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!
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!
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?
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!)
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. :)
