Expenses/currency

Your expenses depend on you. You may eat meals each day with the children (bread or corn meal for breakfast, rice with a sauce or topping for lunch and dinner). We make a once-a-week visit to a western style grocery store in Maputo. You may bring food with you as well. Our kitchen is at your disposal. Our supply of plates, dinnerware, etc. is, at times, limited. Teams should plan to provide their own.

There are souvenirs around town if you are interested and some good restaurants in the city. We recommend that you bring US dollars and a credit card. American dollars are accepted many places and are easy to exchange for Mozambican Meticais. South African Rand are also readily accepted. Travelers' checks and cashiers checks are expensive to exchange and are accepted only by certain banks. We don't recommend them! Visa and occasionally Mastercard are becoming more widely accepted. They may be used with a pin number to get cash advances in local currency when needed. There is a currency exchange counter at the airport in Maputo, which offers a good exchange rate for currency conversions. There are ATMs at the airport in Johannesburg where you can withdraw rands (which can be spent here or exchanged for Mts.). Depending on the time of arrival, we try to take visitors to a grocery store upon arrival, since you will likely want to prepare many of your own meals. Our Zimpeto (Maputo) center is located more than 15 kilometers (10 miles) from any stores. Transportation is provided on Thursdays for grocery shopping. If you are arriving jet-lagged after prolonged travel, or with a large team, you may find it helpful to have prepared a basic shopping list to serve as a guide.

PLEASE NOTE: Iris Ministries is a faith ministry, entirely dependent upon the generosity and responsiveness of the Lord's people to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. While there is no direct charge for your accommodation with us or our ministry to you, we ask that you remain sensitive to the many expenses related to your visit (including correspondence, accommodation, transportation, ministry, etc.).

Many of our visitors are very generous, both financially and through gifts and supplies they donate to Iris. We require that all donations of supplies be given directly to the hospitality team for distribution, and that all cash donations be given directly either to hospitality or to Steve Lazar, director of the Zimpeto Children's Center, to ensure that they are expended in keeping with the ministry's current priorities and needs. If you wish to designate a particular area to benefit from your contribution, we will certainly honor your intention as much as possible.