Landcruiser Update

***UPDATE***

(Our last blog covered our Landcruiser importation issues, so please go here for the background behind this update: Landcruiser blogpost.)

News has come down and we are excited… we will be able to keep the Landcruiser!!  I am especially grateful for a number of reasons:

  1-     This vehicle has a heavy duty bull bar.  That means added safety for our family on these crazy roads.  A couple years ago one of our teammates had a wreck – driving through the dust with very low visibility a bus that was driving on her side of the road hit her head on.  Everyone walked away, credit to God & that heavy duty bull bar! 

  2-     It’s reliable.  Leaking oil and clutch fluid may come eventually, but for now we can spend time on other endeavors and not car maintenance!  Also, no dogs covered in oil because they love the shade under the vehicle…

  3-     The most important:  We’re thankful for the opportunity to use the program vehicle while we waited for our Landcruiser… but it was a pickup and the suspension was super stiff.  You felt EVERY SINGLE bump.  In comparison, our Landcruiser rides like a dream over these rough roads and Grady’s back can tell the difference! 

We will be continuing to raise funds to help cover the unexpected importation fees, instead of closing out our vehicle account as planned.  MAF has asked us to raise an additional 20,000 but we are already over 35% of that figure!  Thank you to those of you who have given and prayed throughout this whole process so that this vehicle could become a reality. 

~Holly, for the Naces

Landcruiser

As many of you have probably seen on Facebook we were finally able to import the Land Cruiser we fundraised for last Saturday.  This is a huge answer to prayer as it has been in port for about a month and a half, and importing it has been a very stressful process for everyone involved.  We love it – it is perfect for the roads here, and as anyone who has read The Camry Diaries knows, I have a soft spot for Toyotas.  (And everyone tells me we will appreciate it a lot more once rainy season comes).

Unfortunately however, it is not all good news – we had to pay significantly more than we had planned on (or fundraised for) in order to import it.

There are a few reasons we imported a new vehicle instead of buying used here, but the biggest one was import duties.  To import a vehicle into Mozambique, you normally have to pay 100% of the value of the vehicle in duties.  This gets passed on when a vehicle is sold, so even a 10 year old 4x4 with 100,000 miles on it sells for about $25,000.  The road conditions here mean that used vehicles are in much worse condition than they would be in the US, and most of the time the closest spare parts are in South Africa, which means it takes a couple of weeks to get them if a car breaks down.

Ambassador Aviation (MAF’s name in Mozambique) meets the requirements to import new 10 passenger vehicles duty free, so for $35,000 we could import a brand new Toyota Land Cruiser with fold down seats in the back to fit 10 passengers (and it is not hard to end up with 10 people here).  The value of a brand new vehicle that will last much longer with less maintenance made this a very good choice, and MAF Mozambique imported two of the same model of vehicle without problems in the last year.  And with most of us driving the same model, when they do get old we can share parts.

When the Land Cruiser we ordered showed up in port though, instead of classifying it as a 10 passenger vehicle, Customs looked at its 4x4 capabilities and classified it as “Jeep Category” vehicle, which must pay 100% duty.  While this Land Cruiser is a 10 passenger vehicle, it does also meet all the requirements to be considered “Jeep Category.”  Mozambique is going through a very difficult financial crisis and the government struggling to pay the bills, so it seems as they have shifted their policy to charge duty for the higher of the two options when a vehicle can be classified differently.

Diniz, our Mozambican administrator who is AMAZING, worked with a clearing agent for the last month and a half trying to find a way to reclassify it and import it for less.  At one point they thought they had figured out a way import it for about $15,000, but after paying that, the computer system in the capital rejected it, and we learned the only way to import it would be to pay the rest of the full amount.  If you do not pay Customs the required amount they impound the vehicle and keep it.  We could have applied to get the $15,000 back, but that process often takes one or two years, and the outcome is not at all sure.

At this point we had about $50,000 invested in the Land Cruiser, and our choices were to either to lose it all or pay the remaining $20,000 to import it.

We chose to import it, and now we have two options.  If we fundraise a significant portion of duty fees MAF will help cover them and we can keep it.  Otherwise we can sell it for around $50,000, eat the $20,000 loss, and still need to fundraise about $10,000 to buy a 4x4 in the 10 year old, 100,000 miles range.

Either way we need to raise some, so MAF has left our vehicle account open, and we will see what God does with it.  Please pray for wisdom making this decision, and please prayerfully consider making a donation to our vehicle fund.  We have been overwhelmed by all of your generosity already and we really appreciate your support and prayers!

If you would like to make a donation towards this (which is tax deductible) you can do so online here, by phone at 1-800-359-7623 (reference fund 4986), or with a check made out to MAF with “Nace Vehicle, 4986” in the memo line mailed to:

Mission Aviation Fellowship
P.O. Box 47
Nampa, ID 83653

Thank you so much!

In Christ,

Grady, Holly, Diego and Lucas

Two Month Anniversary (in Moz)

There has been a lot going on the last two months!  I have some pictures below to help show a few snippets of life here.

Diego and Lucas were great helpers on the flights to Moz.  Yes, if you look close you'll see that my children are wearing shirts with pilot epaulets…

It’s nice to be outside in the morning or late afternoon when the temps creep down.  Diego rides his scooter and Lucas tries to break free!  We arrived at winter’s tail end which means we can slowly adjust to the temperatures that are coming and were able to learn to drive here before rainy season hit.

A view of our street from our gate.  If you look the other direction, our neighbor kitty-corner to us is a coke distribution center.  This means a fair amount of traffic – but much of it is people carrying plastic cases of glass coke bottles on their heads!  

 The scary corner – on a hill, full of hard to see foot, bike and motorcycle traffic, where you turn onto the main road to the airport while remembering which direction to look because here we drive on the left side.

Did I mention it is dry season?

We arrived three weeks before Mozambique Family Conference.  This is a time when the team gathers together for a couple days of rest and team meetings.  There were team meetings every morning lead by a visiting church team from Florida, and bonding time each afternoon at the beach.  It was about a 2 hour drive out and oh-so-worth-it.  The conference came at the perfect time – we were starting to get pretty overwhelmed by all the differences here so we appreciated a chance to step back and process some of our experiences while they were still fresh. 

It was our first time to the Indian Ocean.  Lucas’ early morning wakeups meant that he and I (Holly) enjoyed some lovely walks on the beach shellhunting and watching the fishermen.  It is beautiful – now who wants to come visit? 

All the MAF kiddos in country.  All the little guys were disgruntled with the idea of a picture…

Birthday exploring.  Blue tailed lizards are our friends – they eat mosquitos for us!

Diego started 1^st grade with two other MAF 1^st graders – Annie & Bekah.  It was such a relief to this momma’s heart to have everything go so well!  Their school is about an hour drive away and they travel on a cute blue bus.  It picks Diego up about a two minute walk from our house.  They were a black and white uniform and have orange PE shirts.  His smile at the end of his first day says it all! 







It is a Christian school in English, but they have Portuguese classes.  There are students of many nationalities and religions attending.  There are also music classes, PE, swimming and electives.  It started five years ago and they are now working on developing a high school program as well.  We are so grateful to have this school and these excellent teachers loving on our son.

Rapale International School – the grounds and the 1^st grade classroom. 

Grady and I are doing observation flights and waiting for the test date for our Mozambique pilot written exams – they only do the exams in the capital (a 2 hour airline flight away) and only when they have enough people signed up to do the exam.  We've been on the list for over a month.  Grady will also have a maintenance exam to take.  We have both been to the Niassa Reserve in the north – Grady had to overnight there and even saw hippos in the river!

Often times people have little farm plots outside of town.  We were able to visit one of our night guards’ plots after they finished the manioc harvest. It’s a root kind of like a potato (or yucca if you’re familiar with Latin American cuisine.)

I (Holly) was able to fly along on a flight in the new Caravan last week, which took a journey along the coast, right over Mozambique Island with all of its old colonial buildings.  One of the pilots saw a whale, but I missed it. 

A few pictures of the yard here at home.  I am my mother's daughter - I bought four plants that I'm putting in this week and it makes me smile just thinking of getting my hands dirty!

Please be praying for our vehicle situation.  We are thankful to have this one on loan to us, but our vehicle is having importation issues.  

Partial eclipse viewed through breaks in the clouds.

These last two months have definitely had come with their challenges, but overall we have really enjoyed our first two months here - I hope you can see that through these pictures!  We're looking forward to many, many more months in Moz!  Please be praying for us as we continue to settle in and as Grady & I continue training.  Ask for wisdom for us to deal with many new and unfamiliar situations - that we could each day handle them in a way that points our kids and others towards Christ.  And please let us know how you are doing as well! 

Honey in My Hair and Blood on My Hands

When we moved to Moz we acquired two pre-trained dogs that a previous MAF family could not bring with them when they moved back to the US.  Sarge and Lady have been wonderful.  They are two really sweet German Shepherds that scare people with their barks but are excellent with our kids.  Diego loves them and Lucas’ only problem with them is that they are the same height so he gets LOTS of kisses.  They go so far as to let Lucas crawl/fall on them without complaint. 

Dog ownership in Africa definitely has a learning curve though!  For example, did you know the flies like to bite the end of dogs’ ears, and if you do not put medicine/repellant on them it can get really bad.  There are dogs around that have most of their outside ear missing because no one treated the fly wounds. 

And until recently there were no vets in town so you had to wait for the traveling vet who came to town only once a month!  (Now there is one who is setting up her practice in town.)  Well, I went outside two weeks ago to see Sarge’s left ear swelled up like a puff pastry.   It was the weekend, so I called another MAF family who has dogs, and after discussing his fly bites we decided to try an antibiotic shot.  Dave bravely came over and administered it for us.  On Monday he was closer to his happy self, but his ear was not any better.  I began to wonder – maybe it is not an infection, maybe it is fly eggs?  Ewww.

Ear, or puff pastry?

So on Monday I loaded up two boys and the dog our borrowed LandRover and headed to the tiny vet office that had been pointed out to me just the week before.  No luck, they were locked up tight as it was a city holiday.  Through a phone call with poor service in Portuguese I gathered they opened on Tuesday at 8:00.

But Tuesday we had to leave town at 8:45 for four days.  So, I loaded up the dog again in the back – do you know how heavy a full grown male German Shepherd is!?  This time Grady was home so the boys aren’t along.  On my arrival at 8:05 the green painted security doors are wide open – I’m in luck!  Sarge jumps down from the back and stays trembling in fear beside the road – totally frozen.  Normally someone, (or usually multiple someones), offer to guard your car, but everyone stayed back because of Sarge.  Way WAY back.  When they say having dogs is a good deterrent to theft, I think they must be right. 

Anyways, I had to CARRY him across the road because he would not walk.   I walked to the green doors only to realize that the vet has the white doors next door–  the still locked white doors . . .  People confirmed the vet opens at 8:00, but I finally I gave up, got Sarge across the street and safely back in the vehicle.   I backed out into traffic only to find a man running and waving at me.  The vet was open.  So we did it all again and I carried Sarge up the stairs into the office. 

Well, guess what.  This guy is only the shop employee for their pet supplies.  He calls in the vet who cannot be there until at least 10:00.  After a call to Grady I decided to take Sarge home and wait out the four days.  (Sarge hadn’t been showing signs of pain.)  Armed with the vet’s phone number, I left yet again. 

The next week (this week) we began again with Grady calling the vet on Monday.  He got a Tuesday appointment.  So, while the boys played at Nikki’s house we took poor Sarge on another terrifying drive.  We arrived a little late but that was fine as we still waited another 20 minutes for the vet.  Only it turns out this was apparently a vet tech and still not the vet.  And he could not drain the ear, but he could give us a phone number for the actual vet who was getting back from a couple day trip on Wednesday.  And she would come do a home visit instead of us making another dreaded office run -  if we could give directions well enough for her to find the house… in a city with no road signs.

The directions I gave the vet tech were kind of like this, only in Portuguese:

Take the Eduardo Mondlane road outside your store past four corners (an intersection) and on down to Mercado Unico (a grocery store).  Turn right opposite the store and go almost all the way down the road to FPLM (another major road in town).  Before FPLM on the left side there will be a wall painted red with Vodacom written all over it, and a yellow hut selling chicken.  Turn left at the road just before the yellow hut.  Our house is bluish-gray with a black gate on the right, with a coca-cola distributor almost directly across the street.

The vet did not get back to Nampula until Thursday, but agreed to stop by around 3:00.  3:00 turns into 6:30 when you get really confused by the newbies directions in Nampula.  She took a look, in the dark, at Sarge’s ear and confirmed it needed drained.  The reason?  Otohematoma, ie it was so big because of a large amount of blood in the ear.  This meant a small surgery on Friday morning – to be done at our house.  Did we have a space we could keep him for a week out of the main yard?  A table she could do the surgery on?  After dinner, Grady ran to Kent’s to borrow their sturdy folding table, and then on to an ATM for the cash payment.

Friday morning dawned and Grady headed off to the hangar.  I swept out the back patio and set up the table, using an old shower curtain liner to keep the table clean.  The surgery was set for between 8 and 9 but the vet and her tech showed up at 10:15.  Our other dog was put on the front patio to keep her out of the way and I slung Lucas into the Ergo baby carrier on my back to contain that little mischief maker.  Diego was busy building a Lego hangar inside. 

Patio - turned - operation room. 

The vet, who is from Maputo (Mozambique’s capital) also studied in Canada and speaks English really well.  She sedated Sarge but didn’t put him all the way under.  I held him still for the shots and then the tech lifted him onto the table.  The whole process was really interesting… and gross.  It involved needles and blades and an S-shaped cut through one side of his ear.  There was even one of those kidney bean shaped pans, all out on our patio.  They stitched multiple plastic tubes outside the ear to hold it closed while it drained and then in addition to some meds she asked for honey. 

Honey is recommended for its antibacterial purposes and was rubbed all over the ear before he got bandaged up.  While they bandaged him up Lucas got ahold of the honey spoon… and since he was still on my back, my hair took the brunt of that mess!  I got a great view of the entire process because I was right there holding Sarge’s head steady the entire time (that’s why there was blood on my hands).  It was quite an adventure with Lucas periodically pulling my ponytail and yanking my head back while I tried to keep from jerking Sarge! 

A very good patient.

The whole thing, including vaccination updates for both dogs and a discussion on how to care for the dogs took less than two hours.  Now Sarge is stuck for a week on the front patio with a cone around his head.  Poor guy.  The vet is coming by for a checkup today (update, it is getting dark so maybe not?).  Anyway that is the adventure you undergo when you live in Mozambique and your dog needs a vet!  I cannot imagine what we would have done before the vet moved to town! 

Firsts in Mozambique

There have been so many “firsts” in the last three weeks… but near and dear to my heart would be my first flights in Mozambique.  I was able to ride along on two of Kent’s trips last week (Kent is another pilot here who we studied with for six months in Portugal).  The scenery was spectacular and it felt FANTASTIC to be back in a little plane.  My flying may be rusty after over a year out of “the office” but my love for flying is holding stong.  Huge kudos to Grady for staying home with the boys AND doing the laundry so that I could go.  (Don’t feel too sorry for him – he got to fly two days later.)

My ride to the airport showed up at 6:45 and after unlocking the series of 3 padlocks to get out on to the street (our front door locks with a padlock), I hopped in the Land Cruiser for the bumpy ride to the hangar across town.  We preflighted the Cessna 206 (a 6 seater aircraft) and watched the low clouds on the horizon.  As conditions improved, holes in the clouds opened up and they rose to allow us views of the mountains in the distance.  With no/limited weather forecasting, our weather briefing consisted of Kent’s knowledge of the area, the view from the hangar and a phone call to our destination to check their conditions.  Kent made the decision to go, and we were off!

(waterfall enroute)

Our first flight of the day was an empty leg westward to Gurué to pick up a missionary couple there who have been working in Mozambique since 1986.

(approaching Gurue)

While Kent called ops to verify we were on the ground, I was talking with the couple and the guy who drove them to the airstrip.  The driver had never been around a plane, but he was really interested, so I had him hop in the pilot’s seat and attempted to explain the controls and instruments to him in Portuguese… we both had fun even if my aviation vocabulary is a little lacking!  On the return flight to Nampula, the guys sat in front because this missionary loves small planes but almost never has an opportunity to ride.  This offered me a great chance to sit back and soak up the views as well as hear about their work in Moz.

(Gurue airstrip - I think they're cutting grass.  Turn 160 degrees or so from this shot and you'd see the same building as the one used for our blog backdrop.)

They came to Nampula to teach the Bible while the country was still in civil war.  When they arrived, Nampula was full of people from all over Northern Mozambique who had fled the violence to the relative safety of the city.  Food was in short supply, and people feared even going to the edges of town to farm, as often those who did were killed.


Nevertheless, the missionaries said those early years were very fruitful because so many pastors from all over Northern Mozambique were gathered together in the city due to the war.  So they studied the Bible together, and then after the war most returned back to their old villages.  Through that experience this couple saw a need for Bible translation, so when they could they moved to a village for that purpose.  Three weeks ago, the Bible translation they have been working on for over twenty years was submitted for final editing!


These missionaries used MAF to reach the airlines taking them stateside for furlough: 75 minutes in the air instead of a full day of travel time over the bumpy interior roads.  When they return to Moz, we are scheduled to fly them home where the translation corrections will be reviewed and then the Bible published!  Their dream is to go on to create a study Bible to aid pastors and believers when the current project is complete. 

(Nampula International Airport) 

(fields on final into Nampula)

After lunch we flew out to pick up another missionary couple, this time headed in a southerly direction to the coast.  On the outbound leg there were no passengers, which meant we were able to haul a little cargo as a favor.  We returned some iron lawn chairs and a table to their owners in Pebane.  (They’d been loaned out to a couple in Nampula who are moving away now, and would have made for a very full Land Rover trip if going by land).  I was thankful it wasn’t my job to figure out how to fit them in the plane!  Flying felt great, but until we hit the coastline of the Indian Ocean, the views were not that lovely - it was too hazy because of fire season obscuring the horizon. 

Pebane’s airstrip is right on the shoreline, surrounded by miles of sandy fields and palm trees.  It is apparently also one of the worst airstrips for people encroaching on the runway during landing and takeoff.  It is rather unnerving to see people lining both sides of the strip on approach.  Kent was prepped for a go-around if anyone came too close.  After shutdown the plane was swarmed by people, mainly kids.  They were super curious, but at the same time they spooked pretty easily.  Anytime you needed to move anywhere, people had to back out of your way.  We were so busy with unloading the awkward chairs and introducing ourselves to our passengers that I forgot to take pictures L.  Takeoff is a sight for the senses in Pebane – you climb out over the cliff and the Indian Ocean!

This couple has been in SE Africa since 2012 and they were out on a field survey.  They will soon be moving to live among the people they are translating the Bible with.  In a little over an hour, we made the trip that would be a very long and dangerous day by car.  (Travel on the roads in that area is not safe right now due to political unrest).  It was a great trip and they now have an invitation to come play games with us when they’re in Nampula. 

(Several views from final into Nampula)

I am excited to be back in a plane, getting back into the swing of things.  (I am less excited about studying for my upcoming Mozambique aviation exam.)  Please be praying for us as we continue with this transition!  The boys are adjusting well – and we’re finally getting settled.  Pray we can make friendships with our neighbors and others in our community and that Jesus’ love would be evident in our lives. 

(my shirts are still enroute to Moz... so I look a bit silly in Grady's shirt with the sleeves rolled up!)