Thank you for your prayers for Abigail

Thank you for your prayers for Abigail's cough! We have had a hard two weeks. Abigails cough has been really bad & has been intensified by teething! Some nights we are getting very little sleep. We took Abigail to the doctor 10 days ago. It is thought that she has Asthma. It was very hard to find the medication prescribed. A week later after a lot of searching we were able to get the inhaler she needed. Please continue to pray for her. She really does not like taking the inhaler and it is such a battle. Some days recently it has been so hot and we need to keep the air conditioning on all night but we feel that this aggravates her cough. In addition we need to put gros on them with long sleeves to protect against mosquitos so we can't put less clothes on them. Please pray that God will really touch her wee body!! We really value your prayers!! We are going to South Africa for about a week. We leave on Tuesday. Pray for rest and refreshment!

Christmas in Mozambique!

We spent a quiet Christmas in the house and just had skype calls with family!! Abigail and Joshua love listening to the chat and seeing those they love on the screen!!

Today we had a lovely celebration of Christmas with our team!! We had a service this morning, communion and then a meal together!!

How lovely it is to have brothers and sisters here to share with. Abigail and Joshua loved being outside for some of the time!! Joshua is walking around now and Abigail will be on her feet soon!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Joshua and Abigail

We can hardly believe it-Joshua and Abigail are 1!!! Where has the last year gone to!?!? We had a wonderful day on Friday! We invited our team members and our Mozambican friends to a party. We had about 20 people here in total! We missed all our friends and family in Ireland and would have loved you to join us here too!! Below is a photo of the people here at the party!

It was a wonderful opportunity to spend time with our Mozambican friends and their families and build relationships! We pray that as time goes by these relationships will grow and we can stand alongside our brothers and sisters as they build God's Kingdom here in Mozambique!

We had a mixture of Mozambican, Irish and American food & of course lots of cake, brownies & traybakes!!! It was about 40 degrees but we put tables outside under the shade of the tree!!

It was lovely to see the children playing together with many of the toys we had brought in our suitcase!

Thank you so much for your prayers for us as a family!! We are so blessed to have Abigail and Joshua in our family and we celebrate the first year of their life and all the joy that they have brought to us!We hope that these photos help you to feel part of our celebrations!

Traffic Jams in Maputo!!

The twins are on the move on their ride-on toys!!! Watch out Maputo!! The traffic here is bad! Yesterday we had to go into Maputo and it took us over an hour to accomplish the 14km from our house to Maputo! Thankfully Abigail and Joshua slept for most of it and it was not too hot!!Some are coming to Maputo to spend Christmas with family, others are leaving to go to South Africa to spend time with family!! Vehicles are overladen with all kinds of things!! Please pray for us on the roads!


There are so many unsafe vehicles, many without proper brakes!! This accident happened yesterday minutes before we arrived on the scene. On Saturday we saw a bad accident again because brakes failed on a truck carrying sand coming down the same hill! We covet your prayers for safety as we are out and about!

Preaching in Picocco

On Sunday 5th December, I was invited to bring the message at the Picocco church. This is a small congregation about 45 minutes out from Maputo. Sharon and I debated whether or not we should take the twins. In the end we decided that it might not be a good idea - it could have ended up that the twins would be preaching! We prefer to go to church as a family but find that it can be really hard work as the twins want to eat the dirt and pull canico (reeds) from the walls of the church.

It was good to be back in Picocco again. Sharon and I helped Juka with some teaching at this church back in 2008.

Maputo Biblical and Theological Seminary

It is really encouraging for me to see how the seminary building is beginning to be used. As many of you know, when I was here in Mozambique from 2004 - 2007 I was involved extensively in building projects including the construction of the seminary building. The photo below shows myself and my assistant Geraldo in front of the seminary during construction (January 2007). You can even see that I had no grey hair then!!!

This building is now being used in a variety of different ways. Two church groups meet here with a weekly Portuguese service every Sunday morning at 8.45am and there is an English Fellowship group that meet on Sunday evening at 5pm. This past year has seen the beginning of a full-time diploma course with 30 students. Besides, there has been a day release IBNAL course running over three years with the students having just graduated last month!

God willing, 30 new students will enroll as first year students. Next term is due to start on 14th February 2011.

As time goes on, more and more like-minded organisations are using the facilities for special events and conferences. Three mission organisations are renting the top floor as office space. I have been working with Belarmino over the last few weeks to construct free-standing units that will serve in time as library shelves though in the meantime they will be used primarily as partitions to divide the space. Praise God for the consignment of furniture that came in the container from Ireland - we have been able to adapt the shelving to suit our needs. Photos to follow!

A recent interesting development involves the space at the entrance to the seminary - photo below.

We have just signed a contract with CLC which has a Christian Bookstore here in Maputo. They have been looking for somewhere to relocate for some time and eventually came to talk to OMS. We are excited about the partnership we now have with them as we feel it will be mutually beneficial.

As the photos show, this has involved some remodelling. We took down two partitions and have built a new one so that the shop can be self contained.

Thank you to all who have followed the work of the seminary. We appreciate your prayers as we seek to utilise this building for the glory of God and the extension of His kingdom.

Well Done Girassol!

Christmas is nearly here and Girassol achieved runner up in the Christmas window competition. Thank you to all who helped with the window-well done! Also we want to say a BIG THANK YOU to all who make the shop a success-donors, customers & workers in the shop!! You are playing your part in making a difference here in Mozambique & we really appreciate it!!