== Second Outreach from Pemba =====
Last weekend (Thursday July 23rd to Saturday July 25th) I went on my second outreach from Pemba. I was blessed to be invited to go with Brian & Lorena Wood and their family since there wasn’t enough space for more visitors to go. We went to a village in a national park for this outreach. I would tell you the name of it, but I have no idea since the entrance sign was so old it was completely faded out and the paint chipped off!
So we got started on the way, which in Mozambican Outreach time meant leaving an hour late and stopping four places along the way. Once we really got on the road, we were driving pretty fast. One truck had already left, so we were following the second flatbed truck in the Woods’ vehicle. Even though the speed limit was around 50-80 km/h, we were cruising along at around 120 km/h. We phoned ahead to let them know we were losing them because Brian’s truck would start shaking over 100 km/h. They stopped and the Mozambican, whose name has been withheld to protect the guilty (he he), let us know we had to be driving this fast because the elephants would be blocking the road and the lions would try to eat us if we didn’t get inside the park by 3:00pm. Even though Brian told him his truck couldn’t go that fast and we were going to get lost because we didn’t know the way, he assured us that this was the only speed to travel. Fortunately or unfortunately, shortly afterwards, their camião broke down after much praying in tongues to get them up the previous hill. By this time, it was already 3:00pm and one would wonder why we got started so late since we still had another 1.5 hours to go before getting there. Not knowing the truck was broken down, we joked that maybe we were stopping to turn around because of the lions and elephants that were certain to martyr us on the way.
While we waited for an hour for another truck to show up, me and Tony (a Mozambican friend who just moved to Pemba from the Dondo base) led worship in Portuguese and Makua for the tons of children on the side of the road. Oddly enough, the place they broke down was at an Iris church on the highway.
Finally at around 5:30pm we arrived at our destination, elephants and lions unseen. While we were setting up our tents, my tent bag and stakes were stolen and a lady from Tennessee had the back of her tent slashed and she caught a man trying to steal her stuff out of the back of the tent. He had also been spotted trying to walk off with a sleeping bag earlier. Fortunately, he didn’t steal any of her stuff, but unfortunately he ran off and we never saw him again to my knowledge.
We showed a film about Thomas that night since we were staying there two nights. I stayed back with several others to guard our tent area that night. God moved powerfully during the ministry time after the movie and many people were healed that night!
The next morning, we had worship and a devotion and then breakfast. We did a children’s program that morning which included skits, teaching through drama, and some fun songs that I got to play guitar for while the Mozambicans sang. Later on that day, we assembled at a piece of land a short walk away that the village chief had donated for Iris to build a new church. We worshiped and prayed on the way there and at the church site. Even though we didn’t have enough materials available to start construction of the site, they dug the four corners and set the four large corner posts as a symbol of the new beginning.
That night, we showed the Jesus film as we normally do and for the first time this year, I got to do prayer ministry down in the crowd. Here is a short summary of the healings I witnessed as we prayed for people:
* A woman with stomach pains was healed
* A baby with Malaria and a very high fever was healed. (we assume when the fever breaks and the baby becomes happy, they are healed, in the absence of possible medical verification in the middle of the bush)
* We prayed with a man and his wife who was unable to have children. We could not understand anything they were saying, but they were pointing to her stomach and Holy Spirit translated to me that she was barren, not having stomach problems. Right after we were done, Lorena (who speaks Portuguese well) told us the couple had also come to them for prayer about wanting to have children. It’s nice to know you are hearing right from God on how to pray even when you can’t understand the language!
* A girl with partial blindness said she was healed, but she didn’t really act like it. Sometimes you don’t know how to take that since they learn as a culture not to indicate they are healed since the witch doctors usually charge extra for their services when you actually get healed.
* A man with headaches was healed.
* A woman with pain in her leg was healed.
I observed two more healings that I was not a part of praying for, but observed the results and I want to share because they are so awesome:
* A woman limped up to a prayer team barely able to walk asking for prayer for back, hip, and leg problems. She was completely healed and began stretching, rocking from side to side and forward/backward, and walking around completely amazed, smiling, and praising Jesus!
* A man who was totally deaf in both ears was completely healed!
There were many other amazing testimonies from both nights, but these are the ones I saw with my own eyes.
Fortunately or unfortunately, we never encountered any wild animals while were in the village of the national park. But we still had a wild time with the Lion of the Tribe of Judah!
== Dondo, Mozambique =====
Yesterday, Evan and I flew from Pemba to Beira and we are now at the Iris base in Dondo, Mozambique. It is considerably smaller. They have a children’s home of 29 boys ranging from 7 to 18 years of age. They also have between 60-70 men living here going to Bible school to become pastors. Right now, Evan and I have the entire visitor’s center to ourselves, which is a change from the 80 people we were living with in Pemba.
We will have opportunity to do hospital and jail ministry while we’re here and also go on a 7-hour trip for a bush bush outreach if everything works out. We will also get to participate in a youth retreat this weekend. We will have many other opportunities to serve, but that’s what’s on the official weekly schedule.
It has been great to meet up with two couples we met in Pemba last summer. The weather is considerably colder here and it rains 3-4 days a week here. I am definitely glad I brought a hoodie with me..