Welcome to Mozambique!

Hello friends and family!
I arrived safely here on Tuesday, May 31st. Thank you for praying. Jesus really blessed my
trip here (no airsickness, hallelujah!). All my luggage came through at the same time I did (praise God!). My dear friend Laura picked me up at the airport. When we arrived at the center, several children
remembered me and were calling out, "Mana Ana! Mana Ana!" :-) That was a joy.
The missionaries had a lovely room awaiting me. Dr. Jenny from England just went home
for a year, and had left me all her furniture (2 shelves, a desk, a small dresser, a chair), so I don’t
need to buy any. My room is painted a beautiful dark, robins egg blue. My mosquito net matches the
room perfectly! The Lord has just blessed me with such a comfortable space to call my home.
I share a section of the long term house with Vella. She has a bedroom, and we share a living room
and bath room. We share a kitchen with a wonderful couple from Texas.
Last night we had a potluck for home group. They prayed for me and made me feel very
welcome. There is a great team of about 35 long term missionaries here at the moment.
My current responsibilities will include assisting in the baby house, teaching preschool, and
working in the new library. I already spent some time sorting and organizing the books in the library.
And I have spent lots of time with the babies. Monday I will start working in the preschool. I am very
excited about that!
Thank you all for your prayers! Bless you. Please continue praying especially against malaria,
as tonight I noticed a mosquito bite on my ankle. I guess I didn’t do a good enough job with the bug spray.
I do have a cell phone now. You can go to phonecards.com, and purchase the African Safari card.
With that you can call and it costs just 9 cents per minute! My phone number is: 011-258-82-579-7134.
I look forward to hearing from you! Remember, I am 6 hours ahead, so it is 6:00 p.m., it will be midnight here. (But a call from home is worth being woken up, so call whenever you want!)


Children’s Day
June 1st, 2006
Today we celebrated children’s day here at the center. It is just about impossible to have a birthday party for each of the 450+ children here, so we have a special day for all of them. This morning Mama Heidi went to each dorm to pass out gifts to each child. (Heidi Baker founded Iris Ministries, and now travels to all of the Iris centers loving on the children, and to churches all over the world to minister to people.) I assisted in the baby house. They were thrilled with their new set of clothes, sunglasses, baby dolls, toy cars, blocks, and lots of other gifts . We had 2 tricycles for the baby house, which they all wanted to try out.
After gifts were opened and played with, the children changed into their new clothes, and we all walked to the church (which doubles as a dining room) for a special lunch- chicken, french fries, cole slaw, and, of course, lots and lots of rice! The children (including 150 kids we brought over from the city dump) sat at long tables, with balloons and streamers hanging from the rafters over head. The missionaries served them their lunch, and passed out bottles of pop. Then we sat down on the floor or squeezed in at the tables to eat with them. No utensils, just our fingers. There is something about eating with your hands that makes the rice taste better. The children were all aglow as they showed off their new things.
In the late afternoon the kids got a thrill, as they sat on the sidelines of our soccer field. We had male missionaries against male Mozambicans, then female missionaries against female Mozambicans!! It was loads of fun. After 2 ½ hours of playing the missionary ladies finally scored a goal. Bravo! We had so much fun.
At the end of the day everyone went to bed tired, but happy.

The Lord is awesome! Thank you for sending me here. Monday I will be getting into my responsibilities, and I look forward to that.

May you be blessed richly!
Love in Christ,
Anna Coumos