How can something be a blessing and a curse at the same time?
For the people here in Mozambique when the rains come it is truly a blessing.
Although you don’t hear it you very much sense a breath of relief coming from the people. There seems to be an air of lightness, even joy as you talk with them. You see them heading for their fields early in the morning, women with their children in tow, hoes ready and balanced on their heads along with some water for their daily needs. As you look around you see them all over the land, all hunched over their hoes, working, some singing, the children that are old enough doing the same. The little babies balancing on the backs of their moms, swaying and swinging to the rhythm of their work. They don’t stop to feed them, they just swing them around in front so the baby can breast feed while she continues to work.
We are already seeing the fruits of their labors coming up, the peanuts, corn, millet, cassava growing in the fields. Just this week we started seeing the melons coming in from the fields for sale on the side of the road as you travel.
When you see this you know there is an abundance, they can feed themselves and sell the excess so they can buy the salt, oil, soaps, the basic living stuffs they need in their homes. Life is good during this time.
So what’s the curse?
Here in this part of Mozambique when it rains it really rains. For about a five day period last week for example we must have received at least 10” (25 cm) of rain, coming in huge torrents with a lot of wind driving it. That’s when their houses start to crumble and collapse. With the driving winds it pushes the rain directly against the mud sides of their homes, quickly eating away at the mud plaster they have used to secure the mud bricks inside. When this happens it does not take long for the rain to cause whole walls on the windward side to collapse.
Every day I would ask the workers – “how is your home”? For the first few days of this last episode of rain I would hear “no problem”. And I would rejoice with them. Then towards the end of this period I began to hear “my home collapsed last night”. I would ask them what they were going to do, knowing that they could not affect any repairs during the rainy season, too much rain destroying any mud blocks they would try to make. Mostly they would respond that they would try to find some plastic and cover up the holes, trying to secure the remaining walls so they at least have a place to stay.
Our hearts go out to them, ready to help them if they say they need help. But, that’s the interesting thing about it, this year none of the workers have asked for help. In reality this is the first time since we have lived here in the North (more than five years now) that there has been an abundance of rain, at just the right times and also the right amounts. It seems that they are so happy to have fields producing food, food on their tables and food in excess to sell that the problem with their house is a small price to pay.
The parable of Jesus where He describes the wise man and the foolish man (Mathew 7: 24-27), in regards to how they construct their houses is so applicable here. While we don’t have rock to put our foundations on, we can build with a good foundation, even on the sand, a foundation that will stand strong. So, to build here you need to make a very large and sturdy and deep foundation (of mud, sand and stone), then start building your house. People don’t have problems with their foundations, usually, they have problems with their walls, what they put on the foundation. How true this can be for us as well, we may have good training, good understanding, good background in our knowledge of God, Jesus and the Word, but if we don’t finish the story, put what we know into effective and aggressive action what we do will surly fall. We have all heard it – faith without action is dead. A good foundation without a good finish will fall.
What can we learn from this? Finish the race! Do it right and whatever storm comes at you will fail, but you will succeed. Thank you Lord!
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