Report from BHW Mozambique Partnership Facilitators Following Visit

Key person: Talsamo Omar

Recent Events

Activities

The work here continues to grow and develop with many Koti people coming to the Lord through the different activities they are involved in.

The leadership team meet every Tuesday to talk about zones and madrassas and have prayer meetings. The Wednesday meeting runs from 9 am - 12.30 pm and is attended by about 60 leaders who come from over 60 zones - some travel up to 150 km each week to attend. Some of these leaders are responsible for up to 10 groups. These leaders in turn train other leaders.

They have established 19 Centres; there are 60+ zones and up to 30 small groups in each zone.  There are new Centres developing.

40 leaders are based in the community of faith in Angoche, most of them are leaders of small groups and tutors in the madrassas. 

In early June, 200 of them marched around the town giving out flyers, many people took them and six people were saved – they attended the fellowship last week.  They are already following them up.

A few months ago, there were some issues in leadership and they have had to change out some people and bring in some others. 

A team of four from BHW visited for three days in July and spent time with the leaders, at the church and visiting the madrassas and small groups. They are good people, growing in maturity and very joyful. There are leaders emerging.  

New Profiles

There is a new leadership team of six people that has recently been established. The BHW team met with five of them. They are mainly young people who have proven their faithfulness and are focused and passionate about their faith and the work here, but they are not tested in leadership yet. 

Papa Jorge – 64 years old.  Senior person on leadership and has been involved since 2018 (white top)

Talsamo – 33 years old. Main leader of the group.  Married with three children (red top).

Fahamo – 24 years old. Married with two children. He is involved in discipleship and has been on the leadership team for two months (blue t shirt).

Muaziza – 22 years old. She is recently married and has been on the leadership team for two months (black t shirt).

Chime – 24 years old. She is the secretary and has been in the leadership team since 2020.  She is getting married in November (mustard top).

Ali – 57 years old. Married with adult children. Ali lives in the islands and has been on the leadership team since 2018.

Personal Stories

Edson from Talsamo’s Discipleship Group is 24 years old. He lived with his Aunty who was a Muslim neighbour of Talsamo. They became friends and Talsamo started inviting him home, along with a few neighbours. He taught the group about Jesus. Those from the group left the Mosque and started attend the prayer house.

Edson’s mother was killed, and his father abandoned him as a teenager. He was involved in robbery, but Jesus changed him two years ago. His father became a follower of Jesus two weeks ago.

Partnership's Influence within the Community

Many people in the community believe that the faith community are good people and see good testimonies of how God is changing their lives.  Others just think they are a religious group.

Often they hear the local community sing the songs that the faith community sing. 

Plans for the Future

BHW has been helping with funding bikes and training leaders. This has been well received and they need this to continue to help with these leaders. There are several new centres and zones being established, this will continue as the network continues to expand. 

They would like to do more training with Foundations for Farming which we will arrange. 

Current Issues and Challenges

Due to the Muslim culture some men in the church cannot understand why they can’t have another wife. 

Some come to the Lord, but then are shamed by their families and friends and pressure is put on them to renounce. Some do that. 

The constant burden of leadership is taxing for Talsamo.

Prayer and Praise Points

1) Many Koti people are being reached with the Gospel. They are becoming part of the group and being discipled.
2) Pray for a new generation of leaders.
3) 150 Koti people were baptised in the last year.

Comments

The work continues to grow and is quite amazing in terms of ongoing impact. I wonder if they are locked into some patterns that need to change and they need to get some other leaders with more theological depth. It needs some people to go to more than YWAM to sustain this sized work theologically. The spread is great, the depth is the issue, and the narrowness of leadership maturity. 

In terms of the funding of the leadership development I don't think that we should put more in. I would rather we focused on revisiting the Foundations for Farming training so they can support this work internally.