Hi everyone!
Things are still going well here in Mozambique. Heidi Baker is now home and has been teaching the second session morning classes, which has been great. She just finished the longest speaking tour she's ever done, I think she was away from home for like 2 or 3 months or more (can't remember exactly how long) and went through seven different nations.
She shared how she used to have a disdain for speaking in conferences (she'd rather stay home here in Mozambique), but how the Lord has commissioned her to encourage the Western church. She's mostly shared a lot of super encouraging testimonies and she's been preaching about "Intimacy Unto Fruitfulness" out of John 15.
One testimony she shared this week which was very powerful was about a meeting she recently had with some mission leaders from the West from a very conservative denomination. These missionary experts asked her to meet them and they began to tell her how they've studied all the books on missions and knew all the proper techniques to winning people to Christ, but they had so little results for all of their hard labors. They said in desperation, "we've got to have the power of God in our lives, can you pray for us?"
Heidi proceeded to invite the Holy Spirit to come and touch these humble leaders and everyone of them were radically visited by the Spirit and began convulsing, weeping and laughing as God answered their cry.
Yesterday, for the second morning session we had a very powerful meeting with some mission leaders (an American couple--can't remember their names) from Zambia who are daily caring for around 15,000 orphans and 3 to 4 thousand adults with AIDS/HIV (a bigger operation than Iris' by the numbers).
The man shared how they've been "comforting the sick" instead of healing them and "mourning with the families of those who've died," instead of raising the dead. They came to Iris because they were desperate for more of God's power in their ministry. The meeting was a partnering meeting with Iris. Heidi and some of the fourth-year Mozambiquan pastors (from the Bible school)* laid hands on them and they got really blasted. It was wonderful to watch Heidi lead this partnering service. She really honored these leaders in a tremendous way and recognized Iris' need for their help and giftings as well.
*There's a Bible school on base here as well for Mozambican pastors which goes for three months out of the year (I think they do two schools per year along side the two international missions schools--they have another set of schools that starts in June as well). There are around 100 Mozambican pastors in the Bible school here currently. Our "Missions School" has done a lot of things together with the Bible School while I've been here, including this commissioning service, which the Bible school joined us for. A couple weeks ago our missions school put on a dinner in honor of the Mozambican Bible school students. It was one of the best nights I've had here yet. We had so much fun and I made some great new Mozambican friends who taught me a few important phrases in Makua (the local heart language), including: "koranduru chinini," which means "very tasty."
DILO & EARNESTO
One guy I've been hanging out with a bit is named Dilo. He's one of Heidi's first Mozambican kids and he's from Maputo. He has a tremendous testimony of God's grace and love and how Heidi took him home from living on the streets. After he was saved he began to fall in love with the Holy Spirit. One night, years ago, when he was soaking in God's Spirit in his room, he was caught up into the heavens and the Lord visited him and told him he was going to give him the English language to help the ministry because there were going to be many people coming from the West to see what God was doing in Mozambique. God told him that he was going to use him to help the ministry communicate with these Westerners. God literally downloaded the English language to this guy and the next day he spoke. He's one of Iris' best translators.
When Heidi moved to Pemba from Maputo, she brought something like 50 of her kids with her to start a new "children's village" (the place we are now). Dilo, who is now 25, still lives in Maputo and is a young leader there. He visits Pemba quite often and is here helping out for the remainder of our school.
Another wonderful guy who I've been spending some time with is Earnesto, one of Heidi's other early children who is now a young man in his mid twenties. Earnesto's story is actually in the book "Always Enough." He has an incredible testimony of how God saved him from a life of drugs and crime. He's a very bright young man who is full of enthusiasm for Jesus. He now lives permanently in Pemba helping with the ministry here and getting ready to study computer programming at a local university.
On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays Earnesto leads teams of 'whoever wants to go' (mostly mission students) into town to visit the hospital. I went last Monday. Every person my group prayed for told us they felt at least a little better after we prayed. One guy who couldn't walk when we arrived dramatically improved and was walking around the room at a brisk pace by the time we left with a huge smile on his face.
The other mission student in my group, Sev from Switzerland, went back the next day and he said that he couldn't find hardly any of the people we prayed for the day before; most all had gone home! One guy who we had prayed for had lung problems and couldn't afford his medicine (less than 3 dollars). He was still in the hospital when Sev arrived, but looked way better (he looked pretty bad the day before) and told Sev he felt fine and the doctor was amazed at his improvement. Sev had actually bought him his medicine and brought it with him, but I guess the guy didn't need it anymore, but Sev gave it to him anyhow.
LUIS CABRAL
This is one of the guest speakers we've had over the last week. I definitely want to learn more about this guy when I get home. He currently lives in New Zealand but was born in Angola. He was incredibly funny and the Holy Spirit moved very powerfully in each meeting he led. He had incredible stories about God moving in Europe and other places.
One story he shared was about a church in Portugal which I guess is just really rocking for God right now. The Lord led him there to help out or something for a season. He shared about an extremely wealthy business man from Angola (ironically his home country) who came to Portugal for medical reasons. He was very sick with some sort of disease. The best doctors in Portugal told him that he was going to die and there was nothing they could do to help treat his disease. They told him to go home and basically to put his house in order. He was shocked and walked out of the hospital in a daze. As he was walking down the street he bumped into a lady in his bewilderment. The lady, who was unsaved, asked him, "what's wrong with you?" He told her that he had just been told that he was going to die shortly and that no medical help was available to save him. The ladie said, "oh. Well you should go to that 'so-and-so' church down the street there. They heal people with diseases quite a bit I hear." (the church is known even among unbelievers for the power of God that is moving there). The guy in his desperation walked down the street and walked into the church. He ended up giving his heart to Jesus and then getting completely healed from his disease. He went back to the same doctor the next day who was completely shocked to discover that he was totally fine with zero trace of the disease left in his body. Dr. Jesus rocks. :-)
This businessman bought one DVD from the church which was on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He went home to Angola and told his family how Jesus had healed him then proceeded to show them the DVD. As the pastor on the DVD invited people to receive Jesus, the man's family was altogether moved and they all knelt in front of the TV set together to receive Jesus into their hearts. Then the pastor on the DVD invited people forward to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, again his whole family knelt in front of the TV and they were all baptized in the Spirit and got really rocked.
Then, the next night, this man invited some of his business friends over. He told them his testimony and told them they had to watch this DVD. The same thing happened to his business friends. This process continued and this family started showing this single DVD every night at their house. A few months later the church back in Portugal received a phone call from this man and he asked them if they could send him a pastor to help start a church and some more DVDs because he only had one!
Luis and some other pastors from the church in Portugal went to answer the call and when they arrived they were shocked to find THREE THOUSAND people meeting EVERY NIGHT in this businessman's back yard, hearing his testimony and watching this single DVD over and over again. People were coming to Jesus every night and getting baptized in the Holy Spirit and power!
Today what started with this businessman's testimony of healing and one DVD is now a church of something like 20 thousand and they are planting churches all over the world.
Luis had many other similar stories which were very encouraging and inspiring, including a couple stories of people being raised from the dead in Europe.
The couple running the missions school under Rolland and Heidi Baker are Tony and Pamela Maxwell. Tony is a bit older and a constant source of humor. Yesterday all the guys in the missions school met with him for our early morning class session; we had a "men's time" together. He made a statement which I liked. He said, "I've got a power point presentation for you guys, are you ready? Here it is: if there's no power there's no point." The kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.
I'm very happy to be here. Thank you to everyone who has helped me come. Below are some journal entries covering a recent weekend outreach to a nearby village I went on with a group of around 15 other missions students. Also, there's a journal entry with more info on Dilo and Earnesto.
Please continue to keep me in your prayers for encounters with God. Specifically with regards to direction for the future. Also, my color group is leaving this Thursday for another weekend outreach, please pray for God's kingdom to come.
Much Love in JESUS,
Levi
11/14/2008
We arrived in the village after maybe a 3 hour trip. There were children singing, greeting us at the top of their lungs and beating on goat-skinned drums. We set up camp behind a few mud huts towards the edge of the village. Rebecka (team leader) asked me to help the Mozambican pastors who joined us set up their giant borrowed tent. I helped and in the process someone evidently snatched my flip-flops after I had slipped them off for a couple minutes. Also, the bag for the giant tent went missing. People won't steal stuff on your person, but if you set something down, people will often assume it's up for grabs.
We arrived in the village after maybe a 3 hour trip. There were children singing, greeting us at the top of their lungs and beating on goat-skinned drums. We set up camp behind a few mud huts towards the edge of the village. Rebecka (team leader) asked me to help the Mozambican pastors who joined us set up their giant borrowed tent. I helped and in the process someone evidently snatched my flip-flops after I had slipped them off for a couple minutes. Also, the bag for the giant tent went missing. People won't steal stuff on your person, but if you set something down, people will often assume it's up for grabs.
We showed the "JESUS Film" that night and there were a lot of people that showed to watch it. I'm guessing most of the village was in attendance maybe 400 to 500 people, many who were children. There were probably 60-75 people who responded to the salvation call. I was exhausted by the end of the night. I shared my tent with my now good friend Ryan from Kaiser, Oregon. He's from Denny Cline's church in Albany and is currently living in Germany.
11/15/2008
After waking up we went out in small groups throughout the village praying for people. The most dramatic encounter my group had was with a man who was in a "Mozambican prison." In the villages the people are so poor that law enforcement is carried out in creative ways. If someone kills someone, for example, instead of going to prison, they are sometimes bound to a tree stump, which prevents them from moving.This man we met was mentally insane. His family friends told us that he used to be very intelligent, speaking three languages. However, some people in the village were jealous of his unusual intelligence. From my rough understanding (through translators), these people either hired a witch doctor or directly put a curse on this man which caused him to become insane. He would run through the village at night and do crazy things (I didn't understand exactly what he had done through translation, but I think he committed some crimes or something in one of these crazy fits, so that was why he was now bound to a tree trunk). So, this man now lived in a dark dusty corner in his mother's mud hut with his leg permanently bound by a tree trunk.
We led the man through a prayer of forgiveness for the people that cursed him and prayed for his deliverance. The man's countenance improved dramatically over our time together as we continued to pray. The greatest freedom came as we worshipped the Lord together. Some of the others in my group got some amazing insight into the Lord's heart for the man and we left him smiling. This village was extremely poor. It was definitely the poorest area I've experienced.
Another hi-light of this day was witnessing a baptism service. A fairly large group went (maybe 100 people) plus there were around 20 new converts which came. We went down to a nearby river (about a 30 minute walk) and we all sang as these new believers were baptized into God's family.JOURNAL ENTRY ABOUT DILO AND EARNESTO:
9:48 PM 11/05/2008
We just had a service with the pastors from the Bible school here on the Pemba base, there are probably around 100 of them. The meeting was set up for the mission school students to bless and honor these wonderful Mozambican pastors through prayer and washing their feet. Before the foot washing, there were a couple young men who are here visiting from Maputo that shared their testimonies. One of the guys was named Dilo and he's 25, the other's name was Earnesto. Dilo had a powerful story about how Heidi found him and took him in off the streets in the early stages of Iris. After becoming a Christian he had many experiences with the Lord which radically transformed his life. In one of these encounters the Holy Spirit visited him and downloaded the English language to him. He literally started speaking English overnight. The Lord told him it was because there were going to be many people coming to visit the ministry in Mozambique from the West and that He was going to use Dilo to communicate to these people as a translator.
Earnesto also shared his story which is in Heidi and Rolland's book, "Always Enough." He was a severely abused homeless kid who became a hard-core gangster who terrorized the streets. He was a thief and criminal and he shared how he used to go into churches and steel ladies' purses and things while they were praying. He ended up in jail. On one occasion while he was in jail he faked being dead. The guards came in and took his body out and dunked him in water to make sure he was dead. I guess he got away with it somehow and ended up getting out of jail and ended up back on the streets. Then Heidi found him and invited him to come home with her. He received Jesus into his heart and had many experiences with the Lord which radically transformed his life.
Both of these young men are now leaders in Iris' ministry. Dilo has traveled around the world preaching the gospel and sharing his testimony.
