for Aaron and his new baby Leani in Zimbabwe

Today, a telephone ringing at 7:00a woke me to a clean, rain-washed morning in Texas.

My mom's excited voice could barely contain her joy - "dad has something to tell you" - Aaron, the builder from Mutare, Zimbabwe, and his team of four had finished the new little church building in Manica, Mozambique so far that they could start on the roof this week.
This was almost too good to be true!
I had one tick-bite and my dad - two to show, from setting out the piece of wild veld together with these men in July this year. Shoooing cattle and curious goats away from our boundary markers, I chopped out weeds and dead branches with my manchetti.
Aaron came to look for work in Mozambique almost a year ago in hope of providing better for his wife and little child still living in Zimbabwe. He got to see them perhaps once in every two weeks if things were going well enough for him to travel.

But there was more to rejoice about this morning:
My dad received a phonecall from this meticulous artist with the quiet smile and gentle voice, that works magic with clay and cement when given a chance.
Fourty kilometers away from his small, rented room, probably by candle light in their humble two-room-home without running water, in a country strangled without any medical services under the tiranny of a mad murderer, his precious wife gave birth, alone, to their new baby girl and they named her Leani.