In 2018 the Sena books were first launched in Beira, Mozambique. Eva and Luis attended the first Little Zebra Books Conference in Tete in May of that year and were really excited about the opportunity to share these books with children. Stories of how their new programs were engaging local language communities in reading clubs and Sunday schools started to trickle into our offices.
Then, in March of 2019, Cyclone Idai devastated huge swathes of central Mozambique, including most of the Sena-speaking area of Sofala Province. We tried over and over in the first days and weeks to hear from our friends in Beira. The news was very grim. Houses were destroyed. Churches were washed away. Many died, but all of the Sena translation team was safe, along with their families! We did not even ask about the books. Books don’t hold up well under water!
In 2021, one of our Sena friends came to Cape Town for a course. We asked him cautiously about the books. Yes, there were boxes of books in their office. However, the 11 boxes that went out to churches were gone. Luckily, we still had 11 boxes left in our storage room! We eagerly packed up as many of the Sena books as we could for him to take back to Beira. We also packed a shipment to be air freighted as soon as shipping opened after the pandemic.
In June this year I had the opportunity to visit Beira personally, with my husband who has worked with the PRODELISE, the Sena Bible Translation team. They kindly invited us to the office for a friendly chat. Surprise, surprise! We handed over a new box of books ahead of the coming shipment. As they passed the new books around and we talked of the dreams of sharing books openly with the Sena community, I glanced into the corner of the room. There was a stack of water-marked boxes with the Little Zebra logo on the side. One of the boxes was shredded and the books peeked through the holes.
“You still have boxes here you did not open?” I remarked.
“Yes, those were here when the roof broke through and the water was up to our shins in here (this was the second floor office!).”
“Have you not opened these since the flooding?”
“No, we could not gather to start new groups, so we saved them here.”
I grabbed the messed up box and turned on my camera. “Let’s open this one and see… “
As they tore away the cardboard we pulled the shrink-wrapped blocks of books from the box. Each little folding book looked as good as new. The story books in the ziploc bag were in perfect condition. In the very bottom, there was ONE chunk of about 30 books that had black edges and pages stuck together. 30 books out of 1200 in that torn and battered box. Each of the boxes was opened and we found most everything was in pristine condition!
These precious books will now be passed out into the community to encourage people to read God’s Word in the Sena language. We are praising God that the care we have taken to pack and send materials to Mozambique has been effective! Many books were lost in the floods, but these 11 boxes survived!