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!
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!
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