Wednesday, June 22, 2011

stories in the stats

I work at Orchard Hill Church,and one of our strategies as a church for reaching out to the under-resourced is to focus our efforts in a few areas where we can build longterm relationships, work in partnerships, and address needs wholistically. One of these communities of focus is the Gorongosa region in Mozambique where we partner with friends at Food for the Hungry.

A team of nine from Orchard Hill is just wrapping up a trip to Mozambique. Below are some numbers reported by the team leader...they sure do reflect a lot of stories in these stats.

325 Hygiene Kits and
21 soccer balls presented on behalf of the sponsors to children in Gorangosa delivered to Moz in
900 lbs of checked luggage
159 years of marriage experience in trip members
2149 (and counting) pictures taken with
4 hours of video recorded.
5 near misses on the drive back to Beira of which
2 caused Barb to see the pearly gates more clearly.
5 live chickens gifted to us
1 tin sounding speaker outside our Gorongosa guest house window which played
1 song ad nauseum most nights
22 songs in one Sunday morning worship service sung in Portuguese and Senna (local dialect)
0 hot showers in Gorongosa despite new in line water heaters
83 combined man/women hours of training to
97 FH staff, nurses, pastors and community leaders
1 nonchicken lunch or dinner meal for Dave the entire week (the restaurant was out of chicken)
400 linear feet of sugar cane gifted to us
1 man riding a bike with his wife breast feeding their baby on the back
10 hits between Halkeno and Adam per day (usually to the shoulder)
2 falls off the seat for a sleeping Neil during the ride back to Beira
1 pack of elephants sighted by 5 members of the group while the other members saw
5 piles of elephant dung
8 hours of combined car and plane time that Mapanza (Moz FH Country Director) to come to spend
4 hours with us in Gorongosa
2 weeping marathon runners receiving thanks from the community leader while the cornerstone of their school was laid
1 house blessed with laying on of hands and prayer by the first
3 child sponsors to ever visit Caia when the child sponsor found out that his child may be getting mistreated by the stepdad and intentionally not at home
18 hours for our longest flight
1 "Just clean the brain off and throw it away" to make us thankful for great translators we usually had
3 cm - the distance from the other parked car as Taylor pulled in
5 new John Deere hats in the communities
3 purple UNI shirts seen also in the communities
275 Orchard child sponsors that affect an average of
825 kids in those families and partially fund
22 FH staff in the field that work with an average of
800 kids in
7 communities in Gorongosa
50 additional sponsors over the next year as a goal
264 families turned to Christ last year in the sponsored children of Gorongosa
9 Hearts wrecked to never return to "ordinary" over what they have seen and been priviledged to be involved in over the past
2 weeks
154 prayer warriors who laid the foundation for a successful trip

For the team, see you in
2 days, Neil

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