I had a really cool weekend. The church is in great hands for the future. We have engaged youth that want to make the world a better place. The leaders of WOW asked if MI wanted to lead a breakout "In Depth" session about Mozambique. Of course, I said yes!

More than 200 youth participated in my sessions. After briefly covering the mission of MI, I went in-depth on safe water and the work we are doing with drilling wells. I tried to make it real: Americans use on average between 80-100 gallons of water a day. Mozambicans use less than 5. We walk seconds to get fresh water, hot or cold. Average Mozambicans travel 1-4 hours per day just to get water.  I concluded the session by a Q&A session about Mozambique and letting the youth carry a heavy 5-gallon bucket on their heads to imitate it being full of water.

The photo was taken before my session and before the room filled up -- but you get the idea. :)

Blessings,
Craig

 Well, it has been too long since I have written a blog-post -- so this is long overdue.

It's been an amazing Christmas and first-half of January. Many churches donated their Christmas Eve offerings to Mozambique and for that, I am grateful! Some of this money is in this number, but the vast majority will be seen in 2016 numbers. God is good!

I'll post this week our 2015 donations snapshot, but preliminary numbers show Mozambique Initiative support in 2015 was a total of $736,564.60! Praise God for these amazing gifts!

So, what have I been up too since Christmas? A lot. Here's been my itinerary:
January 3: Ava United Methodist Church (invited to preach! :))
January 10: Woodlandville United Methodist Church (invited to preach! :))
January 11: Visited Kirkwood UMC regarding wells and had lunch with former Associate Director, Carol Kreamer
January 12: Visited Chillicothe UMC regarding their sister church, Muadja, and folks from Savannah UMC.
January 17: St. James UMC (in St. James, MO) and got to preach again.

My upcoming schedule is also exciting. Next weekend: WOW, where I will lead a breakout session. Then, January 31 I get to preach at Savannah UMC. In February, I'll be in Hillsboro, Kirkwood, Manchester, and The Gathering! On February 7, I'll be getting my Mozambique Initiative Team together for the first time as the Associate Director, which I'm excited about.

Also exciting news is that Ezequiel and Naftal Massela will be visiting Missouri for a couple weeks in late February! More here as their details are worked out.

Whew. It's exciting, busy times here. As we get into the March/April timeframe, my schedule opens back up and I am looking for places to visit. Please let me know if your church is interested. It's a blessing to serve the churches of Missouri and I look forward to our paths crossing soon.
Blessings,
Craig