Hope this musing finds all well with you and yours as we reflect on our own lives and those around the world during this Holy Week. First off, Happy Easter!! Hope this time is filled with love, peace, happiness, family time, reflection, hope and maybe even a bit of chocolate!

We have now gone beyond our 1 month anniversary in Maputo. This week marks our 6th week here. Here is what we have been up to since our last musing:

• We have been taking Portuguese lessons almost daily with Lucas and are coming on quite nicely. We can at least greet, understand how much things are at the market and can understand more than we can speak. We start a proper language school the first week in May to see how that will help us progress. That will be a 10 week course - so we should be proper students again with homework and grades, I suppose! =)
• We have worshiped at 6 of the 7 local congregations here in Maputo. We celebrated Palm Sunday at the Matola Congregation (the next larger town over from Maputo). It is a lovely, open church in the middle of a bairro with coconut, avocado and paw paw trees. We marched around the church with palms in hand singing Hosanna at 8:15am and it was something we will never forget! We will spend Easter Sunday in Matola as well and this is Lucas' (our language teacher) home church. The churches are much more informal here than the Xhosa churches in South Africa. The members are not in uniforms every Sunday, just normal church clothes. Everyone participates in the worship service, including the children. And at the beginning of the service, every group in the church sings a song (women, men, children, youth, etc) and then the service begins with liturgies, offering, readings, sermon, etc. There are male and female ministers almost equally. =) The services are usually 2 hours long and begin early (8am) and no evening services. So there are some definite differences from S. Africa yet so nice to see the diversity within the same denomination.
• We have moved into our new home, Casa 20 in the 5th Avenue Condos, Triunfo, Maputo! Not the New York 5th Avenue by any means, but home! =) We have 2 couches, a table and chairs and have borrowed mattresses, towels, and kitchen goods, but it is home for now! It is a lovely, newly renovated home where we feel super safe. There is a small space of grass in the front area and the dogs utilize it mainly! And the driveway and back area are concrete where the kids will hopefully eventually ride bikes and play. It is a wonderful community where there are tons of kids! The kids can run free with their new friends and it is a fenced in complex so they just hop from house to house playing with one another's toys. It is a God-send to us!
• We are still busy trying to obtain our visas and what a process. This is week 4 of multiple trips to the immigration office and we are praying that tomorrow is our day to actually pay for the visa and be officially approved as temporary residences of Mozambique! We are in a rush to get the visas as we can not bring all of our goods that are stored in South Africa across the border until we have the visas in hand! So that is why we are camping out in our new home! It is a VERY different visa process here than what we were used to in S. Africa! We must renew every YEAR whereas in South Africa multi year visas were relatively easy to get.
• We are also still trying to purchase a vehicle! There is much red tape to this process as well! So we are AGAIN hoping that tomorrow is our lucky day in getting this vehicle we have been working on for about 4 weeks as well. We have been so fortunate to have borrowed a 4 x 4 vehicle from the friends that we were staying with and not incur the expense of a rental car all these weeks. I don't know what we would have done without Paul and Marla. Again, a God-send!
• The kids have finished the first term of school and are now on a 3 week holiday! I don't know how we managed the timing on this, but here we are nonetheless! We met with their teachers and they are both doing very well in class, making new friends and coping with new routines. They are pretty amazing kids, I think! =) The school here is ahead of what they were doing in the USA, so we have done some extra work at home in the evenings, but they don't mind it. Aly especially seems interested and motivated at the moment and learning to read more and more everyday. Khaya says the boys in his class are naughty (which his teacher did tell us that up front!) and so he hangs out with the girls. But academically, they are both excelling and the teachers are impressed with their work and behavior. One of the boys that they are both friends with at school luckily also lives in our housing complex. His name is Herbert, yet they call him Halbert, and he is from Malawi!
• We had the pleasure of having dinner with our UCCSA General Secretary, Prince Dibeela, and his wife Cheryl, here in Mozambique a couple of Saturday nights ago. It was so nice to sit on the waterfront, eating prawns discussing our jobs, his struggles and joys of being General Secretary, and the finer points of theology. We really are lucky folks to be doing what we do! The UCCSA biannual assembly will be held here in Mozambique in September so there is lots of planning to be done and Prince wants to assist where we can.
• Lotes Mazive is the assistant to the Synod Secretary, Xavier Feniosse, here in Mozi and he has been a HUGE help to us in so many ways. He and Xavier have met with us on many occasions in regard to work, housing, visas, travel, etc. We are thankful to have them as partners! Lotes has assisted us in meeting the head of the Ministry of Religion here in Maputo and will take us out and about in the weeks ahead to meet other key role players in the work that we will be doing over the next 4 years.

We have encountered our first trip to the clinic here! Aly had an ear infection and I took her early one morning at the end of March. Luckily, I knew exactly what it was and the treatment that she would normally require. The Sommerschield Clinic is known for good treatment, however when we showed up at 7am there was no doctor. After a 45 minute wait a dr. showed up but spoke very little English. But though my broken Portuguese and his broken English we managed an antibiotic, drops and pain relief. 2 days later she was good as gold and has been ever since. So we are thankful for that! Another reason to know Portuguese!! =) Aly has lost her toenail on her big toe from being shut in the door as well, however that did not require a clinic visit, just lots of TLC!

We have toured the local market that sells fresh flowers, local arts and crafts and has nice little cafes available as well. So we are now ready to accept visitors who want to boost the local economy! One of Aly's front teeth fell out and the tooth fairy left her money. She made her very first Mozambique purchase with 70 Meticais (just over $2) and it was a lovely wooden giraffe from this market! =)

7 April was Women's Day here in Mozi. It was a low key day where everyone was off work, no traffic and lots of folks on the beach. We joined them there!

We have toured the Natural History Museum in Maputo. It is a bit dusty but quite nice - it will also be on the list of tourist things to visit...including very animated animal scenes and elephants fetuses from inception to birth!!!

Jon has become a pro at purchasing fish from the mercado do piexe (fish market). It is quite the adventure, but good to learn new fish and practice Portuguese. Unfortunately, my vegetarianism grows stronger when I go there with the smells, guts and fish eyes looking at me!! Khaya LOVES to accompany Dad there and is eager to know all the fishes species, colors and any other info he can gather. And of course, his favorite are the prawns!!

Annie, the oldest wiener dog who is nearly 15, has had 2 trips to the vet since our arrival. So thankful for Isabel who is the best vet I have EVER had! She is Portuguese and more thorough than any vet I've had in the US. She did find a tumor on Annie's back, right side, but most important was the infection in her lung. Poor doggie! Annie also had some bacteria on her skin. So...after 2 rounds of antibiotics, antihistamine and some special shampoo I think she feels better and is going to be okay....for now anyway! She is old, but still kicking, as they say!

Jon is dying to go and check out the local golf course, but has not yet found the time to do so. As he says, he is too busy carting me around to the shops! (I am not driving yet! I refuse until we get a car in our name with our own insurance!) He did go and check out the office at the course and says you can't get to it unless you have a 4 x 4!! So it will be an adventure, I am sure of that, when he finally makes it there! In the meantime, he is running...running right along the Indian Ocean! I, too, am taking evening walks along the sea and it is so stunning! I have a walking partner, Sue from South Africa, 3 evenings a week and that is so nice too!

I have become a member of a women's book club that meets once a week. It is a group of about 10-12 women and are some how connected to the American International School and they invited me to join them. It is really more of a social event once a month and we share books but that is so nice to have! Jon has been invited to play basketball once a week at the American School as well and really enjoyed that last week for the first time - even though he was sore!

So...that is us Barnes' in Mozambique! What is happening in your world wherever you may be? Wherever you are.....Happy Easter and love from all of us!