conference chaos and the wedding

hi there again!
things are going well here, though this weekend is hectic but so fun!!
there is a conference being held here this weekend where loads of villages are invited to come and there are some amazing speakers who will be talking to the people of Mozamique.
there have been people arriving since monday, by bus, walking crawling, and there are about 3000 estimated to come in total and they sleep on the floor in the church, outside, just anywhere, and go to the loo anywhere too!!

there is also a wedding on sunday where everyone is invited like the banquet in the bible where all the poor and the needy are invited and the lame and crippled will be the special guests. so as you can imagine our chores have been multiplied by quite a lot!! we have so much fun cleaning the latrines, spending hours on kitchen duty,serving people,being security, just anything really!! its so much fun, i never really realised how much fun cleaning poop could be!!!

so its just a little hectic but its nice to meet the people and there will be healings and deliverences, and allsorts in the meetings in the next few days, it lasts till sunday evening,so very exciting!there are so many people out there that need serious healing, deliverence from witchcraft...its gonna be great!and here you can be guaranteed that there will be loads that will come to jesus and loads and loads of miracles!!
i shall tell you more about it when i next get a chance to write!!


well i am writing a little more here to say about how it was:

there were more than 4 thousand people present it was an amazing chaos!! they slept on the floor of the church and in the fields, and we had to serve them for hours in the kitchen!! there was a little rioting when they thought they wouldnt be fed and when they wanted to be fed, but there was always enough food!!

it was great! one night though i went and i stayed at the back and prayed for some people and so on and played with a baby and then at the end i was just talking to an old lady on her way out and i put my arm round her and just tried to practise the little makua that i knew and so i asked if she was going to go up for dinner and she said yes, and so we went together and so then she kind of put all her weight on me as we were walking and so i looked why cause she was quite heavy and i saw that her right leg wasnt working and she had a stick. so i walked out of the church with her and then asked if she wanted prayer cause i was a little tired. and so i sat her down and my room mate came to pray. so we asked a few questions and she received Jesus and then so we prayed a little for her leg and then we felt we should massage the leg as well, and we felt that there was no muscle behind at all and so we carried on massaging and praying and little by little a little muscle was appearing and then so we told her to get up and try to walk and so she got up and then she took a few steady steps whilst we were helping her and then she took more sure steps and then we let go of her and she carried on walking and then she walked all the way past the line waiting for dinner and pushed in at the front and she was singing and so excited!!! it was amazing!! we were very happy to throw her stick away for the first time in 16 years!! god is so good!!!

there were loads of people who wanted to be baptised also , so after the church on the sunday all went down to the sea and they all got dunked!!! i was just amazed at all the people who were in the line waiting to be baptised, there were so so many, it was really amazing! not the usual baptism service!!!

i slept one night in the church too with a friend just to socialise and see what it was like at night there. it was interesting, it was so cold and people even if they are only three and everyone is sleeping, they dont turn the volume down!! so every hour we would wake up to heated conversations!! needless to say that i didnt get a satisfactory amount of sleep but i had fun with the makua women, and managed to learn a little more makua and teach a little english too, and have a good laugh!!!

the wedding was amazing, it was Heidi's daughter Cristalin Baker and Brock Human. we spent a few days in our houses making loads and loads of cakes for the dinner as some people have never had cake and so it was special.
the ceremony was on the beach, with a beautiful arch covered in flowers, and the turquoise sea in the background. there were loads of people there, africans that just joined and the children singing and in beautiful dresses. and then there was the dinner. the cripple and lame, the blind everyone was invited and the government people were also invited and they were eating on the stage with the cripple. angela my friend was at one of the tables!!! it was amazing, so many people, i had to put chicken on the plates, and i was so sweating and tired at the end!!!! there were alot of plates served that night and 4 posts where dinner was served!! people talked about the wedding for days in the town and it also touched them that it was foreigners serving them and that the mozambicans were all special invites and were given the same food as everyone. so it was a really testimony.

adventures in pemba and the bush-bush

Hello Everyone!!!
So much has happened since the last time that I wrote!!
We have had a lot to deal with here! What we are learning usually is taught in about a year or more! So we have a lot to think about, a lot to sort out with ourselves and a lot of praying! When God shows us something in ourselves that either we should change or aquire that you have to do it right away however hard it is because otherwise you are just so overloaded and you just have so so much to do and also you have to get ready for all the next load of stuff you will face and the outreaches as you get people who want to be healed, delivered, set free and so you can’t not be ready. We never really know what to do but we just have to be in a place where you can listen to God in order to act in the way he wants.


So This weekend I went on an outreach in the bush-bush! Its was amazing!! My colour group of 8 people and about 4 mozambique bible students from the other school and a pastor rode in the back of a bed truck. We were all on the floor or sitting on the pile of bags and stuff. My bum is still a little sore from all the bumps! We pitched our tents and then went straight to the ‘centre’ of the ‘village’. There we just like huts all over the place. It was quite remote. Anyway, so first we all sort of just did what we wanted whilst waiting for the guys to set up the sound system, and so I went to try and speak all the makua words that I have learnt!! They really liked that, though I hadn’t a clue what they were replying to all my questions and they were laughing at me, but, laughter is good and gets a sort of relationship going so that was fun. Then we danced and danced and danced some more, its not like dancing in Britain at all. Its like a very physical work out!! And then we watched the jesus movie. That was 2 hours and then the pastor said a little message and then there is the call for people to come and receive Jesus and then for the healing. We had a lot of favour, the place where we pitched all the tents and stuff was in the compound of a very muslim family! And where we did the outreach was just infront of the mosque. About 400 people came. Many people were healed, and many received Jesus too! Then a couple of us shared our testimonies. Then at about 10 we went back and ate.


The next day in the morning we split up into 2 groups and went to evangelize in the huts. We had some good conversations and were able to pray for people. And then we went to this hut where there were a lot of women. There were several women who had children that were deaf and dumb due to witchcraft. We were just sharing the gospel and then two women wanted to receive Jesus. That was when the witch doctor showed up. She started to do incantations and put curses and stuff on us and then she grabbed a girl who was deaf and dumb and was trying to pull her to do incantations and the girl was fighting. We got the women to repeat that Jesus is lord and the witch doctor got so angry, and then she ran away. We also had a medical team elsewhere in the village and she went to them and then they prayed and she fell on the ground and wriggled like a snake and then started rolling over really fast and then she was calm and the suddenly got up and ran away. It was my first encounter with a witch doctor, but none of us were particularly impressed as we know our God is so so much more powerful than satan and she really had no power whatsoever, and she knew it, that is why she ran away.
In the evening we had another out reach and many got healed and came to God. When you go to these places you can sense if there is a spirit of witchcraft or evil, and in this place we had to be a little more careful not to stray to far away from the truck as there were many drunken and perverse men there. But it was great!
And then on the Sunday we had church, and the witch doctor visited again. But still people came to Jesus and people got healed and delivered, it was amazing. The thing is with not speaking the language is that, when you pray, you look at their faces afterwards to see if there is a change, if they look happy because they are healed, but here they just show no sign whatsoever so it was difficult as we only have a few translators! But in the end we figured it out!! The deaf and dumb girl that the witch doctor wanted to sing over, well she now speaks and hears, and other deaf and dumb people, back problems allsorts were healed and people were delivered from witch craft and demons.
We also found a few Christians there and they came and asked for a church to be started as they have no where to go, and so where we did the meeting under the tree there will be a church, and the chief of that village who agrees with that too, and also let us pray for him, so there is already a freedom coming there.

I did village feeding today that was fun, we just give out loads of food to the masses! Its hectic but fun!!
It’s week three, this is when everyone usually feels exhausted and drained out! Its true for this school too!! But we are just trying to get through that and rest as much as we can! The house that I live in is so great, they are such amazing people I live with, and my colour group is just wonderful too! They took a lot of time to pray over these things and its just amazing! it makes life so much easier!!
I am doing quite well in my learning of the languages I am quite proud to say!!
We have no water, we haven’t for a while now so that is exciting!! It just shows you how little we can actually live with! Not that I don’t like it when there is water though!! It poured with rain yesterday and its not even the rainy season, it must be terrible when it is.

Hmm, I think I had better stop there because there is a queue now!! But all is well, and I although very challenging, it’s the best place I could be at this time in my life!

Salaama!!
Hello everyone!! I am happy to say that i arrive safetly to mozambique after nearly missing a correspondance i managed to get it, though i am still waiting to get my luggage!!!! yeah..its missing!!!
It so amazing here. Iris has 2 bases here in Pemba, one for the big boys and the bible students, i have yet to go visit that base, and base 1 where i am, is huge. it has an open church, prayer hut, a school, housing for 180 children, it has the kitchen that feeds thousands of people a day, it has the the harvest school students, me, and football pitch and sewing houses for the widows who are learning to sew so that they can sell their stuff ect......
its amazing!! its always bussling with so many people, the village children are allowed to come and eat and play in the day time too so lots come.
i was priveledged to be here last sunday and monday as they celebrate childrens day here. its more important than christmas.we expected about 3500 people to feed! we had a very lively african style church, everyone sweating and dancing and just having so much fun, and then queues to the kitchen started!! us students all had jobs to do.....i was to spread the love by blowing bubbles!! its actually more difficult than it sounds as the kids love bubbles so you find yourself surrounded by a huge crowd!! it was so much fun!!!
the children in Iris, are so open and friendly.they are teaching me to speak makua, the dialect spoken in pemba and portuguese. they are so so patient with me, though i think that i do supply them with enough errors for them to laugh for hours and hours!!
the weather hear is so hot, but its winter! its lovely!! oh did i tell you all that we are actually right be the sea! just hop over the road and there it is!! we are allowed to take children there and get icecreams and stuff with them so its really quite free and relaxed, the only condition is that we bring back the same number as we went out with!!
every day we have classes, they start at 8. so far we have had quite a few missionaries talk to us. its amazing the adventures that some have had, it just builds up the desire inside of me to just go out and do it as soon as possible!!! miracles happen every week,and on the outreaches we are to do, well people get healed and are blessed by the love that they receive from those who have gone and taken the time to just listen to them, hug them and pray for them. its not the power that is the most important, its love. if you pray for someone and they dont get healed....what do they go home with...nothing. but if you first love them, something inside of them is touched, they feel gods love and they understand what it is to be blessed.they go home with so much more. sometimes its just a hug that is necessary. the people here have had such hard lives, this used to also be a slave route, the boats would land here and take slaves. so there is a lot of hurt. but Heidi and her ministry have been reaching out to everyone, and in 5 years they have over 550 churches, and they are raising and equipping pastors to lead those churches so that they are not left with out someone to look after them. then we have speakers or activities in the afternoon, either with the children or in the village, and then in the evening we have intercession or prayer, or a speaker too. oh and in the mornings we have worship before the first class. so its quite busy and when we have free time we are to go and mix with the people.
there is so much to learn from these people, not just the missionaries.
hmm....cold showers, beautiful lizards....oh oh, i was talking to somepeople in my house the other day, and i felt something in my mouth, because i had just eaten i thought that it was rice, but then it bit my tongue and so i spat it out, and it was this big flying ant thing, it had the cheek to go in my mouth and bite me!! oh yeah, the diet here is rice and either...beans, this is my favourite, then there is like a cabbage sauce, and then a kind of peanut sauce. that is 2 times a day. we eat in the refectory on benches with all the children and the bible students. its really nice! i have met alot of people in there!! and for the childrens day i had to sit there for hours peeling and cutting onions with another friend of mine with the women and men from the kitchen, and that was the best time i had to be able to speak to them and get to know them!! its so much fun!! i think they think i am a little crazy!! still!!
i had better go now, i hope that you enjoy this little taste of what is here and what i am doing!!
bye for now!!