Trash collection

The trash here is burned or left to decompose on the sidewalks, in ditches and along highways. After polishing off a package of cookies, just drop the package out the car window.

Indoors is another problem. The absence of waste baskets in our guest houses was frustrating. Where does one throw the plastic wrappers, used tissues and scrap paper?

We came from a land of plenty, plenty of Hefty Cinch Sacks and Rubbermaid trash cans, of garbage trucks and infrastructure.We arrived in a land of litter.

I confess I noticed the annoyance of, "Where do I toss my Q-tips?" more readily than I did the mounds of decaying cans, fabric and corn husks that lined the highway. One member of our church group couldn't get over the trash. It stumped him. How on earth were the people of Mozambique going to get rid of it?

In the U.S. we set our trash by the curb and someone, hopefully someone well-paid, comes by and takes it away. It gets buried in a landfill or, for the environmentally concious cities, recycled.

Our job is to take it to the curb. Not hard. If we do that, our trash gets taken away forever. But if we fail to put it out no one comes knocking on our door asking for our trash.

God wants to take our trash from us, the group member said. But we have to carry it to the curb.

Lord, give us grace to call our trash what it is and let you take it away.

One church

African American churches might be known for their audience participation, but this was my first African church experience. Caught between an uncontrollable desire to join in the dancing and self-awareness of my lack of rhythm and grace, I swayed and clapped and barely noticed that three hours had passed.

The Missouri United Methodist Church has a covenant church relationship with Malhangalene United Methodist and its members are more than aware of this fact. Our visiting group of 11 were the personification of the church's financial, logistical and prayer support.

We were the recipients of lavished hospitality and gratitude. Some churches in the U.S. take a few minutes to greet guests and make them feel welcome. They might be asked to fill out a visitor registration card or stop by an information desk for a complimentary coffee mug. Not here.

Several dozen women gathered only a few feet in front of us and danced and sang their hearts out in welcome. You'd have thought we were their long-awaited family. Then they lined us up in front of the church to bestow gifts. Onto our shoulders they hung hand-woven basket bags. The men received woven straw hats. The women were wrapped with capallanas, meters of fabric that serve as a skirts, shawls, baby carriers and limitless other possibilities. And we all received two-cheeked kisses.


After the service the church provided lunch, for the entire congregation. Beans, rice, shima (a porridge of extremely thick grits), cassava, chicken and stewed greens filled the corner of a back room. Dozens of glass bottles of soda lined a guest table where we sat. Everyone else sat outside, in chairs lining the church's walls. I wondered how recently the congregants had eaten, and why grown women held out weathered wrists and unashamedly asked for the fluorescent bracelets we were handing out to the children.

There were not enough bracelets, t-shirts or necklaces to go around. There was not enough nourishment to last the week. But that wasn't why we had come. This was one meal, one trinket, one visit to remind us that we are one church, one faith, one hope, one Lord. Still, I can't help but feel we got the better end of the visit.

Nail polish

We left Missouri on our longest day of the year and arrived in South Africa on their shortest day. By the time we stepped off the plane in Maputo, Mozambique I'd lost count of the hours in transit.

We had passed from light to dark, from the smothering heat of the Midwestern U.S. to the brisk cool of southeastern Africa. The eleven of us, Volunteers in Missions from the Missouri United Methodist Church, descended the stairs into smoky sea air.

We cleared customs, retrieved luggage and exited the airport to the welcome sight of the cross and red flame on the side of a white minibus. We had left the parking lot of a church bearing the same symbol nearly two days before.

Clunking over potholes and dodging missing pieces of road, Telmo, our trusty driver whom we would come to know and love, transported us to the Maputo guesthouse for the first two nights of our two week stay in country.

Scents of savory beef and chicken soup met us as cordially as the staff, which hauled our luggage atop their heads, up the stairs and down a hall into our bedrooms.

We spread out- only two or three to a room. Our beds had sheets, blankets, bedspreads and folded towels and family-sized bars of soap. This was not what we had expected. I wouldn't need to unpack my sleeping bag.

Heads leaned into the bathroom trying to learn how to work the shower. Mini water heaters on the shower heads had been installed in the last two years. We had braced ourselves for cold and found not the last of many surprises.

On the knob of the mirror in the back bathroom was a sticker from a bottle of OPI nail polish, "We're Not in Kansas Anymore ... Red." It brought a smile, in spite of the sopping wet floor and troublesome toilet situation.

We weren't supposed to flush it? Throw the tissue in the waste bin and pour a pitcher of water where? In the tank? In the stool? Jet lag might have been contributing to the confusion, but floating toilet paper ensured I was not the only one who hadn't mastered this new system.

Long time gone

I haven't blogged in a while, which might be a bit of an understatement. Someone could have birthed two children in the time I've been away. But at long last I am returning out of necessity. These next two months I'll be in Mozambique, a country of about 20 million, on the southeastern coast of Africa. Blogging seems the likeliest chance of consistent communication while I'm there.