Mercy Air: Maintenance and Education at Marromeu, Mozambique. August 2016

Due the Military unrest in Mozambique it has been impossible to visit central areas for more than a year. We were overjoyed to finally be granted permission to visit this Mission with which we have been regularly involved since 2008.

The inability to get permits to visit this remote base has hindered the regular helicopter assistance. Previously, every few months, the helicopter enabled immunization, medical care, education and evangelism outreaches. These communities who live out in the Zambezi Delta had had no visitors nor access to external medical, pastoral or educational help for over a year.

The YWAM base in Nensa, Marromeu staff and coordinate all the Heli flights into the Zambezi Delta but due to the lack of these flights, they have been able to invest much more of their hearts, time and and talents into the Nensa community nearer to where they live. What an incredible job this team has done:

· Maintaining the YWAM base

· Running a discipleship course within the local community

· Opening a pre-school with two classes. This meets a huge need in the community.

· Building a new school for the community which will open next year—including a Grade 1 class.

The maintenance staff of the Nensa base were in desperate need of skilled labourers to mentor their guys and assist with a few of the essential broken projects.

Our fine team of maintenance guys had a variety of skills and were gifted with the ability to improvise in the absence of proper tools or required parts to make something work!

There’s nothing like pictures to give you a firsthand account of the many tasks they tackled. High on the priority list was fixing toilets.

They repaired 22 toilets and mentored other staff at the base, teaching them how to fix ALL ASPECTS of a toilet.

A new sink was installed in the staff canteen. This is going to be a major asset to running the whole program much more effectively.

Many other taps were repaired and plumbing jobs tackled. Thank goodness for a Leatherman.

The next project was to fix the generator that had been repaired with a palm leaf make-shift pulley and rather dodgy wiring system.

And then it was to work repairing and welding the gate.

A quick training session on how to seal the roof to prevent leaks and damaged ceilings.

Education and Training

Behind all the competent maintenance going on are these great servant hearts who are serving this community in so many ways.

“I am so proud of the staff and teachers at this pre-school. In spite of only a few years of schooling in their own lives, these three teachers are learning with the children and imparting many of the years of learning, basic education and Bible study taught alongside Caitlin Mbewe (a missionary to this area for many years) and the Mercy Air Education teams that have visited since 2010.” Anne Herbert

These talented teachers also impart such love, care and positive values not only to the children they teach but also to the families of these children. They share God’s heart for these remote, poverty-stricken communities and are an example of being the hands and feet of Jesus.

This is the greatest plan ever! The parents in this pre-school cannot afford the fees. Every mum, in lieu of fees, has to commit some of their time to cooking and serving food to all the children in the school and cleaning up after lunch. This provides opportunity for the building of relationship with each family. This card is going home with two children today to remind their mothers that they are on duty for cooking tomorrow. The mums always turn up! The cards always come back to school!

This was a first for many trying out some fun outdoor activities. Even the teachers had the opportunity to try out new skills for the first time so that they can re-teach and practice a new repertoire of skills with the equipment that Mercy Air flew up and donated to the school. This equipment will be set up each day to create an outdoor play area and teach many critical skills that will enhance essential Pre-Reading skills.

Active learning is an experience that is worth sharing and passing on to others.

Every afternoon was taken up with teacher training where the teachers engaged in new games and activities. The next day new skills were implemented by the teachers and taught in their classes.