Human

Wash the darkness from their skin

They’re not human yet

So poor like dirt from the earth

To be a little more than a charity case.

Is the earth alive?

All the people, all over the world?

If yes, Julia, they are, then why

Why do we treat such pigs as human

And humans as such less than that?

If we played the same hunger games,

If we always remained the same,

Then we’d all be inhuman.

For what makes us human?

Ability to talk, to walk to reason?

For those who can’t, are they naught?

Are they really inhuman?

The dark, the mute, the deaf, the lame,

The slow, the blind, the old, the weak?

We are more than the words we know how to speak.

We are more than the angels we reason fly above us.

We are more than the gravel we walk

Whether dry or wet beneath.

We are.

We are.

With skin as dark as pavement

We walk.

Into the sun to bleach our hair

We walk.

Burn our faces,

All human.

As we move,

All human.

We can learn these truths.

From little ones we learn these truths.

Ok, so I am posting this again. It has more meaning now that I have actually been to Africa. its kinda funny how i paint and write about things before i experience them, and then go on to experience them, and then they have more meaning. por exemplo, I found myself inside one of my paintings while i was in Africa. pretty cool.

Muito Obrigada, Kushukuru, Asante Sana, Thank you!!!!!

A Journey to God’s Heart Mozambique, Africa, fall 2008 Iris Ministries

A journey always begins with a step. A step is always a matter of faith. A step taken without faith does not get you far at all. You may be tempted to turn back if you have no faith that the step you just took is leading in the right direction.
For me, this step to Africa required immense faith. Without the utmost faith that I was supposed to be there, it would have been very easy to call it quits upon arrival in Mozambique. With power outages, water outages, long and hot rides on the back of an open truck, camping in the bush, and 110 degree temperatures, you have to really know that God brought you there to stay in Africa and enjoy it.
Not only did I enjoy my time there, I loved it! I loved the classes, our worship times were very sweet times of worshipping God and coming before Him as a group of people earnestly seeking His face. The teaching we got in class was immediately needed for the real world ministry we were doing at that time in Mozambique.
We received teaching on being willing to go to the darkest places to bring the gospel, and, simultaneously, we had outreaches to some of the darkest places I have ever seen. We learned how it is important to love the people who are truly unlovable- the really dirty kids, kids with scabies, kids who steal your waterbottles. We saw how important it was to have God’s love for these kids, because we could not love the kids with our own human capacity. We played with the dirtiest little kids I have ever seen, we gave medical care to the ones with scabies, and we gave away our water bottles before they could steal them. We learned how to die to ourselves and our own desires and truly put the needs of others first.
On outreaches in the town of Pemba and in villages within a few hours’ drive, we saw God work many miracles. In one town, we had hordes of kids following us around, singing “Hallelujah, Hosanna!” in their loudest voices. The kids followed us to the children’s program we had there, and followed us the next day to church. Kids are the future of the church, so it was a blessing to see the entire church packed with attentive kids that Sunday.
On the other side of that town, before showing the Jesus film, I had the opportunity to pray for Selma, a deaf and mute teenage girl. I was translating for a few of my team members. We prayed for Selma for about ten minutes and her ears were opened! She began responding to the music, and was able to hear the entire Jesus film! Her sister was doubtful of the healing, and kept asking Selma if she could really hear. After the film, we continued to pray for her, and she began to speak, saying “Thank you Jesus” in Portuguese. Selma’s entire family also came to Christ, which was perhaps the biggest miracle of all that night!
When we showed the Jesus film in one village, nearly 2,000 people showed up! The village had no evangelical church; it was nominally Catholic and Muslim. The people there were so hungry to learn more. As some team members and I walked around the perimeter of the crowd, our footsteps sounded loud compared to the silence of the crowd. Everyone was completely absorbed in the movie. Almost every night while we were in other villages we showed the Jesus film. Sometimes only 20 people would show up, but it was far more likely that 500-1,000 people would come and see the film. Many people came forward to receive Christ and the local pastor and other church leaders were able to meet them to follow up with them later. We saw many of the people we prayed for at these meetings come to church on Sunday.
Thank you so much for all of your prayers! As we brought the light into very remote and dark places, we needed your prayers so much. The Makua people, the people group we were mainly working with, only have four books of the Bible translated into their dialect. They have not heard the gospel in their own language before. What a privilege it was to be able to share Jesus’ love with them and bring them into the kingdom of God. What a privilege it was to partner with the work that Iris Ministries is doing in Africa.
I have taken a huge step on my journey to God’s heart, but the journey has only just begun. What is the next step? I am back in Connecticut for a few months, living with my parents. I feel God wants me to return to Brazil, to visit the two bases Iris Ministries has there. I will be going there, most likely in late March through April, to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. After that, I have felt strongly that I am to return to Africa to gain more training and experience and work under Iris there. As of now, it looks like I will be returning to Pemba in about six months for long-term service there with Iris, working on the base, developing some new projects to reach out to the community and to train the older kids who live in the children’s home Iris runs.
Thank you so much for all your support and prayers! I could not have done it without your help! God has listened to your prayers, be encouraged this New Year to pray in complete faith in God that He is our good Father and that He will respond. How amazing it is that He always hears us!
Please continue to pray for:
Selma: the deaf-mute girl whose ears and mouth were opened. Pray for her family to stay strong in Jesus
Iris Ministries’ children’s home, some kids to pray for: 17 year old Onesia, who is already a leader in many ways, that she will grow into more of a woman of God. 7 year old Sabina and 3 year old Carlito, two precious little ones, that God may become more and more real for them, even at a young age.
Villages we worked in: that the churches there would reap a large harvest from the work we did
Heidi and Rolland Baker, the founders of Iris: Pray for Rolland’s health as he is still recovering from malaria.
The students from the missions school: that we would be the matches to ignite the world with more fire and passion for God, in our home countries and all the countries that God has called us to minister in.
Direction for my life: that God would open up the right doors as I take the next step to return to Africa and Brazil with Iris Ministries.

In English, thank you all so much! In Portuguese, muito obrigada! In Makua, kushukuru! In Makonde, Asante Sana! God bless you all in 2009! Look forward to what God has in store for you this year!

-Emily Bair

to see a video I made of my time in Mozambique, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldpo5MSjyLs (or you can also search on youtube for Iris, HS9, and my video will come up first… It’s called HS9 001)

If we really want God's fire...

If we really want God's fire, we have to let Him burn everything we've got. One huge lesson God taught me in Mozambique was that He is an all-consuming fire and He will consume everything in the way between us and Him, if we really want Him. I told God that I wanted Him and would give up everything for Him, and throughout the entire trip, God kept bringing things in my life to mind that I would have to leave behind if I wanted Him more than anything. He went through a whole long list of possessions, people, attitudes, and emotions that He wanted complete control over. He asked if He could burn up a few little things first, and I fought Him on it, then I relinquished control, and that was the beginning of everything being burned up in His all-consuming fire. Any clothes, shoes, and household things had to go, they were the first things. I left a whole bunch of things in Moz for people who have literally nothing. It breaks my heart to see little kids running around the streets in filthy dirty ripped clothes. When you pick them up and they smile, you realize that clothes don't really matter, and you are ready to give it all away.

God even burnt my camera (?) Well, my camera lens broke in an accident, but the more important thing was that I was not too concerned that I lost it. I was just like "well, I can get a new one when I go back to the US." When God burns things up, He changes your attitudes towards leaving them. He changes your attitudes towards your possessions and relationships.

God removes relationships that become important to us before they become more important to us than God. Before I left, God told me I needed to give up a certain friendship, and not communicate with them while in Africa. So I didn't. I thought this would be hard, but God made it easy on me. And He burnt that relationship up! And continues to burn through things in my life, burning up my computer......... My computer was one thing that I particularly wish I had in Moz with me, but I didn't. I remember talking with some people saying, if I could go home and just get one thing and come back here to live, it would be my computer. I know at least one person shared this sentiment. Little did I know, that one thing I wish I had, would be gone within three weeks of arriving back in the US. So the one thing I wanted most in Africa, maybe I wanted too much, and it had to go.

If you want the fire of God, if you want Him fully, if you want to give your life to Him completely, you have to be ready to surrender everything into His consumign fire. His consuming fire will burn and will burn up everything!

How Does One Make This Easier?

How does one make reverse culture shock easier? How do you re-enter your home country without too much of a jolt to your system?

When will it be normal again to go into a grocery store packed with large, full shelves? When will it not be a laborious task to pick something in the store out, simply because you have choices again, and you no longer know how to pick out things in a store? Right now, it seems like every store I have gone in, I have needed or wanted something, but ended up not picking it out. I look and look, and don’t make a decision. Side note… I did buy a bookcase the other day, but that was easy, there was only one color left in stock of the size I wanted! I have no idea what to do with all this stuff around me. I look at and pick up everything in sight, just kind of marveling at it. I did that with nearly everything in my own house for the first week. It is like I have never seen these things before. But I have.

I keep on imagining of how it would be with these two kids from Mozambique here with me. To see their reaction to a grocery store, Walmart, endless aisles of toys, and even snow, would be really interesting. I keep imagining them walking beside me and holding my hands. Little Carlito would be in shock and comment on things, like he did the day I left Africa and said goodbye to him with my tennis shoes on instead of flip flops. He sees me and I pick him up and the first thing he says is “You bought tennis shoes!” He would be saying about nearly everything “Hey! Look at that!” And Sabina, she would be so timid and not really know what to do or say. They would probably eat everything in the house. And get sick.

Just like I got sick coming back. Ugh. I felt sicker coming back and eating the food here than I ever had in Mozambique. I couldn’t eat dairy stuff really for the first week, and haven’t eaten much meat either, my body can’t handle it.

And what about the kids we left in the villages? How do we make it through a day without thinking of them, thinking of how crappy their lives are and how we can’t do a thing about it? One little girl, no more than 4, was carrying her little brother who was probably nearly 2. She was taking care of him every time we saw her for the two days we were in this village. How do I reconcile that with my experience here? How do I say “oh, its just the way things are there” when I know that it is so not fair for a little four year old to be responsible for another kid? A four year old babysitter? Come on. Really.

How does this get easier? I make it a bit easier on myself by telling myself I am going back in a few months. And in that time, I am processing things, and trying to make it better. I was sewing some things this weekend, and sort of by accident made a little girl’s dress. I felt like God was nudging me to do this. Its for a girl in Africa. And then I made another one. And a little boy outfit. And another one is cut out… I guess that is my way of making my time here easier. I am going back. That I know. But I have also taken the kids from Africa here with me in my heart.

The Greatest Commandment

How are we to love a world that is so desperately lost and doesn’t want help? How are we to love our neighbors who we don’t even know? How do we show love to the clerk at the check-out line at Walmart?
Sometimes, I believe being a missionary in Africa is the easy route. It is easy to know how to love people there. It is easy to show love to the destitute and despondent. It is easy simply because if you see a person living on the street, you give them shelter and food. If some kids are neglected, you hug them and play with them. If a kid has worms, you give them a tablet of albendazole and pray for them. These are all fairly straightforward. It may not be easy to do, but it is easy to know how to love the people in Africa. It is easy because the people are desperate for signs of love.
Here in America, we are not so in need of a roof over our heads or a meal. We never get worms, so we don’t need to be de-wormed. Here in suburbia, the kids are usually not terribly neglected, and to go and hug and play with random kids on a playground might make you the target of some suspicion. So, that brings us again to the question, how so we love the people who need love but don’t know they need it?
I found a verse in the Bible to be helpful, when Jesus is talking about loving your neighbor. Jesus is quoting the Old Testament law here. He says to love your neighbor as yourself, but how does that happen? How do we do that? Leviticus 19:18 defines what loving your neighbor might mean. “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.” God has told us a specific way to love our neighbor here. We are to love them like ourselves, we are to treat everyone how we treat ourselves.
If you like going first in a line, if you like to have a door held open for you, if you would like someone to help you load your groceries in the cart, then maybe we should start by doing those simple things for the people around us. Doing these things aren’t simply about being a nice person or being civil, its about loving our neighbor, just as we would want to be loved.
A great example of doing this was a bit extreme, but when I was nannying, I had little David with me at Target. He has cerebral palsy and didn’t talk much and was a bit difficult to handle at times. I had just put him in the car and gotten in, when a lady came over and motioned me to roll down the window. She reached out her hand and slipped me a $50 bill. I don’t know if she was a Christian or not, but since this was in the Bible Belt, she most likely was. In my mind, she saw me, a young-looking, single mother who needed help, and she helped. She showed love. The fact that I was not a struggling single mother is beside the point! I put the money aside to save for going on a mission trip, which turned out to be Mozambique.
I am by no means saying that we should give money to every person who may need it on the street, but we need to be sensitive to Holy Spirit and be asking Him to open our eyes so we can see how to love people better. We must be constantly asking Him to show us the specific things we can do to show love those around us. It may be as simple as giving our sister a hug when she hurt herself, or it may be as complicated as arranging a construction team to build a house for a homeless widow. Wherever we are, whatever our occupation, this command stands true and remains the same. We are to love those around us with God’s love, just as we love ourselves.

Africa

Nearly three months after setting out for Africa, I returned back to the US to find much snw on the ground. What a shock to my system! I went from being at a restaurant on the beach, celebrating the end of the missions school and a successful outreach on Sunday night, to being back at my parent's house in the US with six inches of snow on the ground on Tuesday night!

Africa has changed me completely. Where I thought I was wrecked, where I thought I understood poverty, where I thought I knew how to love the unlovable, I realized that I was not wrecked, I did not understand a thing about poverty, and I had no love in me! To die to self is true life, and that is what the Iris Harvest School of Missions in Mozambique was about. We had to die to everything. We had to die to our ideas of cleanliness, we were filthy by American standards even just stepping out of the shower. I thought I had love for all kids and would love them all uncnditionally, but when there are kids playing around outside your tent at 4:30am, waking you up, those warm fuzzy feelings of love disappear quickly! It is also one thing to say that you would hold those with scabies and ringworm and really filthy clothes, because you see photos of kids like that and have compassion, but it is another thing to actually act upon that. At first it was very hard to hold the kids with scabies and ringworm and filthy clothes, but at one point, I realized that I didn't care anymore how dirty I got, and just jumped right in. I held the ones with skin problems and the ones with AIDs and malaria. I held the stinky wet babies and got my skirt wet so many times! I also managed to hold the little kids who were outside my tent, waking us up, lifting up the rain fly, and bothering us! They are precious too!

God did so many amazing things. He is still doing them. We prayed for so many people, we saw blind eyes opened, deaf ears hearing, and lame legs walking! We saw so many changed hearts, too! While I was on outreach with the medical team, I was translating for a nurse and praying, and we started to pray for a lady with back pain and a problem with her leg. She had come into the hut with a walking stick, and had trouble standing. We prayed and prayed for her, we broke off curses, and she repented of witchcraft. We asked her to stand and walk, and she stood, but couldn't walk. Then she showed us the back of her leg, there was literally a hole where a muscle should be, and there were all these scars from witchcraft all around it. We realized at that moment the specific problem, continued praying, and in a few minutes, asked her to walk again. She began to walk! She started walking around perfectly fine, without any pain or a limp, and she walked home without her walking stick!

That particular outreach, I had just seen the day before while praying and in worship, all these kids lined up under a tree, and we prayed for them, and their bloated bellies went in. I saw Jesus' finger touching their stomachs on top of our hands. Unbeknownst to me at the time I saw this, I helped with the de-worming clinic for the kids in the village. We prayed for lines up kids, under a tree, and broke curses, spoke life into them, and gave them a de-worming tablet. We didn't see any bellies go in right then, but I believe that later they did, that the worms died, and that the kids were given new life through our prayers.

Jesus is so awesome! Thank you Jesus! Obrigada Jesus! Kushukuru Yesu! Asante Yesus!