Dianne's Ministry with . . . 

Women . . .

is challenging and brings her joy as she spends time with the leaders of the women's groups around the province of Nampula. Dianne's main job is Strategy Coordinator for the Mozambique Cluster (mission) however as she has time she plans training sessions and also prepares new Bible Study material for them. This year the women are studying about their spiritual gifts. Jayme and Dianne went to Murrapula in August and did training for 10 different missions in the area. Dianne also used the pictures that volunteers in the US have been coloring to teach the ladies about the importance of using good water. Pray for Dianne and Jayme as we do more teaching in other districts. 

Some of you have been praying with her for the young Makhuwa girls who as they come to the age of 12 or 13 go through ceremonies. In the past this involves circumcision and sex education training that the married women give them and girls that have already been through the ceremonies.  Di was invited to participate in the ceremony of the sister of her house worker. The ladies ask her to help with transportation of 10 women from Nampula who would go out to Murrapula and do the ceremony in a Christian way. She had prayed for this for 8 years!! Women in several districts had ask for her help but she thought this should come from the Makhuwa women not an ex-pat even though she is a missionary. Last year at the annual association meeting for the women, she asked Celistine, Pastor Haria's wife from Cuamba to share how they had begun to have Christian ceremonies. The women were extremely attentive as they listened to Celestine. As Jayme and Dianne watched the 3 day ceremony they learned a lot about the Makhuwa culture. These ceremonies are special and quite secret so it was a honor to be included. Di would ask you to continue to pray for the women as they teach their young girls how God wants each girl to live and what her role is in life. Women in Africa have a tough life. Many are not treated with respect but they need to understand they were created by God for a unique and special purpose. 

Literacy . . .

continues to be an area that is a priority for the Makhuwa-Mwakwana sub-team. We continue to train more teachers each year. Dianne continues to hold literacy workshops to train new teacher and upgrade our present teachers. You have been praying with us for a career missionary to Nampula to train more teachers and be a model teacher. The present teachers need to be encouraged. Dianne who has done this for several years is spending more and more time in other parts of the country with her job as the Mission Cluster Strategy Coordinator. 

We praise God that Rise' Uttley has joined our Makhuwa team and has arrived in Portugal (September 9th) to begin 8 months of Portuguese language study. 

Dianne and Jayme will be distributing the 12 new Makhuwa easy reading stories among our literacy classes and churches. Pastor Caetano and Anselmo went to a literacy writing clinic with Wycliffe. Jayme was with them and helped them to type in the stories and format them. 

• Pray for second career literacy specialist to come to Cabo Del Gado Provinces. 
• Pray for Dianne as she trains more literacy teachers even though she has other demands on her time.
• Pray for the students to come to class regularly so that they might make good progress toward learning how to read and write. 
• Pray for the teachers to prepare and be faithful in teaching their students and to use this time for sharing Christ with those who do not know him as Savior and Lord. 
• Praise for the two levels of primers and the 5 supplement books that we have produced. Praise for the two new Easy Readers produced by Bible Society that we will now use in our second level class. Praise for the 12 new Bible stories and folktales that were written in July.
• Pray that the Makhuwa will desire to read God's Word. 

Women's Ministry continued. . .

Dianne works with around 125 churches and missions who have weekly or monthly Bible Study. Each year she produces new Bible Study material in Portuguese and then has it translated into Portuguese. We also record the lessons into Makhuwa to use with hand-crank tape-players. We are trying to provide the tape-players because in most missions they do not even have one woman who can read well enough to read the lesson to the other ladies. We also stress scripture memory. 

This year Dianne is distributing and teaching with the help of others on the WMU associational level clean water leads to healthy families. Churches in Maryland and Alabama help color and laminate these pictures for us to use in the bush with the women. In September, we used them and told a story of a healthy and unhealthy family. The ladies will remember this story because they used the pictures to teach us the story after we taught it to the. Africans love participating in the stories and remember the lessons much better. You may want to help make more of these pictures for us to use. See the OPPORTUNITIES page.

• Pray for our new leaders for our WMU Association.  Pray the president, Idalena, vice-president, Celestina, secretary, Lucia, treasurer, Tecnica. Pray they will visit, encourage and teach our women out in the bush areas.
• Pray for the translation, publishing, distribution and training of next years book on Using Your Spiritual Gifts. 
• Pray this year for the distribution and training of book entitled, Fruits of the Spirit. 

Sunday School and Friends of Jesus for Children . . .

Friends of Jesus is a program for children similar to Backyard Bible material. It has Bible Studies, songs and games that appeal to African children. Praise God for the churches in the US who have material resource materials for this program. We have song sheets made on unbleached muslin material since most do not have blackboards. Volunteers also make felt wordless books by the thousands for us to use. Churches in Alabama and Maryland have made wordless book aprons. Each  colored pocket holds a memory verse and a symbol like a white heart or a black heart etc. This year we have Florence making hundreds of felt finger puppets. She needs help! See the OPPORTUNITIES for how to join the fun helping to provide things you make for Mozambique women and children. 

• Pray Dianne as she had workshops to train the Sunday School teachers how to use the materials.
• Pray that many children will understand the stories and invite Jesus into their lives. 
• Pray that others will want to show their love for the children by teaching them each week. 
• Pray for a Sunday School training team to work with Dianne at the beginning but then on their own.