Mercy Ministry

Life in Mozambique holds many challenges for those who have health and resources, how much more so for those without. Imagine the difficulty of carrying your daily water supply, chopping your firewood for cooking, living in a stick hut without adequate protection, having no transportation, few schools, poor access to health care, etc. Then imagine living in that situation as a blind person, or as a lame person, or as someone who has lost most fingers due to leprosy. Sadly, there are many such cases.

Our Mercy Ministry program started in response to a desperate cry for help from some of the physically disabled people in our surrounding communities. One woman who came to us is an elderly widow who tragically lost one leg during the war. She has an adult daughter living with her at home who is blind. Last year her crop of maize (corn), which they survive on, failed miserably when her health took a turn for the worse. “I tried to work in the fields this last season, but there was too much pain in my hip to manage it. My daughter is blind, and though she tries to help me, she can’t see and often digs up the crop instead of the weeds. Can you help us?!” She and her daughter now receive food from the mission each month which includes: maize, beans, fish, oil, salt, soap and money for milling the maize.

Another gentleman who has lost all his fingers and toes to leprosy was barely managing to survive. He had been left with a herd of goats when his father died. These he sold one by one in order to buy food since he cannot hold a hoe to work in his field. When the goats were all sold, however, he was left with nothing but the shirt on his back. He had started to attend one of the rural churches and one of the families took him under their wing to give him food, cook for him and carry his water. The family’s supply was already stretched thin however, so the mission now supplies his food each month plus other needs he has. He was taken to the health center by the mission’s health post staff to be diagnosed and started on treatment for his leprosy.

Feeding the hungry and caring for those with no hope is a tangible way of sharing God’s love with people! We welcome and need your participation in order to address more of the desperate needs around us.