I went to Mozambique for 2 weeks in August with a few friends from my church. Before leaving for Africa, I had approached it more as a humanitarian mission rather then a missions trip. I figured I would work in the clinic at the missionary compound and contribute what I could. After being there, what's impressed upon me is not the humanitarian mission, but love.

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No barriers, no prejudice

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Jacqui is a South African missionary nurse living in Mozambique. She makes home visits to people who are too sick to come to the missionary clinic. One day we went to see Domingo, a man in his forties with advanced HIV who was too weak to travel but had a wound that needed to be treated. When we saw him, he was sitting on a straw mat next to a makeshift alcohol brewery. He pulled up his left pantleg to reveal a large soiled dressing. As he removed the dressing, pus and blood began flowing out of the wound and covered his lower leg. The wound was a large deep open cavity in his leg that extended past his tibia. It was full of flies. My reaction was to step back. Where were the gloves? facemask? He was HIV positive, and I needed some distance to protect myself.

Jacqui's reaction was very different. While I pulled back, she drew closer. When he winced in pain, she touched him. She helped him remove his dressing, cleaned, and then dressed the wound. She put her arm around him, prayed with him, talked to him, and gave him food and medicine. She treated him like her own brother. We had prayed together that morning before going on the home visits. Jacqui had asked God for a love with no barriers and no prejudice, and it's what I saw that day. The missionaries in Maforga, Mozambique care for orphans, widows, prisoners, outcasts, lepers, the sick, and the dying with HIV. It is a powerful testimony of the love of God.

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"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." -Matthew 25:35,36