JUNE NEWSLETTER from corri ockhuysen

We have good news and we have sad news….. let’s start with the sad news. In the first half of 2020, we lost three precious children: Lieza, Ivo, and Mario. Although we know that they are in a far better place now, we miss them a lot. We thought that we were preparing Mario for a future with his own restaurant. I miss Ivo who came every morning to take his shower in my house and have his eggs prepared exactly the way he liked. I miss Lieza’s smile, she suffered for more than a year of encephalitis. It came to the point that she was totally paralyzed. She went to heaven on the first of January. Ivo was doing very well, at least that’s what we thought. He didn’t have epileptic attacks anymore and went to school for the first time. He was so proud and happy, but he got skinnier and weaker as time passed. His body was probably tired of fighting Aids (his immune system had never improved). He died in the hospital at the end of April. Not even a week later, Mario passed away. I was with him in the hospital his last week and saw him getting weaker and weaker. We will never know why his kidneys failed to work and why even hemodialysis didn’t have the result that we expected. Ivo, Mario, and Lieza are in heaven where Aids or any other sickness has a place. 

 When I close my eyes, I almost think that it is all a dream. Our teenagers are so on fire for the Lord! Every day they have prayer time and Bible study. Every week they visit the poor and evangelize. Even now, on Friday night I hear them singing. The most amazing thing for me is that my son in-law, Fausio (the same Fausio who gave me sleepless nights before) and his friend Carlos are the pioneers in all of this. Fausio was baptized a week ago with Angelo (a boy who I know from the time that he was two weeks old) and, Zacarias (see photo). Zacarias is one of the four new children we received in the last few weeks. Dinho is another one. He is approximately 10 years old. He got lost here in Maputo, but he is from Inhambane, another province, and comes from a family of witchcraft. He still needs deliverance. We hope that he can stay with us, but there is a chance that Social Welfare Services will take him back to his family. Vina, about the same age as Dinho was also found lost in Maputo. She probably knows where her family lives but likes here with us way too much 😊. David, another addition to our family is 10 years old. David comes from a very poor family, he has Aids and you can learn more about him here.

We've started building a new church in Chinonanquila. The other one was totally wiped away by storms. We also started computer classes again and a vegetable garden. We still want classrooms for vocational training and nutritional courses. People are dreaming about a “Mario Alberto Nutritional Center” in honor of Mario, "our chef”. Let’s pray that Richard comes back to assist the center and be in charge of all of this.  
We also want to work on “my future house”. We will start with a wall around the property and repairing the roof next week. We want to build rooms/apartments for our boys and girls, 18 years and over, who are not ready yet to live on their own.