News and updates from Paul and Cathy Middleton, serving in southern Africa.

02 June 2004

Somewhere different in Moz

On this day in history… well exactly a year ago anyway, we arrived at Mercy Air after a 12 hour drive from Lesotho. We’ve done so much since then it feels more like three years.

First thing to say – thanks to all those who wrote back and to let you know that the result of my biopsy was negative.

The last few weeks have been no less busy so here’s a quick update on what we’ve been up to.

Firstly Paul flew a one day trip to northern Mozambique returning a group of trainees back to their home town. A total of 1300 miles which would get you well into Russia from London or from Florida to Maine.

Then we spent a weekend in Pretoria representing Mercy air at a Missions Conference.

Just over a week ago we picked a US church group up in Johannesburg and flew them to Manica in Mozambique where they helped local missionaries with a number of projects.

We had never been there before but found it to be a poor place, as is much of Mozambique, but the people were friendly, colourful and grateful for our involvement. A lot of the day was spent just living, collecting water and buying food from the market.


One day we cleared an area, dug the foundations and collected bricks for a pastor’s house.

On another we leveled an area for a new church building. This involved removing loads of old bricks and five minutes after we begun we were joined by the local women and children who were keen to help.

We had long tiring days usually starting at 7am and finishing most nights past 9pm by playing football and basketball with the local youth.

Best part of the trip for us was that Cathy could come along - her first trip to Moz.

We’d love to tell you about it all in detail but that would take far too many words and we like to keep this short and chatty (otherwise you’d likely not read it all). Please get in touch though if you would like to hear more.

Next week Paul will be working on a Mercy Air newsletter and doing some flight training for his instrument renewal.

By way of rest and relaxation this weekend Paul has a 95km orienteering mountain bike race. 50km will be during the day then the remaining 45km back through the forest at night.

Matthew has finished his term now but has exams over the next three weeks.

pcm

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