Tour of Missouri -- Finance Update

This past week I was blessed to be able to visit friends, family, and church family in Columbia, Kirksville, Blue Springs and Grandview (KC), Springfield, and Rolla!!!  Jess, Ash, Amy, Mir, Corey, Abby, Noah, Isaiah, Kyle, Heidi, James, Herb, Sarah, Nathan, Greg, Emily, April, Nikki, Lindsay, Josh, Kara, Matt, Dana, Phil, Pete, Karayah, Corry, Emerson, Josh K, Nick, Bonz, JJ, Bob, Mary, Rahman, Winata---you guys are all awesome!!  I finished the trip VERY encouraged spiritually and with a fresh excitement to go back to Pemba.

Sunday night I got to share at Jill Czapla's Bible study at the Roth's house.  Then Monday my mom hosted an open house for various friends who I hadn't been able to really see during my time home.  Tuesday my brother came home, and I got fired up from the Colombian :) preacher/prophet/firebrand Kate Berndt Buitrago when she came to visit.  Last night I was up late finishing all those last minute packing items...had to get a little creative rearranging items so I could bring pretty much everything I wanted and my bags stayed under 50lbs each...

Praise the Lord, and thanks to the saints, a lot of support came in over this past week!!  Right now I only need about $420 more to finish paying for my airfare. 

I'm boarding the plane from St. Louis at 3:15pm this afternoon, stopping over in Atlanta and then the long 18 hour haul to Johannesburg, South Africa.  It's fun to be going back to a place I've been before--several of the other students from this past school are coming back on staff, and we're going to meet up and overnight together in Joburg.  My flight to Pemba is not until Sunday.  Pray that it is booked ok.  I've been having a lot of delays working with the Mozambican airline, trying to book the cheapest route through e-mail, and having to repeat the same information over and over.  As of now, though they say I'm booked, the fare has not shown up online in my account.  Pray that when I arrive at Joburg I can resolve it at the LAM counter and am not delayed from getting to Pemba Sunday.

Thank you all for your prayers and support!  King David said the men who stayed behind received the same reward as those who went to war.  Some of you I know are itching to be on the foreign mission field, and I'm just very blessed and humbled to have your support as my time has come to go. 

Angie :) <><

Support Update

The countdown begins: in thirteen days on September 30th I'll be flying back to Africa!  A HUGE thank you to all those friends and family who have been keeping me in prayer!!!  I have so many praise reports I can't even list them all, but I will say again that I didn't get sick other than a common cold during the entire school, and when I came down with the 104 degree F fever the night before our ten day outreach, God heard your prayers because the fever broke by morning!  I woke up drenched but feeling NORMAL praise God, took a shower, and jumped on the truck.

Another testimony is that I flew into Johannesburg pretty late on the Sunday I was going to fly back to the States, and when I got to the counter they had already given away my seat.  I was surprised to run into my friend from the school, David, and see had missed his flight, too, so we both went to see what they could do.  At first it looked like they were going to charge us $250 each to fly stand-by the next day, but then God softened their hearts and they went ahead and printed the stand-by tickets for free.  A guy from the church David had been working with in Johannesburg, Garreth, had waited around to see him off, so we were both able to stay at his apartment for free and enjoy great God conversations and go to his church the next morning which was great.  (And I got to surprise my housemate by showing up at church. Miss you, Helena! ;)  That afternoon Garreth and Helena saw us off at the airport, and they took our luggage and checked us in so we weren't stand-by after all!!!

Prayer Needs:

• Health -- I liked being healthy last time.  Let's do it again!  :)
• Grace to abide in Christ when there are many demands on my time
• Unity and fellowship in my house and in my outreach group
• Wisdom to know when and how to give when surrounded by so much need
• To hear the voice of God; discernment as I pray and minister to people
  

Financially I've been so blessed.  I want to thank all who were able to give.  I truly believe your investment in the kingdom of God will reap great reward, both now and when Christ returns.  The exact amount I needed came in in just the nick of time last May!  And God has blessed me big time to get some delayed paychecks over the summer.  For this next season here's where I'm sitting, or rather standing in faith:

Financial Needs:

Airfare to Joburg, South Africa:            $1515  (paid)

Air Joburg-Pemba+outreach to Beira:    $800
Traveler's ER Medical Insurance:           $150
Malaria Meds, travel food and
   lodging, misc:                                      $300

Guitar:                                                   (Donated!  see blog below!)

The ticket to Joburg has been purchased, but I'm still praying in the rest.

Total still needed, approx:         $1300

If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation, which I can apply to my airfare and Visa expenses, etc, you can write it to "Victory Church" with "Angie Schachner-Mozambique" in the memo line.

For non tax-deductible contributions simply write them to me, "Angie Schachner".

All financial support can be mailed to:

Victory Church
1 Victory Drive
Pevely, MO 63070

A Perfect Day -- from Heidi's point of view

 Check out this story written by Heidi about one of the outreach trips I was on:

http://www.irismin.org/news/44.php

This day WAS indeed amazing.  There are several witnesses that the Starbucks (of which I think I got the last cup!) truly multiplied.  Everyone got some!  And it wasn't weak. :)  Heidi's definitely got me with the idea that roughing it doesn't have to mean Ricoffy. 

The double wedding was interesting.  Heidi used it as an opportunity to talk very simply about AIDS prevention--faithfulness between husband and wife.  The couples were shy, especially the younger one.  It is rare to actually have a wedding ceremony in their culture, so they both had children together already, but solidifying the commitment sets a new precedent the church is bringing into the culture.  Many times, when the going gets rough the man will simply leave and find another woman.  It was beautiful to see how the church strengthens the family unit.

The whole wedding/church crowd moved across the road from the church as we began to walk the 20 minutes to the lagoon for baptisms.  I looked to see why several hundred people had stopped and gathered, and it was then I saw Heidi had lifted up the little girl, Joanna, with two hands.  Her mother and many testified she had never walked before in her life.  We celebrated and then moved on with the party down to the crystal clear salt waters of an ocean inlet, where singing surrounded new believers as they were immersed and raised up to new life in Christ.  I got the chance to connect with several visitors from France, England, and good ol Kentucky.  (Manuel, Bryan...! :)

After the last person was baptized, Heidi and Crystalyn and soon dozens of others took off swimming out into the lagoon, playing on the sandbar and apparently (which I found out the next day) leading those 6 village boys into the Kingdom.

After she took off back to Pemba for the children's birthday celebrations, my team split up into groups of about 2 foreigners and 3 Mozambican pastors and Bible students and we went house to house, praying for the sick and sharing the Good News.  The first person we prayed for was an old blind man my friend Taylor and I saw the day before and we wanted to visit.  After Taylor and I prayed for a little while, the rest of our group joined us in praying.  The man said that he was in pain all over his body from arthritis.  We prayed for him, commanding the pain to go and submit to Jesus finished work on the cross.  Pain left his upper body, but he said his legs still hurt.  So we thanked God and moved to praying for his legs.  We asked him to stand up and walk.  He said the pain was gone!!!  He began to walk very shakily and with each step he was more steady.  He turned around and walked back to us, a very different man than the one we had first approached, crouched over in pain.  Praise God!  I have to say, I was a little disapointed not to see his eyes turn from whitish-blue to gray to brown, but I'm so thankful he felt touched by God and loved by us due to the healing of his arthritis.  The pastors were able to share the Gospel with him more adequately.

This town had a great environment.  At first the night before people seemed not sure what to make of us, but by this day everyone wanted us to visit and pray for them.  It had a stronger Muslim presence than many other villages, but people were very curious and open.  It was the kind of place that had me wondering what if someone stayed for 3 or 4 weeks and just focused on this village....I'm excited for the young church there in Mecufi!

Back to Pemba!

Time is flying! In a few short weeks by the grace of God I will be boarding a plane to return to Pemba, Mozambique. I will be returning to the Iris Harvest School of Missions which I attended and graduated from this summer, only this time as staff. God has made this so clear in my heart that this is His will for my next steps, and it has been so encouraging watching every door open in the natural to make it possible.

These include being released from my teacher aide commitment at Mapaville School for the Severely Disabled, having the funds (due to school salary payments I continued to receive over the summer) to pay off my remaining debt, and the support is coming in for airfare, my primary expense in this next adventure.

One AMAZING way God has blessed me in this past week is by providing me with a new guitar!!!! I'm so blown away. He led me to give my previous guitar away in Mozambique last summer, and I was so blessed and happy to be able to supply an amazing Mozambican servant of God with his own guitar. He worked with the school doing language training, translating, and he works with the worship team, the daily children's ministry for the village lunch feeding program as well as Sunday mornings with the children's ministry.

So when God made it clear in the last week of the school, He was calling me back for the fall, I knew I would be working with the worship ministry. I would need a guitar! While I was praying during a few days of retreat in South Africa before I returned to the US, I felt like the Holy Spirit told me to go home and pick out a guitar, exactly what I needed and wanted, and He would provide.

The body of Christ is so awesome! God led an experienced music minister to help me pick out a guitar, and when he asked my budget, I just told him, honestly, God said to just pick one out. Then he told me that he felt like God wanted his ministry to buy me a guitar!!!! We went the next day to the music store, and I came home with a Taylor 210e Dreadnought Acoustic-Electric Guitar. It has rich tones, is much smoother to play and easily 5 times better guitar than the one I gave away! I told the guy at the store on the way out, "If God tells you to give something away, don't hesitate, just do it!"

Our Father is sooooo good to us! Did He have to give me such a nice guitar? Unquestionably, I could've made it by which a much lower quality guitar. But He loves to give us good things! He just doesn't want us to let THINGS derail our abiding in Him, our relationship with Him. John 15:7 says, "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you."

It reminds me of the Bryan and Jenn Johnson song:

Where You go I go, what You say I say
And what You pray I pray

Thank You, Lord! He keeps impressing upon me the importance of entering His rest. If I rest and abide in Him, He'll tell me what to do next, and even what to pray for! Then I know it is in His will and it's just a matter of making every effort to stay in His rest and obey His word until I see the word manifested. (See Hebrews 4).

When I make the effort to put prayer first, I touch on this place in the Kingdom of God where everything seems so easy! I definitely feel like a baby at this, baby-stepping my way into learning how to abide and obey, how to hear and discern the specific guidance of the Holy Spirit, to be thankful when I feel like I'm only hearing a little, because a thankful heart prepares the way to hear more. But it has been so fun over the past few months because I know my Father is so patient with me, and He enjoys me in the journey. Amen!

The Great Commission

Check out this dynamic video and song Tears of the Saints featuring Leeland and Delirious.

Ooo, Holy Spirit conviction fall! It hurts so good!!! :)

Let us be the generation that brings the Gospel to every nation, tribe, and tongue! Wycliffe Bible translators believe translations of the Word of God will be available in every language or in process of translation by the year TWENTY TWENTY-FIVE! That is right around the corner, folks!

However, a little study on the verses in Matthew that we call "The Great Commission" reveal that the key emphasis is not so much on the word "Go" as it is on the process of making disciples! It is more accurately, "As you go...make disciples..." What kind of disciples? "...teaching them to obey all the things I have commanded you..." So you mean that all the commands you gave your disciples are fair game for us today, Jesus? It's not just for the early church? "..and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age."

In Mark he is a little more pointed, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation..."

I had such a rich experience on the extended 10 day outreach with Arco-Iris (Iris Ministries) and I felt like I was in the book of Acts because, let me tell you, a new church planting movement in an unreached people group IS the early church! They experience all the things that the early Apostles faced when they first began preaching the good news of the Kingdom. The good news is confirmed by signs and wonders, hundreds receive the gospel and give their lives to Jesus, and the Lord is adding to their numbers DAILY. The GREATEST need in this hour is for discipleship!

As I was reading the parable of the sower recently, God showed me that this is the current sitation in Mozambique. The seed is being sown on the highways and byways, and a lot of soil is proving to be initially receptive! But the soil that receives the seed and sprouts a plant which goes on to produce mature fruit--this is only the people who hear the Word and UNDERSTAND it. How we as the body of Christ foster the move of the Spirit in Mozambique and other major revival hotspots worldwide will go a long way to determining the longevity of the impact of the revival.

So, how do you disciple THOUSANDS of baby churches with a small number of mature believers? Well, it's not going to happen overnight, that's for sure. And it's not going to happen without LOTS of aid and resources coming from the more mature Western churches. But it's also not going to happen without the manpower! Mozambique NEEDS mature believers who are willing to give it all up, lay it all down, and give themselves to the painstaking daily grind of discipleship. There may be Mozambican pastors who have raised 3 or 6 babies, children or adults from the dead, yes, but the average Christian child in the West who has completed 6th grade Sunday school has a greater knowledge of the Scriptures.

There is need for a great exchange. We desperately need the Mozambicans' zeal for the Lord and exuberance in worship; we need their child-like faith without which the Kingdom of God cannot be entered into in the here and now and which is ushering in the supernatural so often that blind eyes opening and deaf ears hearing and the lame walking and the demonized being set free has become expected and almost commonplace. We need to take the Lord and His Word at face-value and to dream so big our dreams are only possible by His supernatural intervention.

And yet we have so much to offer, and I'm not only talking about our material wealth! The average Western Christian has had hours of Bible instruction, studying the Word, small groups, Sunday school. We are so far ahead in the knowledge department, yet I feel as far as myself, perhaps years behind in applying that knowledge toward making disciples! Toward ushering in the Kingdom of God! We've gotten full and fat at the feast, and so comfortable we've forgotten that we eat so we have the energy and the bread to go out and feed others!!!!

Years of Bible study, and yet we so often feel like we are never really ready to share the Gospel, never really ready to teach--oh, just one more class, one more year, one more seminary. While the world out there is getting saved without us. It's a lie from the devil that we're "not ready" to paralyze us and keep us inwardly focused, while God is revealing Himself to Muslims in dreams and visions at an incredible rate! My friend Anna was in Iraq last year and when she would be invited into homes with groups of Muslim women she would begin sharing by asking if any of them had had a dream of a man wearing a white robe (Jesus) and many of them would say yes! And then she would explain the Gospel to them! God doesn't NEED us! He WANTS us to partner with Him, for us to be a part of it all! We are blessed to be able to see the prisoners set free from bondage, to see the people He has prepared for such a time as this, to see His Bride come in! Our job is so easy! But we just need to be willing. Willing to go. Willing to make disciples, whether here or there or wherever we are.