“Holy Chaos” at Christmas, Hugs from Heidi Baker, & Feeding nearly 4,000 in Mozambique
One of the prayers from a friend in Cape Town, Shaianne, was that we would ‘see & meet Heidi Baker somehow.’ From Cape Town, Nick and I took a quick, inexpensive flight back to Johannesburg and then a 10+ hour bus ride to Maputo, Mozambique. We have only known how to make it to the next city . Maputo only took us into Mozambique (right above Swaziland), but was just a lateral movement to the east coast. Seems kind of confusing. God often works in counter-intuitive ways. As Cape was our foundation, Mozambique was a catalyst for growth.
We arrived at IRIS ministries in Northern Mozambique on December 23rd, just in time to celebrate Christmas evening w/ Heidi and her 200 – 300 children. It was truly quite an experience. Picture a few hundred children, ALL with candles, running around trying to put out everyone else’s candles by blowing on them, water guns, water guns w/ out water (just pumped air), fingers, etc.! It is truly a canvas of beautiful, joyful, holy chaos. I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard as hot wax fell on my hands, arms, and head! The children are so beautiful and free to love.
The Christian church model in Africa and with IRIS ministries in particular seems to look like a church, orphanage, school, medical/health clinic, and community outreach center. The ministries of the church include the infamous ‘bush-bush’ outreach (teams going into the bush for multiple days, sharing Jesus’ love by living, providing for and developing relationship w/ the locals – and then sharing about His life saving message.
Angels on the Outskirts. Would you expect to hear a choir of angels inside of an African prison? As our good friend Dennis (Australia) says, he sees a special place in God’s choir in heaven for the prisoners in Northern Mozambique. A small team of us joined the orphanages prison outreach, led by former prisoners.
In the two hours we were there, God blessed us with great worship, 6 – 7 conversions for Him, and others asking for healing. At first, to be entirely honest, I was just a little skeptical about how many new men came forward to receive Jesus as their personal Lord and savior. I briefly thought to myself, “Have these men come up before and are just going through the motions again?” Before I said anything I would regret, our dear friend, Karen, who has an amazing prophetic gifting, saw “Jesus with a large sickle, reaping the harvest….and Jesus opening the book of life and putting each man’s name in it that day.” Jesus reminded her that it was Him that was doing everything, we just happened to be at the right place at the right time.
A similar scenario happened again the next week.
When we look at our past Christmases, I think the only time we ever missed Christmas with the fam was when we were with the Marines. At first, coming from Utah winters, it seemed like Christmas wouldn’t really be felt. However, the Holy Spirit gave us the best Christmas present ever – and not one gift was opened, we were in 100+ degree weather with humidity, using toilets that couldn’t flush the toilet paper down the toilet, sleeping under mosquito nets, and eating rice and beans multiple times per day (often with our hands).
We were in the ‘prayer hut’ with our international team of Australians, Norwegians, Americans, and Germans. It was our second night of prayer together (as we had just arrived there), and the team offered to lay hands on Cousin Nick and pray for him. “A lightning bolt came down and hit Nick…and then a ‘dove’ descended upon him.” It was beautiful. The prayer started slow and gentle, and then moved into such an amazing time of worship. Nick received several prophecies from friends such as “God is handing you a gift basket to give to the Nations” and “When you want to talk to God, grab a guitar and play to Him as if it were your cell phone.” God subsequently blessed Nick with the gift of prophetic visions.
Whenever he prayed for others, he was able to share beautiful visions with them. Prior to this trip, neither he nor I would receive visions that openly. A friend, Karen, saw that God was ‘taking a band-aid off of my prophetic gifting’ and was healing it. What a Christmas. We were also blessed to have ‘gold dust’ appear often on arms & body parts.
Our new years eve was spectacularly laid back as well. We were blessed to have a YWAM (Youth with a Mission) team that had just arrived to celebrate with us. A friend, Rich (Australia) and I went into the village to pray for a friend that thought he had malaria. When we first began to pray for healing for our friend, he was covered in sweat. At the end of our prayer, his sweat was gone and he still seemed a little tired, but he ended up going out that night to celebrate the new years! Afterwards, we worshiped w/ the YWAM team, and then a handful of us went to the beachfront w/ some of the children and watched multiple firework shows from different points on the beach!
We really appreciate everyone’s continued prayers and support. We have a few prayer requests, but one in particular…Siracha Sauce!! It would be sooo good to put on our rice & beans….and perhaps 80% of the rest of our meals.
Prayer Requests:
1. Village Committee Meeting this week (where the land is located)
2. Building materials & costs to remain low
3. Local Labor force costs to be honest, trustworthy, and hard working
4. Borehole / Water Well to be inexpensive and implemented quickly for water on the land (right now, the other water source is currently out of water L).
5. Building construction & funding
6. Safety for the construction team / volunteers on the land – to be supported by the village/community and for Angels to continue to bless the land!
7. Empowerment for the local villagers and wisdom for us in teaching entrepreneurship / local employed villagers using micro-financing mindset with their wages (ie, buying male & female pigs / farming)
8. That we can begin phase one next week! All the doors seem to be open and the design/plans complete w/ bio-gas, solar, well-placement, temporary storage/sanitation, etc.