Mapuje & Lumbiza

Part of Lumbiza

The mountain we drove around

A Pointsetta tree. They're all over around here.

This weekend was rather eventful, at least yesterday was. I went with one of the missionaries out to a town called Limbeza for church. It took almost 2 hours to get there, but the drive was worth it. It was incredibly beautiful and I was exciting to see more parts of Mozambique than just Lichinga. When we got to Lumbiza we had church which consisted of singing for a while, then Nancy (the missionary I was with) talked about John 14. Then one of the guys who was there was interested in becoming a follower of Jesus so they talking with him for almost an hour. I couldn't understand most of it unfortunately, but I prayed for him. He didn't end up making a decision yesterday, but seemed very close to making a decision to follow Christ :)

After church, we had lunch in the pastor's house. Houses are mud huts with a grass roof, like in the top picture. There is no electricity yet, either. For lunch we had Shema and Beans, which is what the people eat. It's really not too bad, just don't eat the Shema by itself. There's a reason they serve it with beans.

Then after lunch there was a funeral, which we attended out of respect to the family we had lunch with. It was a Muslim funeral, which means the women are not allowed to go to the cemetery. When we got there they were ready to take the coffin to the house where the body was. They put the coffin right up to the door of the house, and then covered the door with a sheet. They moved the body into the coffin in such a way that no one could see the body. Once the body was inside they took the coffin back up to a spot beside the main road. A group of men stood around the coffin and said prayers before the men all headed off to the cemetery. They carried the coffin to the cemetery in such a way that every man helped carry it. If you need a mental image, think of crowd surfing where they move the person along above their heads and you have the right idea.

That is the end of funeral for the women. They can either wait around for the men to return or they can just go home. We waited until the men returned and then headed back to Lichinga.

It was a good day, full of new things for me to see and experience. I enjoyed it a lot. More on what I did today later :)