Dear Praying Friends,
 
Toward the end of last year, I (Marijane) was in an emotionally challenging place. I felt overwhelmed by the circumstances of our lives and ministry and was discouraged by some personal struggles that just felt hopeless. God led me to Psalm 91 during one of my prayer times. Though I was familiar with that Psalm, it spoke to me in such a clear and profound way that it was as if I read it for the first time. Through the words, God spoke a message of hope and care to my heart. He especially reminded me that though I felt homeless and rootless and lonely, that my true dwelling place is with him. That is where my security and safety and comfort comes from; dwelling in His shelter, resting in the shadow of His wing.
 
How little did I know, that within a few short months, Psalm 91 would be a passage that followers of Christ around the world would cling to. Maybe it could even be called the theme passage for 2020. And of course the verses referring to sickness were the least meaningful to me then! It is always useful for us to have things happen to remind us of where we need to place our hope and the world is being reminded that medicine, doctors, governments, jobs, family & friends, plans, human systems will all fail at some time or another, in some way or another.

A lot has happened since our last Tread Marks. But honestly, at this point, it’s hard for us to even remember what! Covid-19 has certainly unified the world in a collective mental haze of trying to figure out what’s going on.
 
We are grateful that we arrived safely in Nampula the end of February with plans to essentially stay put for at least 4 months. It felt like a luxury to anticipate being in one place for that long! Our main goals for this time were to get the MAF house ready for habitation for the family scheduled to arrive in June and for us to go through things in our storage container to purge, reorganize and help friends with the process of purging their things stored in our container. We had the side plans of Jon and Aidan traveling to a media conference in Thailand for 3 weeks and a trip to the capital city for the family to try to get all the paperwork finished that we need to apply for South African work permits.
 
The media conference was cancelled because of the virus. We got that disappointing news the day after we arrived in town. Within a few days, everything shifted to focus on the virus. Our friends did manage to clean their things out of their container, but with travel becoming increasingly chaotic and impossible, even that whole process was so much harder than expected. We still haven’t really touched our personal things. The work on the house is continuing, though parts of it have slowed way down. But at this point we have no idea when the new family will even be able to come. We did manage to renew residency permits before government offices shut down and temporary import on vehicles has automatically been extended until the end of June so we have no document worries for several months. That is a huge blessing.

At the moment, Mozambique has very few diagnosed cases of covid-19 and they have been limited to the capital city in the south (though one case traveled to the south from a northern province so undoubtedly infected people before traveling). The government has enacted measures to try to restrict the spread and the medical system has been scrambling to get ready for an epidemic here. Borders are mostly closed and international flights are greatly reduced. Schools are closed and many public places are closed, hand washing stations are set up outside each business and market place and there are limits on how large of groups can gather. There are very few test kits available here and there are only 34 respirators in the entire country. Hospitals and medical clinics are understaffed and lacking in the most basic supplies on a normal basis, so there is no real way to prepare for a pandemic.

For our part, we’ve stocked up on supplies, helped a few friends get out of the country before it was too late and prayed and wondered what’s coming. But at the moment, our life doesn’t look very different. Since we bring our home to work, Jon can carry on with much of the project even if other people have to stop coming. We already home educate and we are used to frequently being just the 5 of us. But there is a change in the air- a building tension in the city and we know that things may change dramatically very soon. I often feel like we’re in a movie scene where there is a monstrous army destroying the well-equipped city on the other side of the forest and we’re standing in the middle of our little village, trying to be brave, armed with a few pitchforks and kitchen knives all the while praying the enemy gets bored or satisfied and leaves before they stumble across our village.

Pray for Mozambique. God is really and truly the only thing this land has to fall back on. There is no system here that can effectively fight this if the virus takes hold. It is heartbreaking to think of the possibilities of loss of life here. Pray that the tide will be turned without resorting to strict quarantine. Culturally, things are so different here. People would have to choose if they want to starve to death or risk dying of covid-19 if they were told to follow strict quarantine orders. Pray for the government to have wisdom to know what measures are best to take here.
  
Pray for us- that we would be wise and that we will stay healthy so we can be in a position to help as needs arrive. We are not worried about our health, though we know that if one of us gets seriously ill (with any sickness), we have no way out of the country to get to better medical care (South Africa is on full lock-down for at least 21 days) so we do covet your prayers for our protection. If we don’t check our thoughts regularly, it is easy for fear and anxiety to creep in about the “what ifs”. Please pray for our emotional and spiritual health as well. Like anyone, we struggle with the tension that this crisis brings. Being so far away from our home country and not being a part of a mission organization anymore means that we sometimes feel quite alone in our planning and decision making. We need to be diligent to keep God at the center and to take good care of ourselves as we want to be able to bring the hope of Christ to this area, through our words and deeds and prayer.

Blessings,

Jon, Marijane, Aidan, Isaac and Ethan Beutler

https://youtu.be/UKD0IqFeWZk