The Chronicles of Meng

So today I am back in the office after what was a very wonderful trip to Mozambique. The Celebration itself was excellent and the training following the celebration saw us equip roughly 170 pastors and leaders from Makonde churches throughout the region with Audibibles. All said and done I would say it was a successful trip and I am looking forward to hearing reports of the fruit that comes among the Makonde peoples. In my last post I promised some pictures upon my return to SA so here they are, hope you enjoy!

I randomly got access to Internet this morning so thought I would do a quick update. The celebration and dedication event was yesterday and was quite amazing. SIL missionaries from around the world came to celebrate with the couple who oversaw the translation of the Makonde NT.  The event started with roughly 250-300 people from various churches in the community gathering in town and then marching through the towns market area to the venue. They held banners and had multiple singing and dancing groups. Once at the venue the crowd increased to probably about 500(maybe more if you include all the curious passers by). There were many speakers and more churches who each took turns doing song and dance throughout the ceremony.  At the end they read several portions from the printed text and the played the same portion using the Audibible. Nearly 4000 printed Bible were purchased by the people and Benjie will oversee the distribution of the 300 audibibles in the coming weeks. Today ...

The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. (Psalm 50:1 ESV)

Completed the first half of my travel to Mueda today and other than a little bit of turbulence the flight went well. I did end up having to pay a bit in customs fees but thankfully wasn't as much as I anticipated it could have been. All the players arrived safe and sound and things should be on track for tomorrows flight with Iris Ministries. Below is a few pics of the travel so far...forgot how gorgeous the Indian Ocean is!

So am sitting at the airport waiting for my flight to Pemba. I will be spending the night there before catching a flight with Iris Ministries to Mueda the following day. Very excited for this trip! Especially given the amount of strife in getting it organized  I am expectant of good things!  This is what 300 audibibles and some training materials looks like... This is one of Nehemiah's favorite stuffed animals. This morning as I was making final preparations to leave he have it to me and said I can use it on the plane but that I must find a kid in Mozambique to give it too☺️ Talk about a proud Daddy moment!

Last week I mentioned that my flight with MAF to the Makonde Celebration had been canceled due to MAF being grounded in Mozambique. I spent most of the week trying to organize a rental vehicle and someone to drive with me. While I was able to reserve a 4x4 it was going to cost me nearly $1500US(more than double my MAF flight) and the company also wanted a $4000 deposit(more than what is available for all my expenses for the trip)! Long story short I was praying over the weekend trying to figure out what I was going to do and this morning I received an email from the missionaries organizing the event and Iris ministries is now stepping in to fly me from Pemba to Mueda(the location of the event)! Not only that, but the cost of the flight will be less than what I was going to pay to MAF originally. SOOO...A big thanks to everyone who has been praying for me and the travel arrangements for this event. Please continue praying for our supplier though as after this week we will be complet...

So after several hours of everyone working hard together we managed to get 1100 Audibible units loaded and packed for shipping. Nearly all of those(900) just went out the door to be shipped to Uganda and Kenya for their respective celebration events, the remaining 200 will be carried to Uganda by Johan Louw(my director) when he flies up for the event. Now we just have another 500 to load on Monday and Tuesday for the Makonde Celebration in Mozambique. Please pray that it goes just as smoothly!

Yesterday I received my visa for Mozambique, the first of many that I will be getting over the next few years with Davar...

I had the wonderful privilege of celebrate this morning the completion and release of the Tswana Audio Bible with a small group of the people who made it possible. Nine of us gathered at Mama Agnes' home to fellowship with some snacks and dessert and cool drink. We spent a little time praying and thanking the Lord for all He did in bringing this day to pass and then I had the great joy of giving each narrator and proof listener their own Audibible loaded with the Tswana Full Bible! What a great joy and relief to be handing those units out that Levy and I and others all poured so much time, energy and resources! Oh and I have to sincerely apologize, I was so focused on handing out the Audibibles and showing everyone how to use them that I totally forgot to take pictures with everyone! Suffice to say, their smiles were big and everyone was filled with excitement upon receiving the fruits of their labor.

So I wanted to update the situation with regards to our Audibible supplier. We heard this morning that the strike may be over soon, there is an agreement that hopefully will be signed by both sides as early as this afternoon. Praise the Lord! Assuming that gets done though we still face a delay while they await the arrival of new components that are currently on backorder. We have been told that this will only come through by end of August which means we will only get new supply of units at the beginning of September.  Please continue praying as we already have backorders for 4000+ Audibibles! Pray that the Lord would speed the arrival of the component shipments and that our Audibible supplier would be able to get back up and running quickly! 

So after some rearranging of project funds it looks like I will be able to rent a 4x4 in Pemba(double the cost of my original chartered flight). So I will be able to get there however I found out this afternoon that there may be a struggle to get the audio ready in time. There are three Davar technicians who are working 14hrs a day currently to finish editing and mastering the recordings, if all goes to plan they should finish this process by next Friday. From there it goes to our Partner Services department to be compiled for loading on the Audibible players. That usually takes one working day, at that point we would normally send it to our manufacturing partner for them to produce the 500 units which would take them about 2 days. I say normally because our manufacturing partner is currently enduring a labor strike(more on this later). This means for the units to get loaded we must do it ourselves in the office with our current stock. On average our partner services department can...

So yesterday I found out that Mission Aviation Fellowship(MAF) was grounded by the Mozambique Government. This is significant because they were providing not only my transport to the Makonde celebration, but they were transporting a large number of the attendees from all around Mozambique! I wasn't given the reasons for the grounding, only that it has happened. This now leaves me and quite a few others with two weeks to figure out new transport, whats more as I am the one bringing the Audibible units with the Makonde audio it is fairly important that this get worked out! Please be praying that either the Lord moves the Mozambique Government to reverse their decision or for other transport options to come to light and soon!

In two weeks I leave for what will be the first of many trips into Africa and around the globe in an effort to promote audio Scripture Engagement among the billions of Bible-less oral people throughout the world. This initial trip will be to Mueda, Mozambique up very close to the Tanzanian border. I am going to be a part of celebrating the completion of the Makonde audio NT & OT portions and also to promote oral strategies among the many ministry leaders who will be attending the celebration event. Davar has organized to distribute an initial 500 Audibible units loaded with the Makonde audio at the event and the hope is that this will be the first step towards the Makonde people being able to fully engage with God's Word. If previous statistics hold, that means that we will hopefully be giving access to roughly 250,000 of the nearly 1.73 million Makonde people. Please be praying that the Lord would bring about not only access but consistent daily Scripture Engagement among ev...

I wanted to share a quick testimony of God's faithfulness. Back in 2007 I attended the Call in Nashville, TN. We were at the time preparing ourselves to move South Africa at the end of the year and were just beginning the process of fundraising. I had just completed a 40 day fast as part of the run up to the Call and was really seeking the Lord for wisdom and direction regarding the new season He was leading myself and Ang into. Following the event that day I was went to my aunt and uncle's house, they had some out of town friends who were there visiting to attend the Call as well. During our time of fellowship and reflecting on the days events they decided to pray for Ang and I. Some of the details are a little fuzzy, but I remember my uncle's friend telling me of a vision that he had of Ang and I and our two boys(yes only two at that point ;) in Africa and we were pitching a tent. Each of us was holding a corner and we were stretching it out, we were trying to put down ...