The Pemba Special

Well hello again awesome people back home! We are just now finishing the fourth week and now have five more to go. It’s weird to think that I’m almost half way done with my trip in Mozambique before I go to Zimbabwe for two weeks then back to Texas. The trip has been more than I could have ever expected in so many ways. Through living with Mozambique pastors and other internationals, living on the base with so many kids, living in a third world country, and getting blasted by God I have learned so much. This week I want to talk to you guys about some more realities of what goes on here in the matter of homes, the living conditions and the families. Hopefully a few testimonies will help with what I am trying to get across. And yes we still don’t have running water. Going on 3 weeks I think beside a few moments when it turns back on and then off again.

Haha I will just start out by saying that this week was by far the hardest week! There is an optional corporate fast on Mondays like in acts. (The only way for the Church return to Acts is to regain the unity they had and they said they did it through prayer and fasting and devoting themselves to the apostles teachings! It confuses me why that sermon is never taught in church.) I was getting sick throughout the whole day but I didn’t know it was sickness, I just thought I maybe wasn’t drinking enough water or something. As soon as 5pm Monday hit I was out on the bed with a fever through the roof and a splitting head ach with body aches. Three hours later I was throwing up and just after that I had diarrhea. It was what they called the Pemba Special hahaha. They first thought I had malaria but we soon realized other people were getting similar symptoms so we knew it was just a bug going around. There was also rumors of witch doctors getting a hold of certain peoples clothes and putting curses on us but who knows. I do know that last Harvest School a witch doctor got a hold of a group of kids urine on outreach and they were all throwing up at the end of the trip. It’s not a joke, were in a war, it’s just that satan would rather the West not know about the actual battle so that they can just keep silent as they are and let the rest of the world struggle in darkness as they are. But to make a long story short because I could not even drink water without throwing up and I went to the bathroom at least once an hour I lost around 10 pounds in a matter of 35 hours. My stomach got so messed up I am now on my 5^th day without a normal you know what. Haha I’m not trying to grose yall out just trying to paint a picture of reality.

And it’s okay because what satan intends for evil God uses for good and I got plenty of revelation through it as well so I’m very thankful. It also puts it in reality when right down the street entire villages are living on absolutely no water because the wells are drying up. Most of them are drinking a half cup of water a day in severe heat. Mommas are then walking 10s of miles a day on that much water just to get the water for the rest of the family. That being said it leaves plenty of room for Jesus to come in and save the broken! Haha yesterday on the way to the hospital to pray for people my friend and a translator, plus I ran into a super super drunk guy that was all over the place. So we said haha what a perfect guy to give the love of Jesus. After about 5 minutes of random talk and him slurring his words to the translator all we really wanted to do is pray for him and release him of his drunken demon. We prayed for a couple of minutes and he then paused when we were done. He explained to the translator that before we prayed he drank many many drinks (not knowing we knew haha) and after we were done it was as if he had no drinks. We invited him to church got his number and then watched him walk away in a straight line with a smile on his face. We have to start looking at situations of darkness as situations as opportunity to bring the kingdom. We all have Jesus in us and Jesus is the kingdom! Just release it and stop holding onto it! Even the Muslims want it!

Haha when we were in the hospital praying for people there was a muslim father all dressed in his muslim clothes. Around here Christians are notorious for praying for people and seeing them get healed. I mean I guess the bible did say we will lay hands on the sick and they will be healed. So I stood there as the muslim man moved out of the way so that we could pray for the boy. When you have something that people want and it’s irresistible it’s a lot easier to spread the gospel than we think. I am not saying this stuff to ruffle peoples feathers and start debates. I am also not saying every person we pray for will be healed. I am saying we need to be good stewards with which we are given and be faithful. That means praying for the sick and actually believing for the healing! The rest is up to God! It's amazing what happens when we just show up and pray and be faithful.

I want to also tell you another two stories that have to do with my young Mozambique pastors. I know this isn’t the most uplifting blog but these things were really on my heart to share and to show the need of the Church stepping up INTO the darkness not AWAY. I found out the other night that two of my closest Mozambique buddies, one 22 and one 24 have been severely hurt in family situations. Both of their wives cheated on them with other men while they attended bible school the previous years. One of them is so bad the family won’t even accept clothes or anything from him because they want nothing to do with him and don’t want him contacting their daughter at all. At first I was disgusted that the women couldn’t wait for them while they were in bible school and then my heart sunk when they both said that the reason the wives left them was because they were too poor. Even though they are hardworking Godly men the families of the wives will have nothing to do with them because their financial status. I also found out that my other roommate was an alcoholic and beat up a cop when Jesus told him he needed to give his life, which after the next Sunday he never drank again.  The most amazing thing that blows my mind about these men and their stories is that they are the most humble joyful men I have ever been around! And yet we have families living in jumbo nice houses just making it by day by day hoping they don’t kill somebody out of frustration. Every relationship opens my eyes more and more to what really goes in this world.

On another note the Lord has been freeing my heart in so many ways throughout the first four weeks it has truly been a miracle. A part of that like I said is just hearing others stories whether it be Mozambique or the Internationals. It really is amazing what happens when I just sit down with somebody and not think about anything else and just hear their story. Anybody can go up to someone who is the awkward one or the one that no one likes and say hey “how’s your day doing?” I guarantee when we begin to sit and hear these peoples stories we won’t think so harshly of them. I guess the whole don’t judge a book by it’s cover is for real ha.

As I close I will be honest, after getting sick I really wanted some ice cream or chocolate haha. I had to make a little trip to the market and gather a stash for my room before I took somebody else’s. But anyways thanks again for everything I pray a special blessing over all of you as one of satan’s favorite holidays Halloween is here which is a special time to spread the light! And for anyone that wanted to give clothes or anything i was told it takes about 1 month for me to get something haha so that won't work too well, just go onto irismin.org if you would want to give something. Any and all of your prayers are so appreciated and I am so so thankful!!!!!!!

Love Peace Joy

Friends and Family! I know only four days have passed by since my last blog but some awesome things occurred so I thought I would post a short one with some more cool testimonies. My heart is sinking more and more into the Love of Jesus even though some of the lessons might not be so easy to learn. Many people are beginning to miss their homes already along with the comfort. We have basically been out of running water for ¾ of the time and having bread for breakfast and beans and rice for lunch and more rice for dinner everyday. I personally love rice and beans haha but others not so much. But anyways I am going to share about a cool experience with the Mozambique Pastors and then another testimony of a family, and then I will end with what Jesus is teaching me. And maybe one or two more cool things.

On Wednesday during our class period time, I experienced something I will never forget. They brought in the Mozambique Pastors from the Mozambique Bible School so that we could all participate in the washing of each other’s feet just like Jesus did with the disciples. It’s one thing to read the story and to actually do it your self. In Mozambique peoples feet are hard as rocks and always dirty which makes it very very honorable in their culture to wash another’s feet. They began to worship as we the Internationals washed the feet of the Mozambique’s first. As I began to wash these feet covered in callus my heart sunk deeper and deeper. To think that the King of the world that could strike the whole world dead in one second came and took the LOWEST role still blows my mind. He came to show his love and goodness, and I’m beginning to find it’s more and more irresistible. We then switched and they washed our feet. Let’s just say it hit me pretty hard haha. Tears began to roll down my eyes as I pictured Jesus the one washing the feet. It was an amazing experience. Later that night at our night class I heard two of the most amazing testimonies in my life, but I will only tell one.

           

They put two young men on the stage that had grown up through Iris at the base and are now amazing men of God. This story I will never forget for the rest of my life. He was now a 24 year old pastor/interpreter which began being abandoned as a baby. His mother could not afford to take care of him so just a few weeks after he was born his mother put him on the street to be ran over by a car, but God had other plans. The first truck that came was an army truck that stopped before killing him and picked him up to take care of them at one of their refuge bases. After 5 years there his grandmother showed up one day and took him to her home. Two years later his grandmother decided she can’t take care of him anymore and threw him on the streets at age 7. Only a few weeks went by before he heard a voice say that he loves him and he is sending someone to take care of him. The next week he met his first white person and it was Heidi who immediately invited him to the base and he obviously went. This was the hardest time of Iris ministry as it was in the beginning and there were only 90 or so kids. He went on explaining how they were beaten and persecuted, kicked out of their base and never had a steady home until a few years later in Pemba where they are currently. He has never met his mom or dad. When Jesus talks about building a house in heaven it’s people like these that have mansions waiting for them.

Thursday was a normal awesome day and then Friday came around which is where we do our practical mission jobs. I have intercession in the morning and then I went on outreach to the village with a Harvest School friend and a Mozambique friend to interpret. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into but God just showed me how easy it is to love people especially when they are hurt and in need right next to you. We walked maybe 200 yards away from the base as we stopped at a house with a family outside. We quickly found out that the mom was in severe pain. It didn’t take long to figure out that in a group of about 7 or 8 people, 1 mom was very sick, 1 kid had malaria, 1 baby was sick, 1 was pregnant and the other wanted us to pray for her to find a husband. Yes it was awesome to see the mom healed and be able to pray for the others but that was not the best thing about bringing the kingdom. Even though the kid with malaria was not healed we left that place 2 hours later with more joy in us and in every person there than what we came with. Both moms looked depressed when we were arrived and had huge smiles laughing by the time we left. There were also 3 to 4 more kids that were all having a blast with us playing around. Prayer might have only take 45 minutes total for everyone but the rest was just loving and hanging out with them. Restoring the kingdom is bringing his will on earth as it is in heaven, which includes joy peace and love. It was funny how I thought I was going to go through town praying for multiple people and Jesus just sais nope I want you to sit with this family the whole time and just love them!

It really is funny how much I have to learn and just how far I am from knowing the fullness that the Father is and what He has for me. I am learning sooooo much about being content wherever I am because of the culture and how long things can take and how late everything occurs. It’s like he brought me out here to sit me down and say stop all of your agendas and walk as I walked, which is loving people and loving God. I am almost fighting being at rest and thinking that I still have to be doing something “productive”. Of course there are always practical ways of love and living it out but a lot of times He just wants us to sit next to the person we are by even if we don’t know them and just love them. Not preach not condemn or judge but just love!

If I could encourage any of you guys back home to do anything it would be to do just that. I know everyone lives crazy lives and stuff needs to be done, but people are ALWAYS more important. I encourage you to stop by the people that are by themselves and just ask them how there day is going. It’s about being obedient to the gospel and if were really in love with Jesus these things should be done every day. People say “how can there be a God with so much evil and sadness and poverty” and the Father created the world to work with His sons and daughters. Stop excepting the evil and depression in this world and start to realize that we are the ones that need to stop it and make disciples. For you Jesus freaks I believe God is wanting to deposit a deeper hunger than we ever thought possible. That we would be so in love with the King that we would lay down our lives every day with more joy than we ever imagined. But I will go more on that later!

Went longer than I thought but that’s okay! Mary if you or anyone else would want to send clothes or anything like that I will get the info by next post! Again you guys are all amazing and can’t wait to share more! Until then I love you all and thanks again for reading!

Pictures!

Week 3 in Mozambique

What’s up everybody! I hope all of you are doing amazing and having a blast wherever you are! It is so good to be able to reach out to everyone again as we were out of power for a little while all over the city and I wasn’t able to connect anywhere haha. So sorry for the late post again but I am slowly learning to stop making plans and agendas in this culture, which I guess Jesus never did either. But anyways yea we also didn’t have running water for about a week too. Oh and yea I have more joy than I ever have it’s amazing what happens when it’s just you God and others. Especially the kids! I can't wait to get more in depth about the kids with you guys next week kid by kid and just let you know how they grew up and how they live now, but we will save that for next week!

This last Saturday we attended one of the most amazing weddings I have ever been to. It was filled with more glory and the presence of God than any other wedding I have been to as we just worshiped all throughout. The girl is a fourth generation missionary and the guy was also a missionary. Haha I guess their a cool couple. But yea it was so beautiful right on the beach by the ocean with a perfect breeze! Although I have never seen more chaos than at the end when cake was given out with over a hundred little kids running around. They were literally changing shirts and hiding in line trying to get another piece of cake. It was part hilarious and part sad. But yea I gave you guys a good idea of the surroundings last week, this week I wanted to share a couple of testimonies of not only what happens around here but what is happening in my heart as well. Lets hop back to the first week of school when my heart was absolutely wrecked over the topic of the Father’s heart.

Pastor Steve Long was the guest speaker for the first week. He was the pastor of a church called Catch the Fire in Toronto Canada that had a huge revival and many amazing moves of God during the late 1990’s. His messages were so simple it was hilarious. Everything in the bible was created to be understood by a child but man tries to make it all complicated. As we began to cover the Father Heart of God and getting rid of the orphan spirit it was amazing to me on how much I found I acted like an orphan instead of a child. As I slowly began to feel the love of God and experience his Presence (The presence that David in Psalms talks about every other Psalm almost) I was discovering on how to become and act like a child instead of orphan. Today the church sais to do this and do that and whoever works the hardest or whoever has the most bible degrees is the closest to God. I have finally figured out that being a child of the living God has ABSOLUTLY NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU! By HIS grace you have been saved. Simple. I strived for the last 8 months not even knowing it trying to earn being a child of God until I finally realized there was nothing I was going to do for God to love me more! That is why the Bible sais he gave us a spirit that cries Abba Father which means Daddy. We are called to be more intimate and affectionate with our heavenly Father than our earthly father. If your mom and dad were decent at all they loved you no matter what you did. That doesn’t mean they didn’t discipline you but that means whether you were the best child in the world or worst they cared and had compassion on you.

Then last week Amy Lancaster came in for the next 20 days! Her ministry is called We Will Go in Jackson Mississippi where she lives in the red code district in an old Crack House reaching out to the drug addicts with her 3 kids and husband. If you think God’s greatest plan for you is to live in a nice brick house with a nice family and be comfortable while going to church on Sundays and Wednesdays and nothing else you’re serving a different God than me. But anyways she came and talked about cutting the devil’s head off with prayer and fasting last Wednesday. It gave me a whole new idea on making war with evil. Which brings me to my first testimony.

If demons scare you than you might not want to read this paragraph. But we were worshipping on Sunday at church and it was slowly dismissed. There were only a couple of us left there at the end when a man dropped to the floor and started to manifest a demonic spirit that was inside Him. A couple of us began to lay hands on him and pray as his eyes rolled back and began to scream like what you would see on an exorcism movie. I was at first a bit freaked out but than I shut my flesh up and realized that according to the Bible satan has been disarmed and has no power over me or anyone with Jesus. For many of us it was the first time dealing with a demon-possessed man but after talking with a local he kind of smiled like it was no big deal and it was common. We prayed for a while for the man and he was manifesting and shaking on the ground for quite some time so I took a video with my camera if any of you would like to see just face book message me or something. I don’t share this to be cool, I share this to let it be known that in the African and Easter World it is completely normal for demons to manifest and be set free by Jesus. I later found out the man’s family was involved in witchcraft, which is a huge problem here. To lighten things up here is a different testimony.

Every weekend a group of different students get to go on an outreach to certain unreached villages that may have a believer in it but have never been preached to. I don’t want to go too deep into details, as I will wait until I go on the outreach myself and give personal experiences. But after talking with many people there were many powerful moves of God that occurred. Blind men were given sight, deaf people received hearing, and most importantly many many people gave their lives to Jesus!!!!!!

The students are becoming more and more like family every day going through all the heart changes and experiences together, it is so awesome to see. I especially love hanging out with my two Mozambique Pastors Tarde and Omar! Haha Tarde is 58 years old about 5’3 and maybe 100 pounds and is one of the most lovely men of God I have ever met. He gets up at 4-4:30am every morning and reads his bible until about 8am. The hunger in some of these Mozambique people is amazing! Omar is 22 and speaks way more English than Tarde so me and him joke around all the time. Both of them wait for me to ask them if they want to listen to my Ipod everytime I come home. Hahaha Tarde will literally listen to the same song 50 times until the ipod dies and he loves it. They are so happy when they get to listen it’s amazing. They also where the same 2-3 shirts and 2-3 pants everyday, so if anyone would like to donate to men of God it’s a great opportunity! Tonight we have family dinner with our house and I am excited for some chicken haha!

As I begin to close this blog I just really wanted to take the time and honor you guys and thank you so much for reading this! I have plenty of open time here and if there is anything I can intercede for you or anything like that please let me know you guys are seriously all so awesome and I hope you can take just one thing from this. I still kept it quite vague this week letting you all in on more of the basics but I will get deeper and deeper as the weeks go on! I love all of you so much and I am so thankful for each and every one of you taking the time and reading this when you didn’t have to! Have a wonderful day!

OH AND PICTURES SHOULD BE ATTATCHED!!!!!

First week in Pemba Mozambique

Hello Everybody!!! I hope everything is going great wherever you are! I don’t even know how I am going to tell everything that could be said without writing a book. Being here with Iris ministries and the Harvest School of Missions has been amazing. I will try to give you guys some basic ideas on what it’s like to give you a general idea and maybe draw a picture in your head. I don’t know if I am going to be able to post pictures yet but I will probably know by the end of this blog. I first of all absolutely love the fact that I don’t have any Internet or TV and get to enjoy what we were created for, fellowship with God and people. I will try to draw a picture of the Village of Joy (the base I am staying on) and then give some good stuff on what God is doing on the base and in the city of Pemba.

It’s not a joke when they say third world. If it were any poorer it wouldn’t be considered a city. The airport that we flew into was literally smaller than some houses in Allen. To give a background on the country of Mozambique, about 15 years ago a 25-year civil war ended. It left the country of Mozambique the poorest country in the world and not positive but I think more orphans than any other country as well. A huge percentage of the men were killed and much of the land was destroyed. It was said to be helpless by many people. It was also over 90% Muslim. Needless to say it is no longer a Muslim Country hahahahaha Jesuuuuuuus!!!!! It’s crazy to think that because one couple Heidi and Rolland Baker said yes to Jesus and wanted to prove the gospel worthy in the darkest of dark places, and ended up changing it into a Christian Nation.

Of course I still wake up sometime at 4 in the morning to the Muslim prayer call, but were at war what do I expect? We in the West must understand that the only way we are going to defeat the powers and principalities of Satan are with the Power of God. You aren’t going to affect even a village by trying to persuade the Chief with apologetics that Jesus is King. We probably won’t ever see you again. I know this is going to be shocking to many but many of these previously Muslim/Witchcraft villages would go to magic warlocks and witchdoctors when they were sick for many things because they respected his power. Lots of times they would go for healing and sometimes walk away healed. They were one of the if not the most respected person in the village. Natural love and compassion cannot defeat this kind of evil. Only through supernatural love and compassion received from the Father and through fasting and prayer like the bible sais can defeat demons and evil of this sort. I will give testimonies later but that is just an idea of what is still being fought here and around the Eastern world.

I live with 2 Mozambique pastors who are going through a bible school at the same time as our Mission school. I also live with 2 other Harvest students. I love my roommate from England. Hahaha I am seriously hoping I return with his accent. The Village of Joy consists of 2500 kids going to school and running around the massive play area or sitting in there home with their house momma. The staff refuses to call these kids orphans because they realize that once in Jesus we are no longer orphans, yet some still seem to act like orphans. Just like some of us Christians that act like orphans of the kingdom instead of sons and daughters, but I’ll get into more of that later. The village consists of many small concrete/clay houses, 3 large prayer huts, an outdoor classroom for the Mission school, a cafeteria, and a massive soccer field, with playgrounds and such. All this is centered on the large church where the Spirit hovers, especially on Sundays. They are currently building a medical center too. I will go more into the kids and what they are like and how beautiful/amazing they are later.

The living conditions are so bad for these people it’s ridiculous. We are currently out of running water and the well is now just about out of water as well. We have been out of water since Wednesday. Haha I have had three showers in the last 10 days and I love it. But basically if the water doesn’t turn on in the next day or two there won’t even be bucket baths, washing of clothes, hands or anything. Remember that none of this is to make us feel guilty or shameful but to get rid of the ignorance and enlarge our heart to love. They receive a piece of bread and tea for breakfast, rice and beans for lunch, and rice and a sauce of dinner. This is what I am eating as well except we get 2 bread rolls. Many of the kids and even Mozambique pastors where the same shirts for days and days because they only have two or three shirts. The town itself is dirt with random clay buildings and trash everywhere. My heart was so saddened.

The Lord taught me real quick to stop feeling sorry for many of these people. I asked the Lord what do you feel about these people and I heard in my heart say Kings and Queens. Haha I really don’t feel bad for many of these people at all because one day they will have more riches in heaven than a large percentage of the Christians in the West. I am not saying that to try and offend people but it’s the reality. They have nothing so for example, my Mozambique pastor roommate gets up at 5am and continues to read his bible for the past 3 hours straight. While most of us at home might spend 3 hours on the tv or wasting time with friends. Everything we do has an eternal purpose. These people aren’t just hungry for food but for God! We have to learn to train our mind to not be like the world and that means cutting off what is from the world. Or you could just live on the breadcrumbs from the table and just get by into heaven. Free will is a beautiful thing but also very sad.

 I could tell many many other things but I will wait until next time when I will get into the good stuff, like the kids, relationships, and miracles in hearts and bodies that are already happening in the base and outside at outreaches. I love all of you guys so much and I am so thankful for you taking the time and reading this and hope you can take one speck of help or wisdom from it. May Jesus’s love surround everyone!

Until Next time!

Joshua Trees