Journey to Mozambique

For many years friends have asked me to share my story and journey and have never really made time to do it, but turning 50 seemed to have done something to me and I realized it is time to share my journey. We have all be on life’s journey with many ups and downs, many moments that were AHA moments that we probably felt like crawling into a hole where no one would see us or hear us again.

So this website is dedicated to the many women and men, who God has graciously brought into my life to help me grow, learn, chisel the rough corners and smoothed me to become the woman I am becoming each day.

It is also a place dedicated to many women whose voices have been silenced by culture, society and environments that they were born into and raised in. These women have not known that they have a voice and that their voices matter. I dedicate it to each woman I met as I served the Lord in Mozambique, Zambia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Uzbekistan, Morocco, Tunisia, Singapore, Egypt and now Greece. My story wouldn’t be as rich as it is today were these women not part of my life. These women and their children opened my heart to compassion in a way I have never known before. I will be sharing story after story especially about these women because they are part of the inspiration for this website and why I chose the name Imbali.

One of the stories that come to mind as I sit in this beautiful café surrounded by women drinking coffee catching up on the latest whether true stories or just pure gossip who knows. At the table in front of me, a grandmother with her granddaughter is drinking tea while waiting for other grandmothers to bring their little ones; I guess it is a day for grandmothers to hang out with their granddaughters. Anyway, back to my story.

The year was 2008 and I had traveled to Mozambique with a team to share the love of Jesus through works of compassion. Somehow in my visa application I had been given a wrong visa instead of being granted a short stay multiple entry visa I was issue a transit visa through Mozambique. That journey was a set up for me to see faith in God operating and establish in me the knowledge and trust within the deepest parts of my heart that God always comes through. I remember learning that I had the wrong visa the night before we traveled and the Mozambiquan man leading the group graciously informed me that I could not join them because of the wrong visa in my passport and that I needed to think of a plan B. I remember looking at him with confidence and informing him that God had provided for me to go to Mozambique and God’s plan is always A not B for me and therefore no matter what, I was going. Long story short, I had to travel to Malawi and apply for a new visa to Mozambique and then find my way to join the team in Mozambique. The journey through Malawi where I had never been before and through the night taught me to pray and trust God for the impossible. I remember arriving in Malawi in the early hours of the following morning and I am grateful for a gentleman who was part of the group and offered to travel with me to Malawi because he knew the country. There I was, traveling on a bus in a foreign land with a stranger.

We did arrive safe at the embassy and when they opened I presented my case to the immigration officer who told me in no uncertain words that there was no way he would grant me a visa within a day, I had to wait at least a week and I remember looking at him and telling him that it wasn’t possible because that is not where I was meant to be. After going back and forth he asked me to move and make way for other applicants because I was wasting his time. I remember that I left my passport with him and told him I would be back that day. He must have thought I was crazy. So I l left my passport and went away to pray and pray I did for a miracle and after about three hours I went back because I did not want them to close before I got my passport back and sure enough when I went back my passport was ready with its visa stamped in it and I was on my way.

The journey to Mozambique was very adventurous and I am grateful it was then because if it was now I probably would have been taken for slavery or been caught for Human Trafficking purposes. The reason I think so is because there was no bus or public transport to where we were going and the only transport we could get was the cross boarder hauling trucks and those days men were still ok for the most part especially cross boarder trucks. Anywhere we found one going to Mozambique and we traveled for hours and then arrived at the boarded in Mozambique in time for the morning shift to start work. We crossed and we found ourselves in Mozambique and had to walk some distance for the truck to catch up with us otherwise they would have been accused of human smuggling. It was while walking that I have a story to share. I was walking and noticed a woman carrying a baby on her back with hardly anything on her. Her clothes were torn and my heart went out to her and I took a shirt I had and gave it to her. I had more than one shirt so why not share. I then traveled to join the rest of the group and our time in Mozambique was the beginning of many journeys into the nations to demonstrate the love of God through action. Time spent in Mozambique became the launch pad for where I am today and I look back and I am grateful that right there, through the act of sharing my shirt with a mother of a baby seeds of compassion had started to work.

Enjoy the read and be blessed.

Cecilia