Thoughts...

Hello :) I have no idea how long its been since I last wrote...I hope all continues to go well back in the States ;) I know God is doing more in me here than I ever could have imagined. I started this blog because the Lord gave me a prophetic word that while I was writing and journaling about my experiences over here He would be moving in people's hearts back home. I find myself feeling very inadequate for the task. Even at home I'm not much of a technology communicator and here I am far worse. Thank you for being patient with me.

As I move forward with the Lord it seems like He's making me new and resurrecting dreams that I never even dared to speak. It's like He read my spirit and decided to say no so many times so that He could answer my highest desires...desires that were so high and so abstract that I didn't even put them into words. This might sounds crazy...but I have never felt as at home in my life as I do in the bush bush of Africa. The gospel is received so readily and people believe so easily. Miracles are commonplace but so is suffering. The suffering people experience on a daily basis makes anything I have ever experienced as far as pain goes not even worth mentioning. But the interesting thing is that this is the perfect soil for the gospel. How did I never realize this before? I see it in the most simple way in my own life. Here is a perfect example: We don't have running water at the base for five days and so during this time we have to walk to the well (like most people in the world) and get water ourselves...then the water comes back on and I have never been more thankful for running water. I never even thought to thank God for running water before but all of a sudden my friends and I are singing Gods praises and enjoying a shower that by American standards is already poor. LOL! Its just the craziest thing. But I find myself changing. Rather than being grouchy when things don't go right you learn to expect nothing to go as planned, you are forced to let go of the illusion that we can control our lives and then when something goes right you praise God. Not because you are told to but just because it is the most natural thing in the world to do so. So it is with the poor who hear the gospel. Their lives have been so full of suffering that the gospel actually is good news...and like God promised He confirms the gospel with miraculous signs and wonders. Not complicated. Just like He said He would. I also have become acutely aware of how difficult it is for a wealthy person to enter the kingdom. I never once in my life read that scripture and thought I was that wealthy person but coming here it is altogether perfectly clear that I am that wealthy person Jesus is talking about. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle then for me to enter the kingdom of God. But thank you Lord that you didn't stop there but you said that nothing was impossible with you!!! And by Your grace I am entering, slowly but surely. I have been able to see God heal two people of deafness through me since I have been here. I have felt the power of the Holy Spirit come on me like I have never experienced in my life. Not for me but for those I was ministering to. A speaker said, "the Holy Spirit is in you for you but He is on you for others." Well I have felt His power on me and I am now wrecked for anything else. I have learned to love and I have had to repent over and over for my unbelief. It feels like in bringing me here God has changed me altogether. I never expected it to go this deep and to be this well and to have this much and the promise of so so so much more. Yet it does not come without a cost. There has been a high cost and there will continue to be a high cost. It feels like coming home to have the good news include suffering for Christ as well. I have spent much of my life avoiding suffering or being protected from it but I was created not only to be resurrected with Christ but also to suffer for Him. And with this suffering comes tremendous joy. So strange and so beautiful. I love Jesus. I love being carefree in His care.

I'm sorry today I'm not really writing about specific events. Its just that what God is doing inside of me is changing everything. Everything. I can honestly from my heart express my gratitude for the grace of God on the last few years of my life. Today Rolland said, "it is impossible for God to give you anything that is not altogether in your best interest". This includes suffering. This includes my broken heart. It seems so small now looking back but at the time I was so broken and the healing process was excruciatingly long but I am now thankful for every moment. I am thankful for God saying no. I am thankful He loved me that much. Heidi also said to never leave a place in defeat. I often wondered why the Lord was so insistent on me staying in Vacaville. It was so painful. But God was doing a tremendous work in me and He was going to give me complete victory in my soul. He is soooooooo good. I love the Fathers House with all of my heart and I believe so much in the leadership there and if I had left in my pain it is possible I could have fostered bitterness or unforgiveness because of the pain of my broken heart. God was so good to keep me there. To obey God is the best possible option no matter how much it hurts.

Although there are great victories here there are also great losses. Heidi says we live in a constant state of joy and tragedy. It sounds so much like what Jesus said we would experience. Mmmmmmm. Well I'm rushing to share and my friends are waiting. We are taking Tiebo to get a new shirt and new pants. He had a great attitude when we were leaving for the city and even though we said he couldn't come he was smiling and sweet (he has a tendency to be a fighter...quite literally) so now he is being rewarded for his faith and patience ;) dad you would be proud of how I handle the village kids here. I imitate you a lot with the way you handle James and Dylon :) Make no mistake...these kids are not angels...haha...but they are pre-saints. They just need to know Jesus made a way for them to be adopted into the best family ever!!!!

The Iris kids are completely different than the village kids! They are secure and it is an amazing testament to the spirit of adoption that reigns on this base!
Please pray for me that I will love every soul the way they need to be loved. It takes a great deal of wisdom to love people in the right way here. Unsanctified mercy or love does far more harm than good. Thank you for your prayers. I covet every one. Seriously. I love you all so much!!!! I will try to write again soon...

Outreach

Hello. Another great couple of weeks. You know it is great if I do not post for a while :) I'm just in heaven here. Really. Every day is my favorite day so far. Sometimes I just look around and think, am I really here??? Is this really happening??? It's like a dream. But most moments I'm just living in the moment and enjoying all of it. I would say it took me about three weeks to get accustomed to the culture here. Both the Mozambican culture and the church culture. I am fully adjusted and I cannot even bear to think about going home right now. Well I have two more months so I won't get started on that :) So I have SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much to tell you guys but I have only a few more minutes on the computer. I'm out with friends and one of the Iris kids has waited for two weeks for me to take him out and today is the day. He is being treated like a king today. I love this kid. Anyways...I HAVE to tell you guys about outreach......get ready get ready get ready ;)!!!! So on outreach we go share the gospel with villages. To date the best experience of my life. No questions. Hands down. Incredible. It started out pretty normal. We left on time (which is a rarity ;)) we drove the three hours packed together in a flatbed. (By the way...nothing is difficult for me here. We have not had running water in four days and its not even a problem. I just go down to the well and get water like the Mozambicans in the morning and carry it back on my head. Lol. Hopefully by the end I will be able to balance it...but that might be pushing it) Okay back to the story. We got there and set up our tents. Try to imagine fifty to a hundred kids following us once we got into the village. Try to imagine them smiling and waving and simply mezmorized by our white skin. Then our Mozambican brothers/pastors set up the sound and screen for the Jesus movie. I got in a little trouble for this later but I went with them. I was the only Guinya (whitie) and when they turned on the music we started dancing and dancing. Probably for forty minutes. Just me and like fifty to a hundred beautiful children. Okay okay I have to speed up and get to the good part. The first night was fairly uneventful. The entire next day I played with the kids. Oh how I wish I knew Maqua!!!!! Our brothers were amazing though. My PE background came into play and I would tell them the game and then like five of them would explain it and have the kids in perfect lines to play these games. It was so fun. The poverty was intense though. We were in a relatively wealthy village also. We sat the kids in groups of ten and fed them for lunch. Its hard to feel anything but helpless when you watch them come up one by one and you know you are doing very little to me the actual needs. The need is so great. The witch doctors here are very active. There is a lot of oppression and sickness. So that night we showed the Jesus movie again and I was back at the camp helping with the water and the food. One of the Mozambican boys on the outreach team who had spent the day with me and the kids (patista) asked if he could pray for me. I just stayed on my knees and he prayed in Portugese and Maqua. I have never in my life felt the presence of God like that moment. All of a sudden it just started to hit me. Everything. The poverty, the need, the oppression and the fact that if Jesus is not known, if Jesus is not exalted and if the Holy Spirit does not move then we have only really made ourselves feel better by coming. We have given a meal and possibly hope but it was just too much. I started to just weep under the power of the Holy Spirit and just yield myself to Him and say He could have anything He wanted. He could take anything away from me. He could have all my dreams He could have all my ideas about His will for my life. He could have every promise, every desire, every single thing if He could just posses me and use me as He needed in that moment. I was overwhelmed at His heart for the poor and the desire for the gospel to be preached in power to the power. The gospel is good news to the poor. It is not always good news to the wealthy. But it is tremendously good news to the poor. So there I was on the ground for about thirty to forty minutes I don't know. Patista was still praying for me in Portugese and Maqua and I was just crying out laying everything I've ever loved or wanted down. Then all of a sudden the Holy Spirit was like go the meeting. I did not want to go because I really don't like to draw attention to myself so I didn't want to go but then the presence started to leave so I repented and jumped up and started running to the meeting. (Remember I have never felt Him like this before---and you guys know I've had my share of experiences with God) So I'm like running and my body is shaking and it was like this holy moment where I was just trying to not get in the way of what God was trying to do. So the movie was over and the pastor was preaching in Portuges and it was also being translated in Maqua. I just went in the middle and knelt down. Haha. I just kept my eyes on Jesus and I kept surrendering and yeilding to Him and I knew whatever He was wanting to do He was going to have His way. So they gave the altar call. Remember I cannot understand a word of what they are saying so all of a sudden everyone is rushing down and I'm completely surrounded and we are starting to pray for the sick. A few people got healed of like knee pain but then this lady came up to me who was deaf in one ear. I did not understand her so I brought over an interpreter and he told me. Her daughter was with her. I asked God to open her ear and just like that. I snapped and she heard. Seriously. I didn't do anything special. I just was yeilded to God and I asked and then He did it. HE did it!!!! Her eyes brightened and she smiled and said something which of course I did not understand so I called the translator back over and asked what happened and she told Him she could hear everything not 100% in that ear. This is the first time I had seen anything like this so I dragged her over to another pastor and asked him to get the story and there it was. She had lost her hearing in her right ear and her daughter was there to confirm it and now she was able to hear :) The funny thing was that the Mosambican pastors were rather nonchalant about it. Oh yeah. God opened her ears. He does that all the time. Praise God. Moving on to the next one....lol....

I have so much more to tell but my time is up at the internet cafe. Zidane has been patient and now it is time for him to be a prince ;) Love you all...

Please excuse the bad spelling and bad english...I'm writing in a hurry and I'm not exactly sure if I'm learning Portugese or unlearning English here...haha.