CONNECTING THE CHURCH THE OTHER SIX DAYS OF THE WEEK
The Widow's Might
On Friday, October 9th, 7:00pm at Harbert Community Church, there will be a fundraiser to help The Widow’s Might raise money for electricity. People can make direct donations, but there will also be a number of items auctioned off. Those who participated in last year’s auction with David Marsh as auctioneer will be expecting another uproarious time!
What kinds of things will be auctioned? Last year’s items included: a dozen eggs from Debbie Reith; homemade ice cream by Pastor Jay; a golf cart tour of Michigan shores by Van and Dorothy Simmons; gourmet desserts on request by Linnea Berg; restaurant gift certificates, and many more. Most of the items created wonderful opportunities for people from our church to connect with each other in new ways.
This year something new will be added: eBay sales. For those who have collectibles, jewelry, watches or other items they would be willing to donate, Dave Nichols will sell them on eBay on behalf of the Widow’s Might. Items most easily sold on eBay will be ones that can be inexpensively shipped and have a likely value of $25 or more.
All eBay auctions will end at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, October 9 in order for the results to be shared with those in attendance at the fundraiser. If you have items to donate for sale on eBay, please bring them to the church office no later than Thursday, October 1.
We are also in need of goods and services to be auctioned. Please contact Dave Nichols (248-990-7444 or dnich1803@gmail.com ) with brief descriptions of your donations by Monday October 5th.
In April of this year, I headed to Mozambique. While the journey was familiar, it was the first time I would step foot in the country as part of The Widow’s Might. When I got to our property to see the house Nunu had been working to build, it was an exciting breath of fresh air.
Leading up to my departure, I had to keep telling myself that I was going camping. Why? Because while the house was “livable,” it still had no running water, no bathroom, no electricity and half of the house was still a dirt floor. While I knew the flooring and toilet would soon follow, I wasn’t so sure about the other things. I thought to myself, “How hard can it be to live without electricity? I’ll manage.”
While I did manage, it was not easy. It was actually a lot harder than I had expected. While I’m sure you can all imagine what it’s like to not have electricity for a few hours or days, here are some of the things that I found most frustrating during my three months in Moz.
For starters, on the longest days, we have 13 hours of sunlight, with the sunrise at 4:30 and the setting at 5:30. Most days I had to shower and cook dinner before sundown or it meant doing both of those in the dark by cell phone light. I kid you not, we set up a tripod in our bathroom to hold our cellphones while we showered!
Without air conditioning or even fans, I’ve found that most things take 2 to 3 times longer than they should because I’m having to take long breaks to not overheat or because our room was so hot that neither Nunu nor I slept well the night before. Buying food was really hard. We had to eat most of what we bought in 2 – 3 days before it would go bad; we basically lived on anything you can make with tuna in a can.
I finally got a sewing machine to Mozambique! Many of you may know that I do a lot of sewing with African Wax fabrics to help us raise money for The Widow’s Might. We also hope to teach some women to do the same. But without electricity, it’s useless.
There are also the bugs that run away into the dark before you have a chance to get them, the fans that could easily blow mosquitos away from you (which helps prevent malaria), hot water for showers, being able to keep laptops charged long enough to post blogs and so many other things.
I say all these these thing to you, but I do want to make one thing clear. While there might be moments in time that I have been frustrated, I usually just laugh. I realize that living in a third world country means I won’t always be comfortable. If we still don’t have electricity when I return to Mozambique, by the grace of God, I will manage because I see the bigger picture and I know all things will happen in God’s time. And for that reason and that reason only, I’m not overwhelmed by our living situation.
That being said, the bottom line is that electricity would really help us to minister more effectively. Over the last year, Nunu has tried to work every angle to get the electric company to bring poles and wires to our area, but nothing has worked. This spring we received a quote from the electric company saying that it would cost 391,000 MZN, about $12,000 US.
The October 9 fundraiser at Harbert Church will be a big help toward reaching this goal of bringing electricity to our home and, as a bonus, to many others in the community.
