Obedience Now!

I just received my support report from the office and I look at this form on the screen of my computer and I am amazed at the names I see before my eyes! Old friends.... loved ones... new friends, just a small group of folks that God has privileged me with over the years to call them my people. But the thing that makes me smile more than anything else is that they listened to God speak to them. They answered a whisper in their ear. They were obedient to obey the voice of the Master. Supporting a missionary is not about the person who goes.... it's not about where they go.... I believe it is about obeying God. It's the knowing that all we have we do not own. You can not out give God. God calls... we answer! We call.... God answers! You just gotta love the Lord! He is so good:)

Ely Pres. church in the country

Today I share with the congregation of a small church in the country outside of Ely, Iowa. These folks were absolutely a delight! There was one woman, her name was Zelda, she played in a band in my past from years ago. Another little older woman, shorter than myself if you can believe that! Mrs. Biderman, the drummer on the MBC worship team, his Mother! The bass player and banjo player from the Bluegrass band I have played with for years. Just a number of really nice folks thanking me for sharing with them my adventures in Africa. Pastor Heather, a warm hearted, easily taken to tears, young woman who has been given a gift of pastoring this flock of believers. I looked at her as she prayed when the service started and prayed that God would annoint her service to Him with the family. Bless them all! They were very generous in their giving to my ministry. My prayer is that they would consider a full time commitment with me in the future. Pray with me on this one as I seek God's leading for this next year to work on the field serving Him in Mozambique.

Baptism

It has been some time now since I have sent out a mailing but as some of you know I had another bout with malaria a UTI infection and a worm in my foot all in two weeks! I am praying that this is the end of the difficulties with my health for this year. Fortunately for me, Val Dorsey, a nurse from New York was here for a month long visit and she was willing and more than able to take over my role in assisting Janine with the teams. As God would have it, Val has extended her stay until the first of August and we are the new kitchen and anything else crew absolutely freeing Janine to focus more on being the field director for CRI. Enough about me and on to a wonderful experience at church.

It was Sunday and the Minnesota team was spending their last morning at the worship service in Dondo. This was going to be a celebration, a recognition for those who had completed a 3 month long class to prepare their hearts for a baptism. 17 men, women and young adults lined up outside of the church to enter into the side and walk into the baptismal. When a certain loved one would step into the water you could hear cheers coming from the family and friends. Some sat there with a longing for their time to come, for their special Sunday to exclaim to the church, to their family, to the community that they would take a stand for Christ, to lay down their cross and follow Jesus. It was a time when all of our hearts would swell with pride for the faith and courage of a people whose culture and their lives are filled with witch doctors and evil.

I sat and watched one woman in particular, Emelia. Emelia is a woman of 50 years, married for over 30 years, a leader of women’s ministry and has 7 children. I looked over her way as her husband walked into the water, he closed his eyes after pinching his nose and taking a deep breath. Emelia was smiling ear to ear and could hardly sit still as the Pastor spoke to him. As he dropped into the water and his soul was washed with the Holy Spirit’s cleansing power he came up with a smile and a welcomed squeal from his wife. Emelia has spend most of her life praying for her husband to come to know the Lord. She shared with me the countless years and days that he would spend drinking and spending time with his friends and coming home only to ignore her and treat her and the children poorly. But her faith took her through each day trusting that God was listening while she was waiting. The war came and went, 7 seven children were born, raised and have left home and today this man stood before the congregation of the Baptist church of Dondo committing his life to Christ and asking other’s to keep him accountable as a leader. What a day, what a smile, what a celebration. God was honored and praised for His faithfulness to answer a long hoped for prayer from Emelia. We were all blessed to see Emelia’s smile.

2008 and it's going to be GREAT!

Well, I'm here and I'm feeling like, 'it is so good to be back home again in Dondo.' My house is almost in order in less than a week. Of course we have 4 cars and only two of them are working, so what's new with that idea? and the electricity has only been out almost everyday at least one part of the day since I got here. I spent two nights with Janine because of no electricity and was a scaredy-cat. We tried watching a movie on the computer with just the battery and guess what..... you are right! Just as the best part of the movie was coming up, the battery died, the screen went blank and we screamed! NO! NOT NOW! But.. we watched the ending the next night. It was so good. Sometimes watching a movie can take your mind away from the moments of the day. Seeing all that is here, and so upside down from how we live in America. God has blessed us.

3 Angels in one day

I have had a wonderful experience this past almost half a year in Mozambique Africa. Again God has taken me to another level with Him and I have had time to bask in times of prayer knowing that only God would be capable of pulling this situation off.
One short story I will share is this..

Janine and I have three trucks...2 Toyota Surfs and a small white truck maybe a Nissan I can't remember right now. Anyway the little white truck was causing us some problems and it would die on us at the most inconvenient times so we decided to take it into Beria to have our mechanic look at it. Since one of our other trucks was already there and ready to be picked up this sounded like a great idea, take this one in, pick the other one up.

So we take off for Beria and about 10klm out of Dondo the truck starts acting up so I pull over and lift the hood, make a small adjustment to the carburetor and we go on. Then about another 2klm the truck starts jerking again and so I stop again and make an even larger more aggressive adjustment to the carburetor and we go on. Then pretty soon the truck starts acting up again and finally I cannot get the truck to run any more. So we are sitting along a very busy road, and I am under the hood of the truck and a beer truck pulls over and this young man comes up and asks me what the problem is and I tell him I don't speak Portuguese. He says, "What?!? You don' speak Portuguese?" I said, "No" He rolls his eyes and then Janine gets out of the truck and they start speaking Portuguese and trying to figure out a plan to get us to where we are going. Then an older gentleman with white hair gets out of his truck and he tries a few things to get it going. I might add here he did nothing more than what I did but the darn thing started! I think it needed a rest quite frankly. He said, "We will follow you into town to make sure you get to where you are going." So off I went and left him in the dust and we never saw him again. He was our first angel of the day.

On down the road another 5-7klm the truck wanted to die and Janine is telling me...we can't stop here it is too dangerous...keep going..keep going...I don't care what you have to do...keep going. I just flatly told her, "If the truck stops I can't help it." It did, but just for a moment. I was able to get it going again and off we went.
On down the road and at last we are on the outskirts of Beria about ready to make our last turn to go to our mechanics garage. And around the corner we go and you know what happened. The truck stopped and there was no way it was going to start now. It was done and we were sitting in a very busy two lane road and we are stalling traffic and cars and trucks on both sides of the street are honking at me to get a move on it. Janine is praying at this point and I am trying to figure out the next move. All of a sudden a group of about 6-8 young men in their late teens or early twenties came up and started pushing me out of the way of traffic to a safe place. They came to the window and said put the hood up we will fix your truck. At this point I was willing to have anybody fix it! I was laughing because this was funny by now. We were not in a good place and we did not know any of these people so what could I do? I had to laugh because this was a God only situation. We had a large amount of money on us because we were going to pay the mechanic for our other car's work and buy food for the next team that day. So up the hood went and they all drove into it trying their best to fix the problem. In the meantime Janine called our mechanic and he came within about a 15 minute period of time. When he pulled up got out of his truck walked over to our truck all of the young men stepped aside. There is a humbleness given to older people in this culture. Guess that makes me look good here too! Anyway he did something and the truck started again and we drove to the garage. But before we left the young guys we gave them a coin that would buy them some bottled water. They were thankful and so were we. Thankful no one knew how much money we had in our purses! Then at last we drove into the drive of the garage and I jumped out of the truck and ran away from it. I think someone cursed it......not really we found out it had a cracked distributor cap.

At the end of that day we laughed and laughed and were thankful again for the Lord's protection over us. Thank you if you were one who prayed for us that day.

Baptist Women's Conference of Mozambique

The excitement and tension began to build as the days were approaching the Baptist Women’s Conference in Dondo, The food for the most part arrived in the back of a pick-up truck and each women brought with them either a bag of sugar, flour, some oil. The cost for the event was $2.00 in American dollars, or 50 Metacash in Mozambiquian money. In the end every woman who wanted to, had the chance to come and join in on the jubilation.

The first group of women I met were from Myuchunda. There were about 8 ladies, all with children. I sat and introduced myself and begged for mercy because I can’t speak much Portuguese and they were all laughing because they didn’t speak much either, their tribal language was Sena, which is common around here. Whenever I think that Portuguese is difficult all I have to do is think about Sena and Portuguese is easy. Oh my gosh! These women were beautiful, as I would find all of the women who would pass through the gates of the courtyard into the Baptista Church of Dondo.

There are many stories to share about this event of a lifetime for me and other Americans who would come to serve the African women of Mozambique. The work of the Americans from Denver was a time of serving and getting to know how hard the work is here in Mozambique.

Each day the women from Denver would begin their day by getting to the church site by 7am to begin making breakfast for 350 women plus children. Buttering bread and making cha’. Now it doesn’t sound like such a big deal huh? Well there is a certain way that the women here do this job and they wanted to train the Americans to do the job correctly. What we find in our American culture is that we do our jobs quickly and sometimes without much care for the result, just so we get 700 breads buttered before they want them. Oh I need to mention that each woman would get two breads. And those who had children had to share with their children what they received. Is buttering bread a big deal? No, but they like a lot of butter so, we Americans are not used to using this much butter because we are always so weight conscious☺ But here, butter is part of the meal, and with lots of it. And the cha’ which is tea, has tons and I mean tons of sugar in it too. So why are the women here all so skinny? Because they work like we would never in our wildest dreams think of doing. And they walk everywhere, unless they take a bus and if they don’t have the money they walk. For hours and hours everyday just for the smallest of needs.

After breakfast came the beginning of each morning session where we began with singing and dancing from different churches. Each church was represented by who could come, or who could afford the trip and they danced and sang what they had prepared for the Conference, all dressed in wonderful matching African attire. One church only had 4 women who came a long journey to be here and the women just sang their hearts out. The room was a blaze with encouragement from the other women for their spectacular performance. We were all on our feet singing and dancing at that moment praising the Lord for even the smallest of all things.

Then would come the special event of the morning. A special speaker to encourage the women with stories and scripture. Words of encouragement were given for their walk with the Lord and a word of encouragement to memorize scripture when it was available. Many many many women here can not read, not to mention have bibles. Especially the women from farther out, away from the road in the bush.

The small church that I minister at in Centro Emissior there is only one bible and it is in Sena and belongs to the wife of the leader. The Sena bible is the New Testament because of the translation difficulties.

Then again, a meal was served. Rice, chicken, and one potatoe. It didn’t matter the size of the chicken or potatoe, each plate received two cups of rice, one potatoe and one piece of chicken. Fortunately for me there was always a Fanta orange to drink. Each day we would sell every bottle of pop we had. One night a woman came by and said, “I’m not drinking pop, I don’t want to have to pea in the night.” We all laughed!

We laughed because at the church were 5 sleeping places where the women and children slept on the floor on their capalanas. The rooms were covered from front to back with mats, sheets, capalanas and bags. When it came time to go to bed, you would find yourself walking around, jumping over and tip toeing by to get from one place to the next. In the middle of the night, in the dark, that would be a challenge. Unless of course you had a place right next to the door. One late night before bedtime, I went into the room where the women from Centro Emissior were sleeping and laid down on the floor besides them and just watched the room of women interact and have fun with each other as they prepared for sleep. I was amazed at the similarities of Americans and Mozambiquians in our fun moments. I must admit though, we more than likely could not find 350 women who would sleep on the floor for 3 nights at a women’s conference and eat rice and chicken, with no showers.

Friday afternoon a nurse from Denver gave a short session on health, sanitation and dental hygiene. It was well received and many questions were asked. It is amazing that the simplest of information is coveted here. As Tania the nurse spoke and then translated into two different languages, the voices were a stir, talking about how could they do what she was asking. Tooth brushes, and using soap, bathing at least once a day. Cleaning their nipples before nursing, wearing clean clothes each day, this was new to many of these ladies. We felt like the session was successful and understood of it’s importance.

After the afternoon sessions, it was time for dancing and singing from more of the visiting churches. It was fantastic! Unbelievable! And the greatest thing of all was that it was all to honor God. The scriptures talk about the singing of praises never stop, this was another piece of evidence to me that while you are in bed in America, we are praising God here, and while we are in bed you all are praising there. It is so cool to see the revelation of the scriptures take place before our eyes.

Again the women of Denver would assist the ladies here to prepare for the evening meal and serve it with some help from some teenagers in the church. Rice and fish and one potatoe, same deal, different meat. Have you ever eaten 2 cups of rice at one setting? It is a lot! The fish, I could leave behind, no thanks. But always always the Fanta orange. I had to have my pop fix for the day.

The evening session was dancing and singing and some preaching one night by Pastor Jeronimo. Pastor Jeronimo is the leader of the Baptist convention, the pastor of the Dondo Baptist church and the leader of the Ray of light project that I am connected with here in Dondo. I have had the honor of becoming friends with this fine man and seeing how God is using him and moving his vision to change a generation of children by offering them an education and giving them God’s word for hope of change.

My most favorite part of the whole convention was this, each night after all of the hoopla. The real fun started when everyone who had any energy left, danced in the court yard. Different churches would teach other’s new steps and teach new songs and they all were preparing for the last day of events. On Sunday a group of women, some from each church would dance for the Sunday service to show the community of believers what they had come for.

Different women would pull us Americans in to try to do their steps and we would all end up in a laughing fit. There is just no way a white woman from America could keep up with the steps of an African tribal woman who dances day and night. These women just dance for everything here, it is amazing to watch and even more amazing to be a part of. I love the culture here. When they laughed, it wasn’t to criticize, we were having fun and they would encourage us to do more, to stay in there until we would get it and then they would all clap and praise us for being able to end at the same time they did. What a wonderful time of praising the Lord with our sisters across the world. We would dance until almost midnight each night. It is not a wonder I was pooped at the end of the week.

All in all the end result was that God was glorified. I made some new friends that I will again dance one day with, maybe not on this side of heaven but certainly there.