Faith and Favor

Hello, all!

Thank you all so much who have been so faithful to pray for us during this turbulent time of transition and change. Keep them coming! I'm writing this from Zimpeto, one of the Iris bases close to Maputo, the capital city. We visited this base about 3 times last year, so it is great to see people we know again. We're staying in the visitor's center, where every door has a phrase artfully painted on it, and our room is called "Faith and Favor." As soon as we saw that, we realized how much we need both at this time: we need so much faith that God will pull through for us and favor with the government officials. We are trying to get our residency status in Mozambique, but we had to leave Dondo before we had all the right documents to take to South Africa. Then the lead administrator person we were supposed to meet with here to help us with the process forgot about our appointment and left today for another province. We're praying hard that we can get the necessary paperwork done in South Africa anyway, and quickly, because we really can't extend our stay there. We agreed to host a conference on our base the 27^th through 30^th of this month, so we need to get back around the 20^th to be able to prepare for that! Please join with us in praying for deeper faith and miraculous favor. If all else fails we'll just need to get another visitor's visa and postpone the residency, but that's tough too for other reasons… So yes, please pray!

One thing that's great about visiting here is we've had a chance to talk to a bunch of the weathered missionaries who have tons of experience and advice. It's been so good to sit down with them and just learn. We hope to do even more in South Africa with the missionaries there. We've also learned of a leadership conference that one of the missionaries is trying to put on here in Maputo this year, and it sounds like an exciting opportunity for us to send some of our Dondo leaders to learn.

Some other random news and testimonies…

• The Brazilian couple who have come to help us out have been amazing. The husband has a huge heart for evangelism, and has made 2 trips per week that have been very successful. We are in the middle of planting our first church! The wife is a nurse and has a huge heart to help me disciple the kids, which I needed so much.
  
• The team from California blessed us amazingly, they did ministry times with us missionaries, Mozambican leaders, kids, and Bible students, and really poured a lot into everyone. It was so refreshing! They also left a very helpful financial contribution that we will be able to use to make improvements in the kids' area.
  
• Some of the people who have taken advantage of us in the time of transition came back and repented, apologizing for everything and saying they respect us as leaders. This came from just loving them and spending time with them, even when we knew they were stealing from us. God just used that to completely change their hearts!
  
• We have some short-term help coming in soon, so we are very thankful for those prayers! Continue to pray that God would place it on people's hearts to labor in this ripe harvest in Dondo.
  

Many thanks again for the prayers,

~Carla Reinagel