study for mostly expat women in the community and today was a great day of seeing God bringing healing to some of the women's lives.

Sixth, was myself and Micah heading off to the post office and grocery store. We went to see if there was a package from his Auntie that we have been waiting for since his birthday is tomorrow. No such luck. Oh well it will come in time. After driving around to the other side of town because the direct route was completely blocked off to do road repairs (aka filling in the pot holes with more dirt that was washed out in the rain a few days ago) we came to the railroad tracks. You know those railroad gates that help cars to stay out of the way and to know trains are coming and that it is not safe to cross. Well instead of being kept out of the tracks area I was kept in the tracks area when the "railroad man" let me cross over the track and then put the gate down in front of me so I couldn't continue but was stuck inside the two barriers along with another car. Let's just say I wasn't impressed but couldn't do much as I saw the train speeding down the tracks in our direction. Thankfully we were not on the tracks and the other car was able to also get off the tracks but let's just say it's a little unnerving.

Seventh, was a stop at the grocery store. Nothing unusual here. Picked up some boxed milk, bag of sugar, powdered sugar for Micah's birthday cake, two packs of drink mix and some meat (scary stuff). As we checked out we gave the teller our money and like usual we did not receive all of the change. There is not a day, unless I give exact change that I get the correct change back. It's not because they can't count because they don't have to, the receipt has the amount on it but they do not keep the proper change in stock so often you get matches or a hard candy in exchange.

Eighth, was a call from our good friends from South Africa that run the local wood mill. They are both having horrible tooth aches and need to see a dentist. They were calling us to see if their boys could sleep over Thursday night. They have to drive to Beira which is a 3 hour drive one-way to see the dentist and need to leave at 4 am in order to make it their and back in the same day. No problem the boys will love the company since they are their best buddies!

Ninth, and last on the list at least as of 7 pm when I am writing this is a call from our Mozambican friend to say his wife's youngest brother just died out in the bush and would we be able to take the car out there tomorrow to help. Unfortunately, although our car is 4x4 it will not fit on the foot path that goes out to this village so for now that is not going to be possible. We will see what tomorrow brings.

Phew, I am tired....but this is just a day in the life and it will all begin again tomorrow. Better get some sleep:)