THE PAST AND THE FUTURE!

Hey everyone so it’s pretty clear that technology and this whole blogging thing is definitely not my forte however I have finally gotten around to it again and thought I should fill everyone in on what has happened in my life in the past few months and what my plans are for the coming months.

Shelton with a towel on his head

For starters many of you know I went home in Mid-February to compete at Seattle Pacific University and Whitworth University for full-tuition scholarships. I was only home for a few weeks and only got to see a few of you, but it was still a great time seeing people and enjoying the Northwest which I have grown to miss and become thankful for during my time in Mozambique. I also got to see my best friend Nolan Takemura take second place at the Washington State Wrestling Tournament. Something I would have come home for all by itself! I really don’t know if I have ever been that exited in my life after Nolan’s semifinals match.

Once I returned from that trip I had the task of once again getting into the swing of things on the center. The transition went very smoothly and besides some playful remakes about my frequent trips home everyone welcomed me back warmly.

Then on the 6th of February I got an email at 2:30am from the admissions at SPU informing me that I had won their full tuition scholarship! This was in pretty close competition for the most exited I have ever been. This means that I won’t have to pay over $120,000 dollars in tuition anymore and my father can finally be free of the bonds of paying for tuition at a private university. This has been an amazing blessing and has really shown Gods provision for our family. This also means that I am definitely attending SPU now, which had previously been a much debated subject while I was trying to figure out between SPU and Whitworth. I am very much at peace with the decision and am looking forward to the years to come and am hoping that once again all of us Mullett children will live in one city!

A week after I received the news about SPU I began to get rather sick and it ended up culminating in my being taken to the Mozambican Trauma Center and getting IV’s and blood taken and just a lot of needles stuck in me. (Which FIY I hate needles!) It turns out I had a gastrointestinal infection that was able to get pretty bad and cause me to not be able to eat or drink anything without vomiting causing me to become extremely dehydrated. After a few days of being back from the Trauma Center I felt much better but still had little to no appetite for 3 to 4 days. Finally I started eating again but even now I am eating much less than normal but that may be a blessing in disguise considering I have a tux for my sister’s wedding that is one size to small at the waist so I can do to lose a little weight.

So other than that things here are pretty quiet and normal. I have a pretty sent routine of times I take my boys out to go do fun little trips of activities. It’s kind of a sweet gig I have now cause every time I go over and get a group of boys they always know that we are about to do something fun. It is back to the type of parenting I dreamed of while living with the boys. Where the only times you were around them you were doing something fun so they always are happy! Besides that I am still helping on hospitality even though I have been terrible about making it to our meetings. We only have them once a week and I was sick one week and just compete forgot the other two so I think I am starting to unnecessarily stress those relationships, which exist outside of just hospitality as well.

So that was all what has happened for me in the past few months and now to what is to come!

Well I have a little less two more weeks here in Mozambique and then I fly home for my older sister, Aleya’s wedding in which I am a groomsmen (hence the small tux) and then after being home for the wedding I will be flying back to Johannesburg South Africa and meeting up with a friend, Vanessa Kale, also from Bellingham, and we will spend a few days in SA in the wild animal park Kruger and then head back to Mozambique to Iris to spend the rest or May. Then in the beginning of June we both fly to Germany for a few weeks and then I start my great Europe expedition with my good friend Kurtis McFadden. We plan to travel all across the Mediterranean and then up through France to the Netherlands. Then I will return to Bellingham in the end of July.
If you have any questions of just want to email me or set up a time to Skype date I love hearing from people back at home.

Thanks for your interest and reading.
God Bless,
Garrett Mullett

Coming home again…

After a little over a month finally back to try to fill you all in on what has been happening here.

For those of you who don’t know I was able to come home for three weeks for Christmas and had an amazing but rushed time with friends and family. It was tons of fun sneaking around and surprising everyone I could before word leaked out that I was home. It was a great time to get refreshed and ready to come back and also to realize how much I really do enjoy it here. It also provided a great opportunity for me to get a little of the wrestling bug out of me as I went to a number of practices and tournaments while home and had tons of fun wrestling with Nolan again!

I have been back in Mozambique for a little over a week now and have loved it and found it very easy to get right back into a routine here. I am now doing more hospitality duties and Laura is back and in charge of her dorm (the one I previously lived in) but I am still going to be working there and doing some different activities with the kids as well as just being around to play with as much as possible.

On a completely different note I have just figured out in the last week that I have been invited to compete for a full ride scholarship at Seattle Pacific University and I already knew about an opportunity I had to do the same at Whitworth (the two schools I am most seriously considering attending). I know about the Whitworth competition for the last month or so but I knew I wouldn’t be home for any of the dates available, but after being invited to the SPU one the same week with much greater odds of receiving the scholarship I made the decision that I will be coming home for both competitions in the middle of February and then returning to Mozambique the following week. I believe I will be flying out of Maputo on the 8th and leaving Seattle on the 19th-23rd or so. I know it’s crazy coming back again but the possibility of getting any additional scholarships and potentially a full ride is just too good to pass up. I will have a very rushed visit home but I wanted to let people know ahead of time this time so I wouldn’t have to answer the question a hundred times.

It was hard to make this decision as I am just getting back into the swing of things here but after prayer and lots of consideration I have decided it’s worth it. I would appreciate prayer for my remaining few weeks here as well as being able to do well at both the competitions which will consist of interviews and group discussions.

God Bless,

Garrett Mullett

P.S. Sorry about no pictures

 

 

The Ups and Downs

It seems ironic that the first blog post following one entitled “Contentment”, would be about the “Ups and Downs.” However, I believe that God calls us to grow in every situation he places us and especially the difficult ones.

In my last blog post I had finally began to feel content and at home here in Mozambique. I still had been struggling with the lack of like aged friends, but through that I was still enabled me to feel content.

It was almost as soon as I shared my feelings of contentment on my blog as well as with my home group here that I began to feel the emptiness reinvigorated and the overwhelming sense of loneliness growing once again. I prayed for the feelings to subside but little changed and I couldn’t understand why God would let me go from finally starting to feel a part of the community here at Iris to once again feeling isolated and lonely. Due to my negative feelings being revived I was forces to confide in a number of people here at Iris including Steve the director who has since suggested I move in with the other long-term missionaries in the main compound area. I ended up moving in a few weeks ago and have felt the change has helped immensely. I have people around all the time and have been able to make some really great friends, namely Rebecca who I like to refer to as my new older sister.

Shelton on his Birthday

On top of beginning to really feel a sense of community here I have also been able to grow immensely in my walk with God. I have always none he was real and tried to follow him but never really completely devoted myself to following Jesus with all my heart. As a result over the years I have had a sense of emptiness come and go with how busy I could keep myself. Being her in Mozambique where there are definitely busy times but there are also lots of slow times to spend with God, or in my pervious case let the emptiness grow. I couldn’t figure out why the feelings would never really disappear, when I had one of my first real encounters with God. After this experience (don’t really want to write it out but more than willing to talk about it with anyone who wants to know-Skype name garrett.mullett) I realized that the emptiness was Gods way of showing me he had more for me and that I needed to truly have faith and give him my everything and hold nothing back. Since then I have felt totally fulfilled and have not felt empty or lonely. Not to say I haven’t had my good and bad days, but instead that when I do have my bad days I know, even if I try to forget, that I will always have Jesus Christ on my side who died and took all my sin and sorrows upon himself to pay for them.

As far as things are going here, everything is running somewhat smoothly with God ever providing. We have been quite short on funds and with Christmas coming have been trying to figure out what to do. After a night spends talking about the need we had, the following few days brought in two large donations. Not that they will pay for everything but just that they will help a little and it gives us encouragement here that God is ever present and working even in the everyday things like finances.

Another new development for me has been Gods placing on my heart to fundraise and get people praying for the construction of the Special Needs House which is currently at a standstill. It is the vision of one of the previous missionaries who spent a lot of time with the nine severely special needs kids we have on base. Two of these kids are in my dorm, Lucas and Domingos. Both are in great need of more individualized need because currently they are just two of 31 kids myself and the Tias have to take care of and do not get the attention they need. The Special needs would enable each of our precious and love handicapped kids get the care and developmental treatment they need so badly. So PLEASE pray for the special needs house! The main structure is up but it still needs lots done, including all plumbing, electrical, interior tiling and being outfitted to accommodate our kids. This will not be a small project and I intend to begin spending a lot of time working on it in the coming weeks and I will be sure to post updates and more information about it in the future. If you have any questions feel free to email me at garrett.mullett@gmail.com

Domingos' Dad, Nelson spending the day with his son!

Other adventures I have had since my last blog post include, giant African bug hunting to silence the defining noise in my back yard, riding in the back of a pick-up truck back from Swaziland after our monthly border run, being attacked by a man eating spider (slight exaggeration) swing dancing in the rain and currently in charge of passing out new shoes to every child in the center. And yes, this last one has been one of the more stressful elements of my time here, but I am nearly finished.

Perfect size!

Shelton smiling from ear to ear on his birthday! Reggies first time driving

Outside of shoprite

Poulito "Bebe"

Impossible for him not to be cute.

Fernando looking legit.

Reggie showing off his huge muscles

Elidio doing the superman

Rocking the aviators!

Such a cute kid

The sunrise from my backyard

Just a shot from the back of the truck of the comunity.

Huge creepy spider/scorpion mix. This is a picture right after it ran across my foot and I killed it.

Thank you for reading and please pray for God to continue to work and provided here at Iris Zimpeto and have a wonderful Christmas! God Bless,

Garrett Mullett

YES!

(or Gary as many call me here)

Contentment

Contentment

Today I felt totally and completely content!

This may not seem like a big deal
however, throughout my time in Mozambique thus far I have had instances of
happiness, joy and contentment but I have never been truly and fully filled
with those feelings.

I have had numerous exciting and fun
experiences since my last blog. I have had birthday parties, trips to the beach,
and trips to the pool, afternoon program baking and I even got to go to South Africa.

The last of those, my trip to South
Africa was a great time to relax and get to know some of the other staff. I
went with three girls Rachel, Sam and Rebecca. Rachel and Sam where nice enough
to let me tag along on the first part of their mini vacation to South Africa as
well as get up at the crack of dawn to insure I was able to turn in my
paperwork on time so that I could get my long-term visa in Nelspruit. Rebecca joined us to exit and reenter
Mozambique (something almost all the missionaries at Iris have to do every 30
days) and keep me company on my return trip to Maputo. We left at six-thirty on
Thursday morning and drove all the way to Nelspruit, South Africa where I
turned in my visa papers and was blessed by receiving a six month visa. This
still requires me to leave every 30 days but only to the boarded and back.

That night after doing some shopping in
real stores look like the one in the USA, we went to the place we were
staying. It is called Mercy Air and it I
a Christian organization that flies aid all over southern Africa to remote
locations, but they also have built a getaway place for missionaries to come
and stay and just soak in the beauty and the peace and quiet. It was one of the
most beautiful places I have ever been, it is surrounded by rolling green hills
and is filled with peaceful gardens that make you have no choice but to relax and
enjoy yourself.

Rebecca and I only stayed one night and
then caught a bus back to Maputo. Our
bus ended up arriving late to pick us up and took an extremely long time to
cross the border but it gave me time to get to know Rebecca (a nurse from
Seattle that is here because she heard about Iris from my older sister Aleya)
better and adopt her as my new older sister since I no longer have the luxury
of actually having either of mine within ten-thousand miles. (Oh and Riley
still struggling to find a comparable replacement for you)

I have been connecting with far more of
the staff and have been seeking out time to hang out with them and get out of
my dorm. I have finally made a number of friends on staff and have been
interacting with the visitors more and more. This brings me today, it was a
simple enough day, but in that it brought contentment and no longer felling the
slight emptiness and loneliness that has been lingering with me. I woke up and
went to ShopRite with the visitors for my weekly groceries. Then I hung out and
ate lunch with my boys. Then I decided
to take ten of them to the pool for their afternoon program and three of the
visitors came and helped me watch and play with the boys. Then after a few hours
at the pool we all walked back in the African sun and ate bananas from a street
vendor. Once I was back to my casa I got out my Louis L’amour book, my iPod and
laid in my hammock in my backyard reading well the sunset. It was the perfect
conclusion to a great day!

The sense of total fulfillment and
contentment I am feeling just being here and living with and loving my kids is
such an answer to prayer! Another answer
to prayers I have experience recently is the tremendous generosity that many of
you have shown me with your donations to me making my time here possible. I was
beginning to discovering that things here were going to be a little more
expensive than I initially anticipated , especially my trip to South Africa,
when I checked my bank account and found that enough new money had been donated
to completely cover my trip to south Africa and my visa! I am very thankful for
all of your financial support but even more so I thankful for your prayers that
have and will continue to make my time here life changing one.

God Bless,

Garrett Mullett

My backyard

Rockin the lion hair as Reggie calls it

Its just so exciting...Its his Birthday!

Birthday boy Felizardo getting the royal treatment

Felizardo's Birthday

Gang Simbols on Felizardo's birthday trip to the bakery.

Felizardo passing out his birthday candy to all the kids

Felizardo's Birthday night

Shelton happily feeding Lucas

He just won't let me put him down

Just holding Reggie as normal becuause he is so cute.

This kid is way to easy to take pictures of.

Shelton giggling

Diving evasive maneuver!

The case begins...running for my life!

The kids and Andreas a visitor

60 people in the back of one truck

Bebe

Reggie

Trip to the market

Muffins...Yum!

Dance Party at the end of Afternoon Program

Look at the back of the market

James and Reggie before swimming

Me and Bebe

Jumping!

Me and Felizardo

Cutest kid ever!

Reggie

Swingset!

On our way to the pool

Cookie Baking and Some Exited Kids!

Hey Everyone,
Thank you so much for all the support you have shown me, it truly is a great blessing to hear from you and know you are praying for me. The pictures on this post are from my dorms afternoon Program (AP) which takes place on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. One of the three rooms in my dorm comes in each of those days and we do some sort of learning activity or game. So this week I decided we would bake chocolate chip cookies  for AP. This was a popular decision as far as the boys where concerned. So enjoy the pictures and if I get to adding some of the videos I took those will be on my facebook.

Bebe just a little exited about his cookie!

I have been doing great the past few days and am finally starting to settle in with the routine and lifestyle. I say the last few days because before that I was sick for three days. It wasn’t anything terrible, but because of some of the kids in my dorm with very weak immune systems it was best for me to stay away from the kids for the most part. During those few days of illness I realize that without spending time with the kids here I have almost nothing to do.
I realized how totally my time is invested with the boys, which on one had is great but at the same time I have been struggling to make connections with the other staff and at times feel quite lonely. It’s a strange feeling of being isolated while being surrounded by people, but that’s really what I am. My dorm is on the edge of the compound and has everything I need in it. We even get meals here rather than at the main kitchen. So I have to make a conscious effort to leave the dorm and connect with others especially the staff. It is a strange community for me to be a part of where everyone is much older than me and there are mostly women and the only men here are married.

So please pray that I develop some relationships with some of the other staff. Also learning Portuguese has been a big struggle for me and my not knowing it causes a number of daily difficulties mostly with communicating with the Tias who work with the boys and often need supplies. I am managing fine but I would appreciate your prayers. And lastly that I would be able to manage my finances appropriately and knowing when and what are the right things to spend money on. There are so many needs here and it is hard to know what to give to.

Now that I have asked for prayer I feel it is an appropriate time to offer up praise to God for answering prayer. As many of you already know I am severely dyslexic and struggled immensely with the SAT’s. After a few failed attempts to get more time, because of my lack of accommodations received by Bellingham High School throughout my time there, a number of people worked very hard on my behalf especially Steve Clarke the former Principle of BHS and I was finally given extended time. I had a number of people praying for me well I took the test as well. I just received my results and I improved over 300 points and scored in the 91% in Critical Reading and the 92% in Math the two sections my top schools look at making me qualify for far more scholarships. I say all this to give the thanks to God and also express my gratitude to those that helped me throughout this presses.

Like always if you have any question please email me or leave comments. I love and miss everyone from home and would love to hear from you. My Skype name is garrett.mullett and my email garrett.mullett@gmail.com

God Bless,

Garrett Mullett

Everyone eager to get started

James concentrating on making perfectly equal cookies with Vernanzio supervising!

Figuring out the oven takes a few more than you might expect

What a single file line looks like when it’s for food.

Cookies being presented!

Paulo

FelizBebe getting pumped about his cookie! Look at those eyes!

Bebe

Shelton

Casmeiro

All the kids praying for Andreas a visitor from Germany at the end of Afternoon Program

I LOVE MY KIDS

Hey Everyone,
Here are just a handful of picture I took last night with my kids. Maybe its just me but they just never stop looking adorable! Ill post a real update in the comming days, but for now please keep praying. Oh and it cost money to post videos on this blog so if anyone has ideas of websites similar to youtube that I could load them on and just put a link let me know. Youtube won’t work because it is blocked to conserve the use of the internet for productive perposes(same reason facebook is blocked during the day). For now I have posted a few very short videos on my facebook account, so feel free to check them out. Also I have a fairly good skype connection for those of you who would like to set up a time to talk just email me and we can figure something out.

God Bless,

Garrett Mullett
garrett.mullett@gmail.com

P.S. for those of you who have asked the time difference here is nine hours from pacific time. Example 10:00pm in Bellingham is 7:00am the next morning for me.

One of the cutest kids in my dorm for sure!

 

     

Casmeiro trying to look cute,,,its working

 

             

Bebe trying to pose!

Getting ready for his runway walk pose!

     

They just couldn’t sit still

Pause and Think

While sitting on my couch this evening playing with Lucas, a mentally handicapped boy, I realized the single greatest difference between life back at home and here. At home there are always things to be accomplished and tasks to complete, where here the aim is to simply give your time, no amount of work or material possessions, just time. The fact that the perfect and most productive way for me to spend an hour here is to sit and play with Lucas as he stacks and unstacks his cups, is a puzzling reality. But getting to see the occasional smile on his face is the most rewording compensation I could ever ask for.

Another thing that has struck me in my short time here thus far, is the contentment that the children get here from the smallest little things. Like one of my boys who looked like he was having more fun with three marbles and a plastic fork and spoon, than someone back home would have with an Xbox. Also, how grateful these kids are for the food they get each day is extraordinary. They get almost the exact same meals every day of rice and either beans or a little potato, and they never complain, but instead thank God that it’s there at all.

Lucas having the time of his life!

The past three days have been great at times and a struggle at others. I have learned that strict boundaries must be kept with my boys or else they will totally take over and hell will break loose as some would say. The problem is, how do you tell a five year old boy not to do something and have him actually listen and know you are serious when you don’t speak the language? I mean I don’t want to yell at them but I need some way of making them know I mean business. I guess this is the problem all parents face I was just hoping to put it off a few years.
So aside from having fun trying to keep my boys under control I have been having a jolly old time trying to memorize all 29 of their names, half of which I couldn’t pronounce three days ago. I am truly having fun here though! My main job is to hang out and play with kids all day and then get rested up so I can do it again the next day.
Friday I got to bring all my boys and one other Camarata (dorm in Portuguese) to the beach! That meant that sixty kids and adults climbed into the back of a flatbed truck and went bouncing down the road for half an hour and then and then once we got there it was too windy to swim so we just played on the beach. Otherwise known as everyone gang up on “Mano Garrett” and try to jump on top of him. Let’s just say I wasn’t sad to see the truck arrive to take us home. And of course on the way home all the little tykes where so tired from wrestling me they all decided to fall asleep on me. (The kid’s here ability to sleep though anything is truly remarkable).
Saturday was a truly relaxing day I woke up at 3am and got a fair amount done on college apps and then Matthew and I went into town for the day to do some business in the morning and then lunch and grocery shopping. Then we got back to the base and I played Frisbee with some of my boys and then hit the hay.
Today I finally figured out a way to start really getting names figured out. We played Frisbee and whoever you through the Frisbee to you had to say their name. Then back at the Camerata I took pictures of all the boys and attempted to spell their names so I have a list to look at.
Prayer Request- Please pray that everything will go smoothly for me to get my long term visa in south Africa. I will need to figure out a way to South Africa sometime in the next twenty five days to get my real visa, right now I’m only here on a thirty day visa. Pretty much everything else is the same as before, just that I would start picking up the language, learn names and get accustom to the daily routine here. Oh and that I would have inspiration on things to fix myself for meals because it’s been pretty much eating with the kids or PB & J breakfast lunch and dinner.
Please email me if you have any questions or be the first one to ever leave a comment if you’re feeling daring. I love you all and thanks for your interest in what I am doing.
God bless you,
Garrett Mullett

Pictures from my first few days in Mozambique

So I am trying to figure out this whole blog thing and how to put pictures on it so please be patient with me if for the new few days you get email updates that turn out to be me accidentally posting something. If what I am trying to do works there will be the picture from the last few days and especially my boys on my blog. Oh and I’m going to through a prayer request in here that I learn all 29 of my boys names fast!
Blessings,
Garrett

Arrived in Mozambique!

I just arrived in Mozambique a few hours ago after two days
traveling and 23hrs of flying time. I am just starting to settle in here and
figured I would get started with my blog since I promised so many of you I
would keep it updated. I am going to try adding some pictures and videos of my
dorm and the orphanage in the next few days.

I was picked up at the airport by Matthew, one of the few people I
already know from my previous visit a year and a half ago. He brought me straight
back to the orphanage and to my dorm where I was mobbed by “my kids”
shouting “mano Garrett, mano Garrett.” I guess they have been pretty excited
to have a guy as their new dorm parent, however I don’t think they realize I
don’t speak any Portuguese because they wouldn’t stop chattering away to me.
They all insisted on helping me bring my bags, that where bigger than most of
them, into my room. Then the breakfast bell sounded so was able to have some
peace and quiet. Matthew showed me around to familiarize me with the orphanage
and then he just left me to unpack and rest. So I am still pretty clueless as
far as most of my responsibilities and the few that I know of I have dozens of
questions about! However I’ll meet most of the staff tonight at church and
tomorrow in my real orientation.

Please pray that I figure out the general schedule and my duties
without too much confusion as well as that I start to figure out some basic Portuguese
phrases and start to learn my kid’s names.

Also please email me with any questions you have at garrett.mullett@gmail.com or just
leave a comment on this blog and I’m sure I will figure out how to use it
sooner or later.

 

The Other Side of the World!

This blog will be my way of filling everyone in on what is happening in Mozambique well I am there. It will begin when I leave on October 4th and I will try to semi regularly add what I have been doing and prayer requests.