Up on the Roof

Well, it’s Monday again, Bocaria today. Last week didn’t happen because we ran out of petrol on the way.

So today, we get there and can’t drive down to the church. Why?- Because after the rain of last week, part of the road had a landside and the other part looked like it had been washed away and refilled with rubbish!. We weren’t going to take a truck over that. One night of heavy rain and the road is gone. As we walked down to the church I saw that part of the dump had caved in and there was just a hole where once had been a heap of rubbish – the hole still quite full of water. What must that night have been like for those living here? The mind really boggles. Some of these people have plastic sheets for roofs tied to pieces of sticks; others of course have no shelter. Again I sit here and am very grateful for my corrugated roof over my head and the fact that my room didn’t flood.

This weekend has been an interesting one with various little things going on. The highlight was having nearly 30 visitors from the US Navy come to the base. When I say visitors, what I really mean is 30 sailors here doing voluntary work, painting, fixing, cutting grass etc. You have to imagine the scene 30 SAILORS (fit, muscely, tanned, strong and charming, etc) working here on base with a lot of single female missionaries! Quite a chaotic scene in places and for the record I don’t have one photo of them – and for those shouting, “No, I bet you have 100” – I don’t. I didn’t even take my camera out. My friend did and took great delight in telling me her zoom lens was working very well!! I must go see her photos.

Anyway, back to the point of writing about these lovely men…..I mean kind men, who came here to do voluntary work. Some had been assigned to work on the roof of the kitchen. They hadn’t been up there that long when one fell through the roof, 25ft onto the solid concrete floor. We are in Mozambique… backboards don’t exist here… neither do good CT scanners, x-ray machines – anything. What can you do in a situation like that except pray. The ships medic and all our medics came running. They took him to the South African clinic here. When the medic came and looked at the scene – he said “Yep – that’s normally fatal!” We have heard that the sailor only sustained a broken wrist – what a miracle, we really are thanking to God it wasn’t more serious. The sailors were a little bemused as to why the injury wasn’t worse – gave a good way in for conversations on the big God we have.