Second Week

By the way: the apostrophe symbol doesnt work on these computers because they arent a part of the Portuguese language and I cant figure out how to change that – so just FYI, please bear with us!

PRAYER REQUESTS

Sachi and Laura are out in the bush this weekend. Sachi comes back this evening and Laura tomorrow evening. Were eager to hear about how they went. Before leaving, Sachis group was in a little vehicle accident before even leaving the grounds. Apparently an unruly child got into the four ton truck full of people and equiptment and attempted to drive it. He didnt make it very far before jumping the enormous roots of one of the elephant trees and smashing into the overhang/porch of the church. A Mozambiquan bible school student fell out of the truck and was taken to the hospital. A few other Mozambiquans were hurt as well. Keep them in your prayers, but especially pray for the unruly child. His name is Titos (prounounced Tee-toosh) and apparently this isnt the first episode of his as he was deserted purposefully from his parents knowingly, and taken to Iris. They later found out his parents were in fact alive when they were told he would have to attend his fathers funeral. So he is going through some things and is in much need of prayer and deliverance – Heidi asks that we pray for the spirit of adoption to come on him in a very real way.

PRAISE REPORT

Rolland is doing much better and will be returning home soon to attend his daughters wedding here in Pemba!

SECOND WEEK

So last week was all about intimacy with the Lord and how vital that is in our life as Christians. I forgot to mention that we studied Matthew 25 and its relevance to this topic as the parable of the 10 virgins; 5 were wise and had oil for their lamps, 5 were foolish and did not bring oil. The 5 who were wise counseled the 5 who were foolish to go buy oil because they could not give to them their oil. When the bridegroom came to join the 10 virgins, the 5 who were wise had enough oil to keep their lamps lit. The 5 who where foolish had no oil and the bridegroom closed the door to them and would not let them in because he did not know them. Jesus is talking about intimacy with him in this parable. The oil is the time we spend with him getting to know his voice and his heart. The 5 who were wise did this. The 5 who were foolish did not because they were busy with other things, ministries, church activities, and other good things. Read that scripture, and ask God to give you revelation to what that means for you. When Jesus (the bridegroom) comes, even though you go to church, and do good things, if you dont know him he will tell you to depart from him because he doesnt know you. Its wise counsel for us all to spend time in intimacy with Jesus – quiet time alone with the Lord every day.

Getting back to the Second Week Update: this week was all about Heart Surgery. Shara talked about God giving us Beauty for Ashes. A missionary from Zimbabwe talked to us about Getting Filled at Gods Table and calling the Last the Least and the Lost and how vital it is for us to bring those into the Kingdom. She had a heavenly visitation where she was at Gods table in Heaven and there were people there that she knew that she had brought to Christ. As she went down the table there were empty seats. She asked why there were empty seats and Jesus told her it was seats reserved for people she was too cowardly to share the Gospel with – because of selfishness. Another missionary from Australia shared about Ungodly Beliefs that we allow ourselves to believe that if you buy into, can become strongholds in your life. An example of one is when we say, Im a failure, worthless, and cant do anything because Im a victim of my circumstances. When the truth that God has for us is, You can do all things through I who strengthens you. She challenged us to pray that God would reveal more ungodly beliefs in our hearts so Gods truth could come in its place. Another lady shared on 2 Peter 1 which says, His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. The enemy has three tools: fear (future), offense/division (present), and shame (past). But we have virtues to fight back with: faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love.

Heidi continued her series on the Beatitudes with Blessed are those who morn and Blessed are the meek. She is giving us these to digest one by one through the lense of missions because they are the very self portrait of Jesus, and as one of my housemates put it – the code of ethics for Christians. As far as those who morn, missions is all about finding the mourning and comforting them and not giving up when it gets hard. How does God do that? Well, since God is a Heavenly Spirit, he uses US. So he is looking for those he can put on like a glove, a yielded vessel that he can use, and all who are called into his light are called to do this – to be like Jesus. When she talked about meekness, she said God will reveal more of himself to you the lower and lower you go. She uses the word kinosis a lot which is the Greek word (?) for emptying of self. She also shared with us Pastor Jose from Maputo s testimony and how even though he had nothing, he gave everything away – his house, his car, his clothes, and how to her that was the image of meekness. This fell in line with our next homework assignment, which I extend as a challenge to you: Who in your life exemplifies the Beatitudes and how?

We had a guest speaker this week and this is the most exciting thing for me to write about thus far. As intriguing and challenging every class and every speaker has been, this couple from Holland were by far the more interesting. Mateus and Rebekah Vinderstein shared a lot on the Holy Spirit. They are very hip and real and down to earth. His main theme was if you see the invisible, God can do the impossible. He also shared on how it is most important for Character and Anointing to be in balance, and how the biggest warfare is between our two ears. He shared his testimony and then his wife shared hers. WHOA! This is still provoking my thoughts. You can look her up and probably watch a video from Patricia King s show, Extreme Prophetic, of her giving her testimony but basically she was in satanism from a young age, raped over 200 times since age four, and could open doors with her mind and saw people walk through walls, be sacrificed and all kinds of crazy things we are so sheltered from (thank God!). But then watching her friend get beaten to death before her eyes because her friend decided she wanted out of the coven, she decided she wanted out too. But she was at a Benny Hinn conference and was wayyyy up in the top back corner with two other girls – they were there to put curses on him. He called them out and told them to stop cursing him and that the one in the middle (Rebekah) was going to be saved soon. She was delivered not long after and has since been living for Jesus! The testimony of how they met romantically was amazing too as she had a vision of them married with a child learning to walk in Africa – which happened just last year! So she can still see in the spiritual realm very clearly and has to really focus to turn it off when just talking with people. She sees angels and the demonic all the time. Oh, and she said when they were at the Benny Hinn conference that he was covered with a white light and what they called a White Wizard – someone they couldnt touch with their curses. She said every Christian has this white light that is made stronger by intimacy with Jesus and intercession/prayer from others. This is yet another reason why it is so important to have both a close relationship with Jesus and to pray for others! She also said we have both a guardian and warring angel assigned to us at birth. She told us of how if we have unclean spirits and cast them out, that they can return later to see if you are still keeping yourself clean, and if not, they will come back seven fold. So this is why she recommends we put on the armor of God and pray Ephesians 10: 8-13 every day and at times more than that if necessary, to release angels (we have not because we ask not), and to speak life over others because in our mouth we have the power to curse or give life. So it was very very interesting and I have many questions Im going to email her with so Ill share those answers when they come.

The rest of the week weve been learning Portuguese songs, prepareing for the Solemn Assembly on July 26^th (24/7 House of Prayer), doing color activities like village feeding which is about 2 hours of organized chaos, followed by our eating off the dirtied plates the children ate off of that were blessed and rinsed in the dirty soap water they washed their hands in. :) We ended the week with snorkeling in the incredibly salty but clear Indian Ocean, and Darryl was invited to go spear fishing with one of the guards who he has been building a relationship with since weve been here. However, we just found out his son was killed in the road so please pray for his family in this hard time. These people see this happen all the time and weve heard of it a lot just since weve been here – we are truly blessed beyond our imagination. Our biggest challenge has been finding that quiet alone time with the Lord – building intimacy with Jesus. We can not make it here without that. Pray for us in that way, although we are contending for it and have to daily.