IHOP-KC in the News

IHOP-KC was featured as the cover story in November’s edition of Charisma Magazine. The article is entitled “We Won’t Stop Praying.” This edition also includes a highly favorable editorial about IHOP, as well as an article by Mike Bickle called, “Why the Church Must Pray.” There will also be a Conference Call with Mike on prayer on November 16, at 8 pm CST. To read the digital magazine online for free, visit the Charisma site at www.charismamag.com.

It's pretty cool!  IHOP-KC has gotten a lot of controversial press in the past, and there's still a lot of online stuff saying that we are a cult!  This is nice to be spoken of VERY positively from such a widely-read Christian publication.

On a personal note, I'm in the last few days of my online IHOP-KC eschool class on Song of Songs.  Pray that God breathe's life in to my final paper!  I will be outlining a portion of the Song in detail with Scriptural cross-references to Biblical symbolism, and then writing a 3-5 paper on how that particular passage identifies to my life!  It is a little intimidating to compile my commentary/outline...Mike Bickle's on the whole song is 152 pages!  Prayer welcome.  :)

Angie :) <><

I'm Getting Married!!!!

"My cup runneth over....!"

I'm sure most of you already know through facebook, but....I AM ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED!!!!

On October 15th, Jerald Jay Stratton, III, aka "JJ" or to me "Jay", took me star-gazing at a nearby lake.  He brought a blanket and candles and treats (including my fav extra dark Lindt truffles ;). We slow-danced as jazzy Ella Fitzgerald played on his laptop, and he began to tell me what I meant to him.  I felt him reach into his pocket and shuffle something behind my back before he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.  I said, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" ;)  He proposed with a family heirloom ring, which I learned minutes later when we called my parents was in fact my grandmother's engagement ring!  I bawled.  It was beautiful, and such a blessing!  All my grandparents have been gone for many years, so it is so special to have my maternal grandmother's ring.  It is also an extravagant blessing for us financially and much bigger than I ever expected.  Haha!  :)

We will be getting married in St. Louis on April 9th, 2011.  Pray for us as we plan for the wedding and more importantly our marriage and future life together!  The Lord is stirring our hearts and minds to certain avenues over these next 4-5 years which we are very excited about---but more specifics to come on that later!  In the meantime, we've enjoyed spending each weekend together in these past two months since he officially moved to Kansas City.  He still works four ten hour days all over southern Missouri during the week, mostly out of Rolla and Springfield.  I'm looking forward to when we will see each other every day...but this is a great improvement to every third weekend!  It has been great to attend Forerunner Christian Fellowship (with IHOP-KC) together and enjoy time in the prayer room.

Other highlights over these past two months have been seeing family and friends at several weddings in the St. Louis/Illinois area.  First we celebrated with my cousin Debbie as she wed a wonderful man from Kenya.  Then two weeks later my very good childhood friend Jonathan Block married at the family farm where I spent many hours adventuring during summers growing up.  Then two weeks after that, we visited Rolla and stayed with Martha and James Cameron and went up to St. Louis for Jay's company team building day at Dave and Buster's.  Beforehand we met my parents at a few reception sites, and were happy to find the least expensive option to be very beautiful (and be running a special for April!)

Now to Him who richly provides for all our needs according to His riches in glory be blessing and honor and praise!  :)

It's beginning to look a lot like...fall!

Can you believe it is FALL?!!!!

The next thing you know, we will barely enjoy anticipating Thankgiving because they will be piping Christmas music the day after Halloween!

The leaves are turning, the wind is blowing, and change is blowing in the wind....at the end of September I will be moving yet again, but this time for a bit longer chunk of time, I believe.  I will be rooming in a house in Grandview with several young women either on staff or interning or students at IHOP.  I will finally have the fellowship I have been desperately needing!  Jay and I are looking at joining a small group at church, Forerunner Christian Fellowship (with IHOP-KC).

Things are continuing to heat up.  There have been over 1000 commitments of faith in the past three weeks through the YWAM and the "Greater Grandview" 20+ church outreaches, and each one is connected to a "Local Link", someone trained to personally disciple or connect new believers to a suitable mentor.  The Awakening evening Thurs-Sat services will discontinue Oct 9th, but God has more and not less planned for the community here as we go deeper in the place of prayer and prepare for the next wave...believing for a Great Awakening, which will not only touch primarily the "greater" (worldwide) house of prayer community, but our neighbors, our co-workers, our schools, our youth, and our generation!

God, send revival that not only the whole church will notice, but the likes of which bring the fear of the Lord into our entire society!!!


This year for me personally has been a season of testing and deep pruning.  Tested by isolation, removal from ministry within the body, working "under the sun" in a position that I do not have vision or passion, seeming fruitlessness.  "A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones." Proverbs 17:22  The confession of my mouth did not always line up with truth as I battled feelings of abandonment from God and disconnectedness from His love.  He has reminded me many times that this is just a season of testing, but I have had to confess bitterness and not trusting His leadership.  I would receive moments of encounter in the Word, but could not seem to encounter Him in a deep and lasting way.  I believe He needed me to run into my pride and barrenness and show me how desperate I am without Him before He can use me to the extent He desires.  I now know that where I thought myself strong, I am weak.  Where I thought myself gifted, I am barren.  Where I though myself humble, I know how great is my pride.  Where I believed myself steadfast, once alone, I falter.  Where I believed I trusted and had great faith, I met my despair apart from Christ.  I know more fully it is completely a gift!  It is He who moves in me to will and to act according to His purposes. It is only when I DIE that He can truly LIVE in me.  When I am WEAK, He provides the strength.  The harvest, the fruit, is not for me to provide.  The truth He taught me in Africa had to be proven through the fires of testing: "If I raise the dead or sweep the floor, or even take a nap, the pay's the same....My bread is to do the will of the One who sent me."

TO HIM BE THE GLORY!  AMEN.

What....?!! April?!!!!

I don't know how it happened so fast, but it is over halfway through April, 2010!!!!  Many changes have transpired since I last wrote.  Mid-March I moved into my new abode in Independence, KC, where I serve as resident manager at a non-profit transitional apartment program for 17-20 year olds who have aged out of foster care or young women with babies who have no other support structure.  I don't receive a salary, but am provided with a two-bedroom apartment and utilities in return for being available evenings and weekends to do resident checks, drive them to get groceries, etc.  I feel very blessed to work with wonderful ladies and have this position where God has brought four young women and one guy into my life to pray for and mentor.  This is a program run through a state grant so I am somewhat limited, though at least one if not two of the ladies who run it are Christians.  Pray for open doors for the gospel to be presented!  Pray for words of knowledge and wisdom and boldness for me to glorify Christ!  I got to pray for healing for one of the girls who had a cold last Saturday.  It didn't lead to too much conversation but I hope and believe it was a step.

My second job is teaching Spanish full-time at a high-quality (read: posh) preschool in Leawood, KS.  I just completed my second full week, and boy am I tired!!!  Learning to tailor lessons for 10 classes of 2-5 year olds and manage two jobs is a challenge!  However, I believe it will only get easier as time goes by.  Pray that I grow in patience and love and work as unto the Lord!

As if this weren't enough, I registered for eschool with the Forerunner School of Ministry at the International House of Prayer-KC this past week and began my first course.  Tentative plans are to complete the first year of the Bible school as I work.  My first course is one I have actually been listening to (on tapes from the 90's!) for the past ten years, Mike Bickle's Song of Solomon course.  I'm excited to study it again in depth though, as life experience has opened the latter part of the book up to me a lot over the past year, but I also feel a need to experience breakthrough in the basic "dark but lovely" reality of a believer.  For though I am dark in my sin and weakness, through Christ I am lovely before God!  Pray that head knowledge moves deep into my heart as I am made perfect in love, to walk boldly and confidently before God!!! (1 John 4:16-18)

God's grace has helped me start getting up early and spending an hour at the IHOP-KC prayer room on my way to work, and what a difference it makes!  I hope to learn to get to bed earlier and soon lengthen that time to two hours.  I would have a lot of trouble being alert to have time in prayer and the Word in my apartment in the mornings, and I'm so thankful to be able to go somewhere that is so focused and energized.  By the time I get there I am wide awake and ready!

I'm super blessed, I can't even say how much, to be dating an amazing man JJ Stratton, who is passionate about God and moving up here to KC in about six weeks!  We had a blast when he came up for the Passion for Jesus conference this past weekend, worshipping and ministering together.  He is also looking into the Forerunner School of Ministry at the International House of Prayer.

Friends in Kansas City, now is when I take a moment to apologize for not looking you up sooner!  I could make all the excuses, transitions are busy, blah, blah, but rather I'll just say, let's get together now!!!!  I don't care much for living alone, though I haven't had much time to think about it the past two weeks, and I'm eager to prioritize friendships, if you will all forgive me!  :)

Revival Coming to Rolla!!!!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow! 

God is so faithful!  Back in December of 2004 when He moved on me to organize a 24 hour prayer day at the BSU in Rolla, I never would've guessed I'd find myself back in Rolla doing 24/7 intercessory worship!  Basically, my previous job opportunity didn't work out and though I'd had another interview, I was free at the time to come to Rolla and sow into what I believe God is stirring up here.  I'm pretty much leading worship sets 8-10am Friday through Wednesday, and also last night I did a second set 9-11pm.  It is a blessing for me to see others hear the whispers of the Lord and raise up intercessors to press in for spiritual breakthrough for Rolla as a town and the Missouri S&T campus!  The prayer meetings are thin and weak but the Lord shows Himself strong when weak and broken people say YES to him in obedience!

I just heard last night there is a group of people who desire to raise up a house of prayer in Rolla.  Wow.

This has such an impact on me, though I haven't lived in Rolla for five years, because of the two times in my life that I heard the internal audible voice of the Lord, one of them was about Rolla! 

In 2002 I was in Costa Rica serving at an orphanage, and it was a Sunday afternoon.  I was fasting during lunch and laying on my bed praying.  The Holy Spirit came and filled me and rested on me in an amazing way I have never felt since.  There are no words to describe how amazing it felt, like a blanket of warmth completely surrounding me but also within me.  It was like an orangey heat and a flower blooming...there really aren't words!!! I was so at peace and filled with the love of God.  My natural mind reacted almost on its own, "God is here!  Quick, ask Him something!"  I still think that's funny. But more strange is I found myself whispering, "When is it coming?  Lord, when is revival coming to Rolla?" And I heard the intonation of these words, though I don't believe it was out loud, "When you cover it in prayer."  I just rested in His presence and enjoyed.  Then I though I felt it start to lift and I found myself asking, "When?  When is it coming?"  And again He said, "When you cover it in prayer."  THREE TIMES this dialogue took place!  I don't know why I had to ask again and again, but I did and He answered. 

Since then I've prayed and thought about this many times.  What exactly does it mean to "cover it in prayer?" The only thing that ever seemed to really be a complete covering was praying all the time, praying without ceasing, praying night and day.  And I didn't get a sense that the "you" meant just me, but a corporate "You," the Church.

So...that was the summer after my sophomore year of college.  By the time I was about to graduate in December of 2004, two and a half years later, I had gradually felt led that before I left Rolla, I needed to organize a 24/7 prayer day, just to be faithful to the word of the Lord.  The Lord blessed my non-administratively gifted efforts over a three week span and we managed to have worship leaders and bands and intercessors come together at the Baptist Student Union for an entire 24 hour period.

I actually felt led to stay in Rolla seven months after graduating.  Finally I moved on.  Nothing much happened, but oh, well, at least I was obedient. :)

And now, to be "randomly" connected to my friend who is organizing it at a time when I just "happened" to be free (I have two interviews later this week in Kansas City so it is unlikely I would've been free later in the year, or even this month)...I'm just thankful to be caught back in the swirl of what I believe God is preparing to do in this area!

In addition to worship and prayer, they are hosting prayer walks every day from 4:30-5:30pm and plan to have a prayer booth in the middle of campus on the opening day of the St. Pat's celebrations this Wednesday.  I can't wait!

On a side note, please pray for wisdom as I contemplate several different avenues of work and IHOP and living arrangements in Kansas City, and for favor in my interviews.  One is the second interview with a non-profit transitional home as the residential manager.  They help young people 17-20 learn to live independently and move ahead in education, whether getting their G.E.D. or trade school or college.  Many have aged out of foster care and a few are single young mothers.  The position involves checking on the young adults nights and weekends, some case management, and offers an apartment and utilities, NO salary.  And its in Independence, a half hour drive from IHOP.  The other position is near IHOP teaching Spanish to 2-6  year olds full time. 

Technically, I could do both, but as I was hoping to just get a part time job and have more time for the prayer room and ministry, or classes, I would probably prefer not to be so busy.  Or I could hit it hard for six months and really save up and then do an internship...

There is also a great living opportunity near IHOP with two amazing Christian girls...very tempting...

February Finds Me...

...enjoying the prayer room any time night or day at the International House of Prayer-Kansas City...prayerfully waiting to hear back about a job I interviewed for Sunday involving a live-in respite position caring for a young woman who has had a stroke (I really want this one--believe it may be the "perfect job" I was asking the Lord for on Friday when I came across it!)...February finds me...gratefully accepting the hospitality of Lorelei Lyons, my Mozambique Harvest School friend whose room I am staying in until God opens the door to something more permanent...this is a beautiful house near IHOP and an answer to prayer!...

It finds me speaking at the Baptist Student Union in Rolla, MO, this Thursday about the gospel of the kingdom and God's hand in Mozambique....bringing my amazing new boyfriend, JJ Stratton, to St. Louis to meet my family!...(yay!)...

February finds me growing in excitement over the new waves of awakening God is bringing to the United States...anticipating and praying into another GREAT AWAKENING that will shake the intellectual humanism which has poisoned the Ivy Leagues and for Boston to be the Jericho that will fall and release revival to New England and all of America...!

God is doing a new thing in the earth, and I want to be a part of it.  So Feb finds me asking...how...?

Nampula 10 Day Outreach

Warning: this is long and probably should be divided into chapters!  And I skipped so much. :) So just print it out and put it in your bathroom or something and maybe you'll eventually finish it.  :-P  

Nampula 10 day seemed to get off to a rather bumpy start, between some miscommunications with Mozambican leadership, and having a translator who was not really present for the first few days (which no doubt contributed to the miscommunications.)  Matt and I would think that we were finally on the same page with the Moz leadership and something else would come out that we'd had yet another misunderstanding!  So we experienced some growing pains during the first couple of days, for sure.  Cross-cultural Ministry 101!

When we arrived in Nampula we met up with Pastors Tanueki and their two teenage children, as well as nephew and two others from their church.  P. Chico was waiting to connect with P. Tanueki to determine our plan for the rest of the trip, to come under P. Tanueki's leadership and what was on his heart for the region.  One of the places P. Tanueki had wanted to visit with an outreach was Gile, in the northern part of Zambezia province.  He was overjoyed that we were game to go there.  After two days of driving, we arrived in Gile after dark to a crowd of church members lined up to greet us, singing and dancing.  At first they said we wouldn't do an outreach that night, so we set up tents and cooked dinner.  Then around 9:30pm they decided to do the outreach.  Some of the team were already collapsed exhausted in the tents.  Matt was game so Rollo went and they struggled to get the system going.  The movie started around 11pm I believe.  I was going to eat with the team and rest then try to bring a group over to help with ministry time.  It was one in the morning and everyone was exhausted so I left it to Matt and decided to get some rest to be ready for the seminars and ministry in the morning.  (You'll have to hear Matt's story of the evangelism!)

I

It ended up being a good idea to tag-team, and we did that a few other times. I was needed to translate for the women's seminar and again for the men's/church leaders.  (That clearly shows how DESPERATE we were for translators!)  Our main translator did the children's ministry with Lorena Wood, Rolland Baker's sister who we were very blessed to have join us as a last minute addition.  For the women's seminar, I got to work with Florinda Tanueki and Harvest schoolers Cassandra and Jenny, and it was the highlight of my trip!

The church there has no pastor, and the night before I'd connected with the woman, Feliciana Domingos, who was hosting us, to learn that she had indeed BUILT the church, most of it alone (sozinha, sozinha, SOZINHA! she made sure I knew) and she said, without food and little water for a week! She kept praying for God to send help, and He finally sent some people and they helped with the roof.  She was so grateful we had come!  It helped me overcome a little of my tiredness to see how much it meant to her that we were there.  This woman would love to go to Pemba and meet Mama Aida and attend the Bible school.  She certainly has some of the determination of 
Mama Aida.  I'm so excited that they are teaching women now!  Someone had given me a Portuguese Old and New Testament Bible before I left for outreach, and she could read Portuguese very well, so I was able to give her a Bible--the only one in the church!
 
Feliciana was a great help in facilitating the seminar, bringing up tough questions and issues the women in the church were struggling with.  (What do we do if our children don't want to come to church?  What if our husband started out in the church and now he's started drinking?  What if he leaves? What is the church's stance on ceremonial circumcision?) It turns out, as she introduced some of the women, that she had really gotten the word out and several of the women were visitors from other Christian churches in the city.  Florinda Tanueki shared about the husband being the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, and how to respect your husband and cause him to value you.  I'd been told that there wasn't much affection between husband and wife in this culture, and that became apparent as she felt it necessary to teach them and share about many specific ways to show affection...etc.etc. Jenny's ears and face were getting red, and she didn't even speak Portuguese.  :)

Then I got to help translate for the men as Fred Dykstra shared his powerful testimony and about men loving their wives and treating them with tenderness.  Pastor Chico then preached a fiery sermon, continuing the theme.  Our team came together for lunch and shared our experiences.  Two groups had gone prayer walking and ministering in the village, one group did children's ministry and two helped with the seminars.
 
It was really cool in Gile to meet a Bible student from a nearby town who KNEW Matt and I from our school!  Mariano recognized us shortly after we arrived.  It struck me what an influence the small Bible school in Pemba was having all over northern Mozambique.  Here we had driven 2 days WAY out there, and there is someone who knew us!  Then it happened again in another town with another Bible student!
 
In spite of previous talks of staying in each place two nights, the pastors really wanted to minister in a village about 50 minutes back the way we came, so instead of back-tracking we decided to move camp.  There was no established Iris church in Uape, but they had a Catholic influence so they had at least heard the name of Jesus.  We set up the film outside of the main part of town, in an open soccer field right in front of the house where we made camp under the cashew trees.   As often surprises me, people come out of the wood-work and we had a decent sized crowd.  Our group worshipped and prayed during the film (after enjoying the most amazing lightening storm out over the valley!) and then a few of us gave testimonies.  During ministry time, I was surprised that the healings weren't coming very quickly.  I'm not used to having to pray two, three, four times and call in reinforcements just for a fever or stomach ache!  We prayed a long time for a mute girl who did not begin to speak.

However, a large majority of the crowd wanted to receive Jesus!

I was able to see the fruit of it the next morning.  Our plan was to wake up early, pack up, grab some breakfast and be off because we had a long drive back to Nampula province.  We did the first part as planned, but then plans changed a little.  Thirty-six people had returned the next morning to write down their names because they had received Jesus and wanted to be discipled!  They wanted a church in their town.  It was a mixed crowd: men, women, teenaged boys and girls, and even children.  The pastors spent awhile talking with them, and then Cassandra did a great summarized teaching about the work of the Holy Spirit and we prayed over them to be baptized in the Holy Spirit!  We gave money to P. Tanueki for the construction of a small church, and loaded up and were off by about 8:15am!  We rode along the bumpy dirt road, laughing and singing and praising God for the Fruit.  I couldn't believe all the Lord had done in that short time.  :)  Pray that God raises up a pastor to come to Pemba for training for that new congregation in Uape!

When we arrived in the next place to minister in the area of Niamoto, we were pleased to see more shady areas for camping, and to learn after 4 days of dusty traveling that there is a nearby "river" to clean up in!  The river ended up being just a hole surrounded by tall grasses, but we had quite a little adventure as the local woman bathed us! :)  Then the guys had a chance.

I had a great conversation with a critical member of our team as dusk fell which proved to be a huge turning point in him and in the week.  He shared how God had convicted him for his "funk" and he really opened up to everyone and became an active participant in the group.  I had just before this been pretty fed up and had it in my heart to just get through it and somehow "deal" with him.  But God broke in and showed me again that He is not content for us to just tolerate each other, but to love each other and to go out of our way again and again if necessary to tear down walls and be reconciled and partner with each other.  I'm so grateful for this breakthrough because as he stepped up a lot of pressure came off of Matt and I.

We were blessed to have the Tanueki's teenaged children to lead the worship for the evening evangelism, and their nephew and church friend to lead very vigorous dancing.  I swear these guys had come across a Richard Simmons "Sweatin' with the Oldies" video somewhere.  The crowd at the film seemed pretty lively, but as Angie G. and Krista shared testimonies, all eyes were on them.  Angie's story of personal healing in comparison with the woman with the issue of blood who pressed to Jesus for healing seemed to tangibly raise the faith and expectation level of the whole crowd.  Krista shared about being involved with witchcraft and the whole crowd admitted going to the witch doctor before she shared about the power and freedom in Jesus.  We had an amazing ministry time!  Countless people received Jesus and the majority pressed forward for prayer.  The healings came quickly and joy on their faces was obvious as they were healed (which is not always the case.)


The next day we had a women's seminar again, as well as children's ministry. The men had dispersed by afternoon so we didn't get a chance for a men's seminar, but at least there is a church and pastor already established there.

The next night we went to show the film down the road.  Lorena had helped throw together a play of the story of Jesus birth, which we acted with narration before it became dark.  The equipment malfuctioned and we were not able to show the film, so the crowd began to disperse.  Our team pressed the pastors to have ministry anyway, and finally as several people gave testimonies and preached, the people came back and there was some powerful ministry.  We had a blast praising God on the way back to camp...."In the highways, in the hedges...I'll be somewhere, a-workin' for my LOOOORRRDDD..."

This brings me to one of the more spectacular things which happened on our trip.  We had FOOD MULTIPLY at least THREE TIMES!!!

The first morning in Niamoto I'd bought some extra food items, thanks to Lorena's prompting, to make breakfast a little more of a treat: 50 hard-boiled eggs and a few huge pineapples that were really inexpensive, as well as enough rolls for 2 each since they were rather small.  The 35 in our group all ate an egg sandwich and some pineapple slices.  Then Ernesto, one of Heidi's adopted sons from the original bunch in Maputo, cut the remaining 15 eggs in half and began to distribute egg and bread to the groups of village children, women, and men who had gathered around our camp.  EVERYONE ate.

I got to be honest, I was thinking, "what are you starting Ernesto when you can clearly see that there will not be enough for everyone," but thankfully, I just stayed out of it.

I'd bought a pig the neighbors had butchered (with loud squeals at 4am!) for lunch and again first we all ate and then we fed the villagers.  Zito, the Pemba youth who served as our chefe de cozinha, told me later, "There shouldn't have been enough because the people just kept coming, but I looked and the rice just didn't go down and there was always more meat."  (And I have to say, that was the best pork I've ever eaten in my entire life!)

The next day I just thought, well, we'll have to pack up camp and then drive for awhile until we reach a town where we can buy some bread for matarbichu, breakfast.  Clearly, we won't have enough bread if any.  I had bought 140 rolls, enough for 2 each person for 2 mornings, and I'd seen Ernesto and the others hand out rolls to all the villagers the day before.  To be honest, I was just hoping everyone would have good attitudes about starting the day with a delayed breakfast because that had been a bit of an issue in Uape amongst some of the Pemba Mozambicans.

And yet there was a bag of bread and surprisingly full!  We each ate a roll and again handed out rolls to the village children, women, and men.

At the time I was too preoccupied to make sense of what had happened these three meals.  It really wasn't until the leaders were sitting together in Nampula a few days later talking about the week when Ernesto and I were talking and I put some math with what we had seen.  It was really convicting--it doesn't matter what awesome stuff God does, it takes eyes to see and ears to hear to really recognize His hand.  At that time Ernesto said, "we should feed the Nampula church after service tomorrow."  My initial thought of course was, how are we going to have enough?  And then I laughed.  How silly.  God's heart is clearly to feed the hungry, and how do we see His provision unless we are willing to go out on a limb?

We also built a latrina at this church since there wasn't one in the area, and then we had a great public health address given by our lovely nurse Mandy, with the aid of Garrett's amazing graphic drawings, and Eric was only to happy to provide further visuals, acting out how to USE said latrine. :)

So we had a great service at the Tanueki's big church in Nampula city on Sunday morning, and after an hour of vigorous dancing showed the Christmas drama again.  Pastor Chico preached.  Finally it was time for lunch.  As I looked at the crowd and the two pots of arroz e feijão I thought, we'll serve the church but I think our group may have to fast until dinner...and OF COURSE, EVERYONE ate, first the church and then us, and at the end village kids kept coming in off the streets to eat, and women were taking tons of leftovers home wrapped up in whatever they could find.  God is always better than I give Him credit for.

A mighty rainstorm pelted the tin roofed church for a long time before Matt and our camion of supply shoppers returned to the church.  It was just as well, it was better to be in the shelter of the church than back at the chicken farm.  

When we returned, several tents were flooded out, but God blessed us again through the owner of the farm as he graciously opened his home to about six people for the night, and also gave us use of two HOT-WATER showers!  Yes, at this point clearly the most difficult parts of our 10 day were in the past. :)  After the heat of Gile, we camped in the shade for the rest of the trip, and when clouds rolled in Thursday night from Friday on through to our last night, Tuesday, the weather was in the beautiful 70s, even dipping into the 60s.

I had prophesied in one of our prep prayer meetings that this trip would be like ministering in the cool of the day as opposed to the heat of the battle (like Matt's difficult color group outreach when it was horribly hot and people were dropping like flies). I have to say the second morning when we woke up in Gile and it was so hot, I was like, huh? Maybe got that one wrong.  But after that morning we didn't wake up hot for the rest of the trip, which is quite a small miracle in itself.  God was so gracious to us.  (Niassa/Tete groups, please don't hate us!)

The last two nights we set out from the chicken farm to towns 70 or 80 km away.  Again, spiritually hungry, hungry people were fed.  The second night the sound messed up again and Ernesto actually narrated the film as people watched it.  In our weakness He is glorified!

One of the most powerful moments of the week was our goodbye service in Nampula church just before setting off back to Pemba.  First Pastor Tanueki and then Florinda shared at how touched they were by our group.  They said over and over how thankful they were to have food and water, to feel a spirit of unity with our group, that we were willing to go wherever they felt called to minister, even as far as Gile, and that they were treated with respect.  They were very emotional and near tears as they mentioned past groups of internationals and Mozambicans from Pemba who did not supply them with water, and made them eat last and even comments that made them feel worse than slaves.  Apparently there are some more deep seated issues between the Makua from Cabo Delgado and those in Nampula, that the northern people thinks of the Nampula people as lower than themselves.  The humility and acceptance and love which they had treated us with from the beginning of the trip was magnified as I realized how they had set aside their feelings in agreeing to partner with us on this trip when they had such hurt from past experiences.   All week we had no idea.  As they spoke there 20 year old son began weeping with wrenching sobs.  We prayed over all of them as they wept.  God really used this trip to begin tearing down walls between Pemba believers and Nampula believers as well as missionaries.

It wasn't until we were riding home when God brought back to mind my spiritual encounter the night before.  I had even mentioned it to Randy that morning before we left the camp in case his group had any nightmares or any encounters.

I was sleeping in my tent when I felt the presence of terrible evil over me.  It was strong and fearful, like I've never felt before.  I had a sense that it was two principalities over the area.  (I don't know how I knew this.)  I knew all I had to do was say the name of Jesus, but it was like I couldn't even talk.  Finally, I told myself to just whisper, and I whispered, "Yesu, Yesu, Yesu" a little easier each time, and as I said His name, the heaviness lifted off of me and moved a little back toward my feet.  And suddenly I said, "I bind the spirit of rejection!  I bind the spirit of rejection! In the name of Jesus" and then it tried to come back and I said "In the name of Jesus" a few times "I bind the spirit of rejection" and it went away.  I lay in my tent, I don't think I opened my eyes the whole time, and just prayed for the peace of God so that I could fall back asleep, and I felt safe and fell right asleep.

When this came to mind the next day as we were leaving camp, I was like, "Wow.  What was that? That was freaky."  "Full-on" you might say, Sarah.  I'd never experienced anything like that.  And I don't know why I bound the spirit of REJECTION.  It seemed pretty random.  But later on the way home, God connected it with what took place in the church.  He wants to bring healing to the spirit of rejection the Nampula Makua are living under, and it begins in the church.

Then I was just thankful God let me participate in a new way and have greater insight into the spiritual warfare that is going on in the region.

Our trip may have gotten to a rocky start, but the camion roof ripped all the way down as the sun was beginning to set, and we took it off in Alua just in time for the spectacular African sunset behind the magnificent iselbergs!  It was like a gift from our Papa.  We worshipped God and we were all full of the Spirit for hours as the camion made its way under the stars to Pemba.  What a way to bring it home!

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For my part, I think the trip was God's tailer-made plan for me called "How to Kill Angie Softly in 10 Days".  He surely revealed my weakness to me in a new depth, as well as His strength.  He showed me how much I need Him, in order to show the simplest kindness to anyone.  That it is from Him and not from any goodness of my own.  Thank you, Matt, for being patient with me when I was crabby and just wanted to throw myself on the ground like a baby who just spilled Kool-aide all over itself and have a good cry.  God also brought ministering angels to me in the persons of some members of the team just when I needed them!  Thank you, you know who you are.  :)

The Gospel of the Kingdom

As I sit here in my parent's house in Hillsboro and look back on the past year, it's hard to believe all that God has done since last May when I made final preparations to attend the Iris Harvest School in Pemba, Mozambique.  I am so deeply grateful for this life-changing experience.  I feel so blessed to have been chosen and provided for to go and be stretched in so many ways, to have my "box" blown apart several times, to see the hand of God and feel the presence of God in ways I had only heard about.  I'm so thankful for all the kingdom friendships which were established, for the bond that nothing can bring as quickly as the "frontlines."

My prayer is that I would have LEARNED the lessons God went to such lengths to teach me.  The truth about the upside-down kingdom--that it belongs to the poor in spirit, the desperate, those who allow no other props to get in the way.  It is beyond reasoning.  The One who gives all to serve all by going the lowest is given authority over all.  The one who serves little, gives little, fights to manage what they've attained, is given little authority.

I have seen blind eyes open, lame walk, the deaf hear.  I have seen food multiply on several occasions.  I have seen hundreds of people receive Jesus at the same time.  I've seen a church planted in a day, new believers eagerly asking for a pastor to disciple them.  I've seen believers with one change of clothes asking not for clothing but for a Bible.  I've met a single woman who built a church alone with her own two hands so that we would come.

Who did this things happen to?

They were all poor, unknown to the outside world, off the map in the bush of Mozambique.

The kingdom comes to the least of these.


And yet, I've also seen a white American girl healed of bruised and badly sprained ankle just in time to join a weekend outreach group.  I've seen a white South African man healed of a badly torn ligament in his knee in an instant.  I've seen a South Korean girl's leg grow out 1/2 inch to match the length of her other leg. These were all believers.

So God's kingdom is not only for the actual poor.  It's for all those who call upon His name!  The gospel of the kingdom doesn't mean I can only expect His hand only to touch the lost in Africa, or even the lost you meet in the supermarket, but even "rich" believers in America.

The Church in America is nearly as unreached as Mozambique, probably more so, when it comes to the Gospel of the Kingdom.  We've been preaching the Gospel of Salvation for years.  It is critical.  But it is NOT the whole gospel which Jesus commanded to be preached in the whole world and then the end will come.  I've heard it described as the door, say the front door of a house.  You enter the House, the family of God, through the finished work of Christ on the cross.  But if you don't understand the gospel of the kingdom, it's like opening the front door to a grand house and looking straight into the back yard.

Salvation is a gateway TO SOMETHING.  To the Kingdom of God.  A topic Jesus preached on more than any other topic.  And yet something we consider so seldom.

For those of us who want to see what the House, the Kingdom of God, actually looks like, for those of us who believe and are hungry and nearly starving for the Truth of the Kingdom, a gospel that has the POWER to transform lives--not to just save the soul, but to save, heal and deliver--I invite you to read accounts of my personal observations during these past few months in Mozambique.

I wrote an update of the 10 day bush outreach I got to co-lead with another Harvest staff member, Matthew Hedges, and Mozambican pastors from Pemba and Nampula province where we ministered.  I'll be writing more as the Spirit leads me to digest what I've seen and heard.

Thank you again for everyone who prayed for me.  I needed every last prayer!  And thank you for those who gave to financially support this.  I know it is a good investment.  ;)