Iris Mieze...and the Mieze Model

Background

Mieze (pron. mee-AY-zee) is a rural Mozambican village of 20,000 located about 10 km south of the Pemba airport along the main highway to Nampula...about a 20 minute drive from Iris’ main Pemba Base. The Partners in Harvest church there was planted by Iris in 2004—the first outside the city of Pemba in the northern province of Cabo Delgado. The gospel was initially met with a very hostile reception there but that changed quickly, and under the leadership of Mieze Pastor João Juma, the Mieze church became second largest in the province after the church on the Pemba Base itself; and a strong contingent of mature Christian leaders—men, women and children—has been raised up within the Mieze congregation.

[Pastor Juma distributing food to needy Mieze families]

What is referred to today as the “Mieze Model for village transformation” began in 2006, when a team from Summerside, Prince Edward Island built a wonderful playground for village children beside the Mieze church building. Prophetic words from several credible sources at the time confirmed that this was just the beginning of a far-reaching vision. And that vision unfolded over the next few years to include several key initiatives...all led and staffed by the local Mieze church. God also confirmed his own word by many miracles, including the supernatural multiplication of food for poor village children on three occasions! The Mieze Model includes

•    Village access to potable water
•    School access program for 250 poor village children
•    Food program for over 200 orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs)
•    Twice-weekly medical clinics
•    Milk program for needy mothers and babies
•    Scabies and de-worming programs
•    Residential children’s village for 40 OVCs
•    Weekly children’s evangelistic program
•    Recreational facilities for village children
•    Farming projects: goats, chickens, eggs, vegetables and fruit
•    Continuing education and training of area pastors and church leaders

These components reflect the recognition that an appropriate and effective development program needs to pursue two goals simultaneously to produce sustainable and transformational results. Immediate intervention is necessary to address acute and preventable suffering and death. The hungry must be fed; the naked must be clothed; the vulnerable must be protected. But long-term strategies must also be in place to ensure that the children we’re helping today will become leaders and contributing members of society tomorrow. Improved health care and nutrition are part of that strategy...but so is access to schooling for girls and boys, and the necessary social and financial support to enable them to walk into the fullness of God’s plan to give them “hope and a future” (Jer. 29:11).

Village Access to Potable Water

Apart from the effects of HIV/AIDS, it is a recognized fact that most health problems in Sub-Saharan Africa are water-related, due either to inadequate or contaminated water supply. Currently 50% of the population of Mozambique still lacks access to safe potable water; and that crisis is even more acute in the remote northerly region.

The Mieze project provided local access to potable water in 2007 and there has been an obvious and amazing improvement in general health as a result. We know that the lives of many infants have been saved over the past three years because of the availability of potable water and access to water is one of the provisions the local community is most grateful for.

[Village women come all day to get water for their families]

School Access Program

Attendance at government schools in Mozambique requires that children pay a small annual fee, have a uniform and footwear, and have basic school supplies—a total cost of about $35 a year. But when this amount is multiplied by the number of children in a typical poor family struggling to provide even one meal a day, it means access to schooling is a complete impossibility for most. As a consequence, the children will likely never learn Portuguese, the official language of Mozambique, and will be consigned to a life of extreme poverty and suffering.

Iris in general and the Mieze project in particular are committed to significantly improving access to schooling for poor village children by a program of active intervention and support.

[Tailors making school uniforms for poor Mieze children under this project]

Currently in 2010, the number of children being financially assisted and socially supported to attend school through the Mieze project is in excess of 250. (And as a result, the primary school in Mieze has had to move to two shifts a day!)

[Some resident Mieze children ready for school in their new unoforms]

Food Program for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs)

The Mieze Model includes residential accommodation for about 40 OVCs; but there are many more extremely needy children in Mieze and surrounding villages whose lives hang in the balance daily. The Mieze project has responded by organizing a food distribution program through the local Iris church to provide full daily nutrition to over 200 OVCs who are still living in village settings. The food is distributed weekly and church volunteers monitor the recipient care-givers and the health of the children being supported.

The combination of this food program, weekly medical clinics, and the school access program is designed to enable vulnerable children to continue to live in their village community with greatly enhanced health and security today...and to progress in school so they have the prospect of a much better future tomorrow.

Medical and Community Health Initiatives

Most rural communities in Mozambique are never visited by a medical doctor. Where there are rural health centers, they are typically only staffed by a technician who may dispense whatever is on hand by way of medication regardless of the patient’s ailment. Moreover, large numbers of preventable deaths occur annually due to mothers’ lack of even the most basic understanding of family health and hygiene. And a visit to the local witch doctor is usually the first—and often the only—action taken in cases of illness.

[Iris medical Land Rover in front of old Mieze church building]

Medical personnel and volunteers have treated and prayed for over 8,000 villagers at Mieze medical clinics. 

The Mieze Model is addressing basic health needs by staffing twice-weekly medical clinics with qualified doctors and nurses; by running a milk replacement program to ensure that babies receive adequate nutrition during the first 18 months of life; and by a community health education program designed to equip village women to be more knowledgeable about the health and well-being of their families.

Residential Children’s Village: The Village of Love

 In 2007, a small residential children’s village was built for 36-40 orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs). These children were truly “the least of the least” when they came to the Mieze Village of Love. Most had absolutely no possessions other than the worn and tattered rags they were wearing. None had ever slept on a mattress or a bed before. None had ever experienced running water from a tap or electricity from a switch. They had no idea what to do with a flush toilet. Most hadn’t ever even seen themselves in a mirror before! None had ever had three meals in a single day—and even two meals in a day would be an extreme rarity. Most had never had the opportunity to go to school. They had lived lives of suffering, abuse, and deprivation...and had little expectation that anything would ever get better. They were helpless and hopeless... typical of hundreds of thousands of children in Mozambique today.

The dramatic change in these residential children in such a short time is an eloquent testimony to the transformational power of the Father’s love. Now they are a happy, healthy family of loving kids who carry the presence of God individually and corporately. They care deeply for one another, are progressing well in school, are very active in church, and they welcome visitors to their village with a warmth that is almost overwhelming. They do chores happily every day, tend the gardens they’ve planted, and even look after the chickens.

Village Evangelism: Clube de Bandeira

The Mieze Model is not only a program for addressing immediate and long-term human needs with the compassion of Jesus, it is a strategy for making Jesus widely known in a village community that has lived in spiritual darkness until recently.

A Saturday morning evangelistic program for poor village kids is currently drawing 400 children every week. It’s a high-energy program in their native Makua tongue which celebrates God’s plan of salvation; and hundreds of Mieze children from nominally Muslim homes have enthusiastically said yes! to Jesus in recent months.

[These poor village children also receive a plate of beans and rice when the morning program ends]

We have also run two training workshops for pastors and leaders of 30-40 other churches in the area to equip them to organize similar programs through their village churches. And when they returned for the second workshop, they brought reports of thousands of children in their villages having enthusiastically given their lives to Jesus, as well!