Well, our time in Mozambique has come to a close. We just cannot believe how quickly the last weeks have gone! Since the last update, nearly the entire building- inside and out- is covered in white paint. Only about 1/3rd of 3 exterior walls needs to be done yet. We wish it could have been completed, but are at least happy we got that far.

We had to leave Mozambique on Sunday since our visas ran out, so we took a little road trip and spent the last 2 days of our trip in the country of Swaziland. Before we left, we were able to go to at least part of a church service- I think one of my favorite parts about Africa is to hear and see the people's passion as they worship God through song. It's incredible and there really is nothing quite like it.

In Swaziland, the 3 of us shared a guest house on another Bible College's campus and were very warmly welcomed by the missionaries and the students there. It was a very relaxing time and, much to Jamison and Chad's delight,we got in some good souvenir shopping time. :) Unfortunately for Chad, though, he spent most of those 2 days inside a car repair shop. His truck had begun running funny and the check engine light would come on/off occasionally. Since he is leaving next week on a distribution trip, he thought it best to get it fixed. Some work was done to it in Swaziland, but the issue was still not fixed. We even began to question whether or not it would even get us back to JoBurg for our flight. But after many prayers, God blessed us with a very uneventful drive back into South Africa and back to the airport. His truck ran like a champ and no lights came on the whole day. Praise God for answered prayers yet again!

All of our flights went really well and we arrived back in GR around 1:00 yesterday afternoon. After spending that long on planes and in airports, we were glad to finally arrive home, but I can say without a doubt that I would much rather be painting the studio again today rather than getting back to life here. I have a feeling I am going to have a difficult time with the adjustment. We just keep praying that God is not done using us in Africa and that he gives us opportunities to serve there again. We feel incredibly blessed to have had this opportunity! And we have an ever growing respect for Chad and the work he does there for the ministry. He is so devoted and passionate- it is so easy to see God working through him as he serves the men and women there. Please continue to pray for him and the ministry.

And as a very specific prayer request, please pray for the car situation. After dropping us up at the airport, he took the car into another shop. I just heard from him today that they need to do a complete rebuild of his fuel pump, which is a very costly and timely repair. His truck is out of commission until Tuesday. He picked up another couple from the airport who are going to be joining him on the distribution next week and are planning to leave on the distribution 1 week from today. The devil is trying to work overtime to get them to not go on this trip (I feel like he has been trying really hard to mess stuff up for the studio and ministry lately). But, as we have seen from the past, our God is bigger and can overcome! You think the devil would get the hint and just give up! So pray again that God reveal his power and that ultimately, His will be done.

Thank you for your support and prayers. They have not been in vain. And one last little plug, keep your calendars open for Friday evening, May 18. ASM is planning a night of worship and stories about how God is working through this ministry. All of the missionaries, Chad included, will be in attendance, so you can hear the stories first-hand. We are very excited about this event, even though it is still very much in the beginning stages of planning. We'd love to see you there!

It is hard to believe that tomorrow is our final day of working on the studio. I first just have to say thank you so much for all of your prayers! A lot of great things are happening here and we can see God's hand in it.

First off, Jamison ended up with a little bug of some sorts on Saturday and spent most of the day in bed. He was quite disappointed that he didn't even feel up to going to the beach that day, but he felt much better that evening already and had made a complete recovery by Sunday morning. There could not have been a more perfect day to not feel well- on a day where we had absolutely nothing planned anyways, and it did not keep him away from the church service/player distribution on Sunday or any work on the studio. Thank you, God, for good timing. Chad also had a slight cold last week and for a few days this week had nearly lost his voice. Thankfully, though, he felt fine this week, despite the voice issue, and was able to continue his work too!

As of today, we have the entire apartment area complete with all final coats of paint, the rest of the interior covered with white paint, and about 1/3 of the outside painted white, too. As I said in an earlier post, time is working against us...all of the areas that have been primed must be covered by real paint within 30 days or it will start to break down. So the 30 day clock stops once we get those areas covered with the white paint. Our goal is to get the rest of the exterior walls done tomorrow, but we are thinking that we will run out of paint before they are complete. We are all amazed, though, at how quickly we covered ground this week. Prayers are being answered! And Chad and I even lost a day of work, since we traveled to Maputo on Tuesday with Sergio to purchase more paint and other supplies. (We are still struggling to find tile that will work and that will not cost the studio a fortune. Who would have even thought picking out tile would be so hard? I can't even count how many times we have commented on how nice it would be to open up a Home Depot here.) :)

Honestly, I didn't think we would even get this far before we had to leave. Praise God! The more we can do now, the less Chad has to do on his own later. It takes a huge burden off his shoulders. So please pray again for efficient work tomorrow, that the paint will stretch as far as we need it to (we can't get any more in town...we have to drive 3.5 hrs to Maputo for more, so this is officially the last bucket that we will have a chance to work with), and for safety as much of tomorrow will be spent on scaffolding.

I will try to put some photos up  on Facebook maybe tomorrow...or at least before we leave Mozambique on Sunday. I can confidently say for both Jamison and myself, we wish that Sunday was not just around the corner. We are having a great time here doing this work and building relationships. We are tired, but would rather continue this work for a while longer before returning home. It is so crazy how God can change your heart. I don't think you could EVER get me to paint every single weekday for 5 weeks at home and have me still WANTING to do more of it! There is just something about doing it for His glory that changes your whole perspective. There is nothing better than playing even a tiny part in His plan for this ministry. We know God is going to do great things through this studio...we have seen and heard about such things first hand...and are so excited to see it get up and running! We are so thankful that God has called us here for this purpose and are already praying that God give us a purpose to again return in the future.

Thank you again for your prayers!

OK, so we are finally back to moving forward. Yesterday, we finished painting over all of the original colored paint with white and are now back on to applying the colored paint again. It is covering much nicer, but unfortunately still needs two coats to cover really well. So that means that every single wall of that place still needs 3 more coats of paint. :( Chad has been busy slapping on the white stuff, while Jamison and I have been painting over the white with the color. We are very close to having the whole back apartment area complete. The only thing it will be lacking is tile, windows, and a sink. It is looking really nice! Oh yeah, I had mentioned earlier that the windows would most likely be here and getting installed today. Wrong! We got an updated time estimate, and now it looks like they are set to arrive the day we fly back to the States, so we won't be seeing them. Bummer!

And the tile is a whole other story. There is absolutely no selection here in Xai-Xai, that is, unless you wanted some high gloss, gaudy floral print tiles. Then the selection is endless! :) I thought Chad was exaggerating a bit when he pre-warned me about this, but he was not at all. We're hoping to find something nicer when we head into Maputo at some point this week.

Last night we had a great night hanging out with a bunch of missionaries who live in the area, as well as  a team of 2 women staying here for the week working with World Hope. There was a crazy thunderstorm last night, too, that even got us sitting straight up in bed at one point. Chad said that he was already up and he saw the lightning strike what looked like not too far from behind the wall surrounding the Lehman's property where we are staying.

We all decided to take a break from painting today so our arms could recover a bit, but Chad just left to work on some electrical stuff. Jamison is still in bed and I am busy running a load of laundry. Looks to be a pretty uneventful Saturday so far. It is very much needed, as we having been putting in 8-11 hour work days, painting the whole time. The time has been going by really fast, but I'm not so sure you'll see any of us holding another paintbrush for quite some time after this. :)

Tomorrow we are planning on visiting a church quite a ways from Xai Xai and distributing some players. We are very excited about that. Oh, here's a really cool story about the use of players, too!

Sunday night, we learned that a local shop owner of Indian descent had begun inquiring about Christianity and had asked somebody (not sure if it was a missionary or a someone from the Bible College) if they had access to a Bible in his native Indian tongue. They did not, so Chad contacted another ASM missionary, who happens to be in India right now, and JP was able to get an audio form of the Bible in that language. Chad was able to get that from him over the internet and put it onto one of the players. It's incredible how the use of technology has impacted this ministry! God is so creative! Please pray with us for this man; that his eyes may be open to the truth through hearing the Word.

Since our last post, we were able to get all of the remaining exterior primed, in addition to the front veranda. We did not do the staircase or the fancy little front pillar decoration things. Those will have to wait for some other time. God blessed us with great weather to finish off painting the north exterior wall... we were at work painting already at 6am yesterday to beat the sun a bit. The sun rises at 5:30 here, and that wall is pretty much in the sun all day. But yesterday the Lord blessed us with some cloud cover, so it was actually quite pleasant working on it.

We also began to paint a few more rooms with the top coat paint, but after needing 3 coats of it in the bathroom to cover relatively well, we figured that we had to come up with a different alternative. The plaster primer stuff soaked into the wall so much, that we were still seeing shadowy areas where the cement color was showing through. If we had to put 3 coats of paint on every room, it would not only take FOREVER, but would also cost a fortune. The final paint is pretty expensive, so we eperimented in a small area with putting a layer of white paint down first (which costs less than half of the colored stuff), then putting the color on top. That seemed to work MUCH better. Chad went out to buy more white paint, so we painted a few rooms white today. Sad thing, though, was we had to paint over some of the rooms we had already painted with the color, so it kind of felt like we were taking a step backwards today. But we are all hopefull that we are saving ourselves some time in the long run. We'll see. :)

Another issue that we are facing now is that the clock is working against us. Once the plaster primer is up on the walls, you have 30 days to paint over it before it starts to break down. And there is a lot of surface area that we covered with primer. It was important that we got the primer on when we did, though, because it is helping to prevent any moisure from getting into the cement walls. But the issue is that we only have a few work days left here. We legally have to be out of Mozambique next week Sunday because our travel visas run out. So that gives us the rest of this week and all of next week. Our plans as of now are to spend a few days in Swaziland before Chad drops us off at the airport in South Africa. From there, he is picking up another couple from the States who are planning a player distribution. He has 4 days to work on the studio before heading up north for that week long distribution trip. After that, he has 4 days to work on the studio before flying back to the States for a month. So, to make a long story short, there is a lot of paint that must get on these walls in a very short amount of working days. We are just so thankful that we have been able to stay this long to help take some of the burden off Chad, Sergio, and Steve's shoulders. We just wish we could stay longer.

Besides some sore backs, cramping hands, and Chad's little run in with his leg and a cement block (he has a nice photo on his facebook if you are interested in seeing), we have remained injury free. We are very thankful for the renewed energy God blesses us with each morning, too, and have all been in great spirits about the work we are doing. We have even been putting one of the Scripture players to good use as we have been listening our way through a few books of the Bible as we paint. We're having a lot of fun working together.

Please pray that we work quickly and efficiently, and that we are able to get most of the painting done before we have to head back home. Pray also for Chad as he has a very busy month ahead of him and is feeling the pressure of the amount of work that needs to be done yet. Continue to pray for the upcoming distribution trip...400 of the 500 players have been uploaded in the past few days (Sergio and Steve have been busy). God is so good! Thank you for praying with us!

Yesterday marked the very last day for usig the primer inside. We even put primer on the front outside wall as well. So now all that is left to prime is the front decorative pillars and the north wall. We are all ready to go on the north wall and are up early this morning to get it done before the sun starts baking on it. Then, of course, there is the perimeter wall that needs to be primed, but we're probaly not going to get to that. After lunch, we were even able to put the first coat of the real paint on one of the rooms. It is looking great! It's nice to see the building get some color. Anyways, time for breakfast! Another update to come soon!

Ola!

So I know many of you have been patiently waiting new photos on Facebook. Sorry, we haven't been doing the greatest at keeping up with things on our end. But I just posted a slew of them to the One Brick at a Time Facebook page, so check them out! http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.339307536112977.75121.156675331042866&type=3.

I'm goint to make this relatively quick, as it is way past my bedtime. Today was a pretty productive day. We basically got all but one room upstairs primed today...once that is completed, the priming of the inside is complete! By the end of the day, our hands were pretty cramped from the paint rollers and we were all a slight bit whiter from all of the tiny paint speckles all over us. The primer is oil-based and is meant to bind with plaster, so it is some pretty potent stuff. It has even been known to eat through a plastic yogurt container and even irritate skin if left in contact for prolonged periods of time. So needless to say, we are all looking very forward to moving onto working with the water based top coat paint.

There is a very good chance that we will have windows at the studio by this weekend, and perhaps even installed on Saturday! Progress is being made! Praise God! Also, the other day, Sergio and Steve began uploading the Sena language onto some players in preparation for a huge distribution taking place in the delta of the Zambezi River. I believe that this is the first time that players will have been distributed in that language. So pray for God's continued blessing over that.

Also, I had mentioned in an earlier post about the possibility about sending another team out here to help with the building project. Well, it looks like we are officially heading in that direction. The 2 timeframe options we are looking at is either the first or fourth week in July. The trip would be approximately 11-12 days long. We are trying to guage if there is real interest in a trip like this before moving forward, so if you are interested at all in this opportunity or have more questions, PLEASE contact me either through the contact page on this website or by emailing me at worstk@gmail.com. Another thing to pray about...the missionaries whose home we are staying in and who cook the meals for the teams will be back in the States in July, so we may be in need of a team 'mom' to be in charge of planning and preparing meals. As for the other work, we are not sure at this point what the team would be working on, but it is guaranteed that there will be work to do. It just depends on what gets done between now and then. So please keep the whole issue of sending another team in your prayers.

Alright, it is really time for me to go to bed. Thanks again for your prayers! Boa noite!

Yes, it is blog update time...I know you all are anxiously awaiting the latest happenings from accross the pond.Well, it has been quite the primer week. At the time I write this, we have the entire lower floor primed, much of the upstairs prepped, and some of the walls primed, and two entire outside walls primed. I think the paint fumes were getting to us; after thinks started getting a little loopy at lunch, we cut out a little early on Friday.Friday night is pizza night here at the Lehman's place, so usually several other local missionaries join us here, but some were sick, and some were in South Africa yet gettig supplies. But we had a great time eating home made pizza and playing Settlers of Catan.Saturday, was a great relax day. Chad did go into the studio for a little bit, but joined Kristen and I (Jamison) late morning for some beach time. We got a little sorkeling in, even though it was a bit murky yet. Evening, we had a go ol' South African style braai (grill-out) with Kudu burgers, boervoors, and franks, mmmmmm.This morning, we will head out to either Sergio or Steve's church.Prayer Requests:We have had great weather the past week...no more topical storms. Pray the the weather would continue to be pleasant, as we do have alot of priming and painting to tackle; and pray that we can get alot done!We will also have to travel to Maputo once more or supplies. Pray for safety on the roads and that we will get our business done and be back to Xai-Xai before dark (you don't want to travel at dark...it's crazy).Continue to pray for funding needs for players. This is the focus of the ministry here, and demand seems to be increasing exponentially! For those of you who didn't read Chad's update, a pastor came to us the other day requesting up to 5,000 players! The hunger for the Word here is real, and it is huge!God is truly doing awesome things here in Mozambique, but we can also see Satan trying to stop work that is being done here. Pray for strong faith and unity among Christians here, and that Truth will prevail.Again, we thank you for your continued prayers and support! -Jamison

Hey! Just thought we would give a quick update about the happenings over in Xai Xai. Well, it looks like the tropical storm just grazed us this weekend, but never actually hit landfall. Predictions have it coming back up and around to us again later this week, but expect it to be dissipating. So we may get some more rain, but it sholdn't be anything serious. Praise God!

We weren't able to do a whole lot at the studio yet this week, as all of the cement walls and stuff got pretty soaked durig the storm and we have to wait for them to dry out before we can paint. And it has been unseasonably cloudy this week, so it hasn't been drying up very fast. We were able to paint the rest of the ceilings of the main floor on Monday, though, as those were the only dry parts. So that is done! Yesterday we went to town for some groceries and supplies for the building. Going to town is quite an event. It is nearly impossile to get all that you need from one store like it is at home, so running errands turns into a half-day excursion. :) When we got back to the studio, Jamison went to work filling more cracks in the walls and around the building and Chad worked on some electrical stuff. I did more sanding.

It looks like we can paint today, so we are all dressed and ready to go in our painting garb. We are going to attempt to prime inside, but if the walls have dried up, we might get started on the outside, too, before we get more rain.

We are hving a great time here and very thankful for the opportunity to stay this long to help out. There is a lot of work to be done on the studio and only a few workers doing it all (Chad, Sergio, and Steve- but Sergio and Steve have been getting back to doing some work in the studio itself, not on the building as much anymore.) So just in case you are wondering, another team would be very helpful to them before their projected completion date in September. Hint, hint! Let me know if you or anyone else you know might be interested in coming out to help! Seriously!

Thank you so much for your continued prayers! Now off to eat breakfast and to paint!!

And then there were three...

Well, the team left Maputo Airport safely...and with no time to spare, as Tropical Storm Irina followed only just a few hours later. Now it's just a "mini team" of me (Jamison) and Kristen helping out Chad, Sergio, and Steve.

In Maputo, we picked up more primer and paint as well as looked at windows and tile. The drive back to Xai-Xai was better than expected; it seemed that the winds from the morning had died down, we got home before dark, and the winds and rain only picked up significantly as we approached Xai-Xai. Praise God there was only minimal damage from the storm!!! There was water in the current studio, but nothing that was too severe to cause damage...just enough to make it all smell wet. We do ask for continued prayer that Irina go back to sea and fizzle out, instead of coming back to our area, as "they" are predicting.

This week should be a good week of painting, if the building can dry out. So far, we can only paint some ceilings on the main floor, as they are dry. But we have everything we need to continue working. We ask for prayer that there would be no interruptions to getting the work done, and that the studio would dry out quickly. The sooner the guys can move into the new studio, the better!

We attended church at the Bible college, had leftover spagetti, and had a mostly relaxing Sunday afternoon. Let's paint!

-Jamison

Our week here has come to an end.  We finished working at the studio early yesterday afternoon.  Chad took us to the market and we stopped at Sergio's house to say goodbye to his family. 

We had dinner last night at the Lehman's with Jason and Rachel Helm and a couple of other missionary teachers in the area.  We packed up as much as we could last night and are doing final packing this morning.

God provided excellent weather which allowed us to get a lot done at the studio but there is still a lot that must be accomplished.  Keep praying for Chad as he continues with the building project.

We have been loosing the internet periodically so it was hard to upload pictures but we will do so when we get home.

Please continue to pray for a safe trip home.

The Team.