Pemba Update 3- Bush Bush fun!

Pemba update 3- Bush Bush

What has a flat tire, 15 people packed in the back of a camion for 4 hrs, & 134 Salvations?  My Bush Bush trip to Macomia last weekend.  It was the best experience I've had since being here.  (I think I say that about something every week)

My small group (the team of harvest school students & some of the Mozambican bible students) packed up last Thursday afternoon & headed out for a village called Macomia in Mozambique to love on people & show the Jesus Film to 2 villages for the very first time.  We had a small bus & a camion to get almost 30 of us plus our camping gear & food out to the bush bush.  Let me just say that 6 Flags ain't got nothing on a 4 hr ride in the back of a camion through the bush!  I loved it.  It was some hysterical bonding time for our group as people flew out of their seats with every bump.

We had a little resistance leaving the base but that was just confirmation that great things were in store.  We planned on showing the film that evening to a village but we blew a tire as soon as we left & were 2.5 hrs late getting on the road.  We finally left at 5pm for a 4 hr drive & hoped we would still be able to have our service.  We made it to Macomia around 9pm, set up our tents & got back in the truck to head for the village.  We were exhausted already, but starting a church service at 10pm with a 2 hr movie in it was even more tiring to think about.  We were reminded that we hadn't gone to the bush to have a camping trip.  We went to bring the gospel of Jesus, so we prayed through our exhaustion & asked Father to bring his kingdom down that night on everyone we would encounter.  When we arrived, we found out that just before we got there a woman in the village had gone to the chief & told him "Those Iris people are liars.  They said they were coming to us but they aren't".  Praise The Lord we listened to Him & not our tired bodies & went on to the village.  There were only 4 or 5 people out when we arrived but when we started playing music, out of no where about 40 kids came out to dance with us & the adults followed.  Around 100 kids/adults were there all together.  We danced & laughed, one of our leaders gave a message, we showed the Jesus film in the village's native tongue & around 40 people were saved!  Their hearts were so ripe for the gospel.  They had been waiting for someone to share Jesus with them.  We just showed them an amazing Father God who loved them immensely & they said yes to him...at 1 in the morning!

On a personal note, Thursday was a really rough day for me physically.  I never like to give the Devil attention b/c frankly, he's not worth the energy but I want to share the joy that came out of what was intended for destruction.  I encountered attacks on my physical body Thursday night that I knew were attempts to slow me down from doing what Father sent me to the Bush to do.  When we got into the camion to go to the village on Thursday night, I immediately got hit with a migraine & I don't get those.  (I have a completely new compassion for people who get them now.  They are awful.) I prayed & broke it off in Jesus name,  but it persisted through the service.  When we were called up to pray for people at the end of the service, I then had a huge wave of nausea hit me out of no where.  I was so distracted my the pain in my head & belly that I could barely pray for people.  "Father you know their needs, so come & meet them." was about all I could muster.  Thank goodness it is His power at work in me that ministers & not the technicality of my words.  I found one of my leaders after we finished & had them pray with me.  The migraine got better but the nausea continued till we got back to the camp site.  I went straight to my tent & cried & prayed myself to sleep.  When I woke up Friday morning, it felt like I'd been given a double dose of blessing for every struggle I felt the day before.  The scripture "Sorrows may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning" happened in my body.  I felt absolutely amazing.  I had been given a supernatural measure of joy.  I literally felt like I couldn't contain it; I was overflowing!  Immediately The Holy Spirit brought to mind the scripture "consider it pure joy when you face struggles of many kinds" for the sake of the gospel.  A clearer revelation of this truth got dropped deep into my spirit.  Father redeemed all the discomfort that came from the opposition the day before & gave me supernatural amounts of joy BECAUSE it was for the sake of the gospel.  I would not have been given that joy had I not suffered.  I would have missed out.  I felt so honored & humbled that I would be able to share in that & receive that revelation in a deeper place in my spirit.  All I could do was tell Him what an honor it was to have suffered in a very small way as a direct result of taking his kingdom out.  It was more than worth it. It was a privilege.

As Friday continued, we went door to door in the village loving people, telling them how much Father loved them, & praying with them.  We had a young girl with a very swollen ankle who wanted to receive prayer.  We prayed Fathers love down on her ankle & the pain & swelling immediately went down.  She went from limping to walking, skipping & running with one of our teammates to show how Jesus had touched her.  Because of how Jesus loved on her, she said she wanted to receive him as her savior.  She was saved, & then her mom, aunt & 2 cousins wanted to be saved after seeing what Jesus had done for her.  It was so much fun!  We were all buzzing with joy & laughter.  My group had a total of 8 people come into the family from door to door visits.  Praise God! What a joy it is to be part of bringing the Kingdom & seeing people brought back to their Daddy!

We went on to a new village Friday night to show the Jesus film again & we had even more response at this location.  It was triple the size of the first village and around 70 people were saved!  I've never seen such a hunger in people for Jesus.  They were desperate for hope & love & when they found Jesus, they took hold of Him eagerly.  It was beautiful.

Saturday we did baptisms with the local pastor in a river close to where we set up camp.  20 people were baptized who had recently surrendered to Jesus & invited Him into their heart, including several from our door to door evangelism.  It was an all out celebration!  Everyone piled around the river to watch.  What was a dirty littered pond moments before was transformed into a place where streams of living water gushed forth with every foot that stepped into it in the name of Jesus.  Even little kiddos who were watching got down in the river & started dunking their own heads into the water. It was precious & we took it as a prophetic declaration for them :) One woman who was washing clothes in the river saw what we were doing & when we explained she wanted Jesus too & was baptized.  Revival was spreading like fire in this small area & I can't get over what an absolute honor & joy it was to be a part of.  I kept wanting to pinch myself.  Father's kingdom crashed down on two villages in Macomia last weekend.  People felt the love of their Father, hearts were turned from darkness to light & orphans became sons & daughters at the feet of Jesus.

Pemba Update 2- becoming blind to dirt

Im a few days late in getting this up (internet access is hard to come by) but this was a glimpse into last week- it was full of adjusting to life in Pemba.  Our new lifestyle is in full swing.  We're in our class routine & we had Mama Heidi speak Thursday.  She's just wonderful & her humility is humbling in itself.  I'm part of a practical missions team that works with the Mozambican Mamas to divide up rice & beans for 300+ families & deliver it once a week.  I'm also in a small group made up of our international Harvest school students & some of the native Mozambican Bible students.  This group is a blast.  We meet several times a week to fellowship, attempt to learn some of each others languages, laugh A LOT, play games, minister to each other & do out reaches.  It is amazing to see what God is doing in the hearts of the people here.  Revival is growing like wild fire & we get to be in the middle of it partnering with Him.  It is beautiful & humbling to see the passion these men have for their country to know Father & step into their identity as sons.  This Thursday (tomorrow) all 25 of us are going into the bush bush for 3 days together to show the Jesus film to a remote village in their native tongue & share the love of Jesus.  I can't wait :).  Please be praying for us. It will be a powerful time where Father brings freedom & darkness flees in the name of Jesus from people it's had a hold on.  Along with all of this, last week was full of stretching.  Father has encountered me in powerful & precious ways already & has revealed things to me in my own heart that needed some tweaking.  A nearly 3 month trip is very different mentally from a 2 week mission trip.  2 week-ers are wonderful & life changing but when it comes down to it one can do almost anything for 2 weeks because you know "home" is around the corner.  Mentally, you're aware that comfort is coming.  The mental adjusting here was challenging because my mind knew all these changes were going to be here for 10 weeks.  You don't feel like you're adjusting temporarily, you feel like its more permanent.  All the more reason to learn to submit your soul to your spirit that is seated in heavenly places in all things!  As this last week progressed the weather got hotter & hotter, the water worked less & less & I continued to get dirtier & dirtier.

Here's an example (& yes it may sound petty as first but hang tight for the lesson learned)- At home in the states I like to feel clean- especially before going to bed.  It's a comfort to me.  Here in Pemba, it is absolutely impossible to feel clean for more than 10 minutes after a wash.  Sweat & dirt jump right back on you.  Since we have very little & unpredictable access to running water, if I want to be clean before bed a bucket shower is the only way to make that happen.  This isn't bad, just a little inconvenient but I hadn't yet washed my hair with a bucket shower.  I felt certain water would come on before long & I'd just wait to wash my hair until then but by day 5 of dirty hair & hoping, I felt so nasty that I couldn't wait any longer for running water to take a comfortable shower.  A bucket hair wash was going to happen & would continue to happen for 9 more weeks.  Yes it sounds trivial but any woman with longer hair can imagine what it is like to have 2-3 bottles of water to use for washing your hair & body ( to cover washing & rinsing). It's tricky at first!

Last Thursday evening I was headed back to my bunk house with one more round of high hope that the water would be on.  This was also divinely appointed to be the day I felt the dirtiest & most homesick so far.  I thought I just wanted to feel cool & clean for a minute but that wasn't what the real issue was.  Really I was grasping for some small thing that would make me feel like I had a comfort of home.  I can handle the food, the heat, the unfamiliarities, but can a girl get a shower please!? Surely the water would be on for 5 minutes!  Upon my return to the house my hopes went down the drain with one twist of a shower knob.  Not a drop.  I actually started to cry, crouched down in the bathroom holding my towel.  All of my homesickness & adjustment exhaustion came out in tears.  It was at that very moment that I heard Father say "If you never got to shower at all for the next 10 weeks, would you still keep your joy? If you didn't have one single comfort would you still seek to love on these people with everything in you?" It hit me-the Holy Ouch :/  "Oh Father, I see now & I'm so sorry.  This whole time I've been focusing on the dirt instead of letting you teach me to be blind to it."  Up until this point I'd been "doing" the stuff I was supposed to do- loving, serving, trying to be Jesus' hands, seeking Father but the whole time in the back of my mind I'd been focused on the "dirt" I was in & I looked forward to when I could run wash it off each day to maintain some feeling of home & comfort.  Papa sweetly & firmly reminded me that this was the entirely wrong approach.  I didn't come here to run from the dirt, I came here to LIVE in it.  When you are running from something, it's all you notice in a completely negative way.  When you are living in something, you find joy in it.  There in the bathroom corner, Papa shifted my paradigm on what is means to live in the dirt & something big broke off of me in that moment.  I found a new freedom in not being restricted by "dirt".  I proceeded to take my bucket shower & wash my hair with joy & when I was done I felt cleaner than I had all week.  I bet you can guess what happened next...the water came back on 10 minutes after I was done :)

The next day I got absolutely filthy carrying 50 lb bags of rice & beans to divide up for 325 families to eat.  I got bitten by ants repeatedly, my clothes turned brown, & I had sneezing fits all day because of the dust from the bags of beans & ended up catching a cold that lasted 3 days but I loved that day!  I've been reminded that I didn't come here to be clean.  I came here to do life & live, no matter how different it feels from what I was used to before.  After all, isn't that what Jesus did for us?  He left his home to come live in our dirt for us & He did it with complete patience & joy.  What an honor to be given a teeny tiny portion of that.  Papa broke the lens off of my eyes that night that was causing me to see dirt, & now he's made me blind to it.  I don't see it anymore.  I'm fully here & I can go to bed with dirty feet & a smile on my face.

He's given me so much new grace.  When I don't want to be hot, when I feel the effects of living with 10 wonderful girls in a very small 2room/1bathroom house, when I don't want to use a latrine, when I don't want to be around 300 people, I realize it's not the circumstance that needs to change, it's my heart that needs change.  I discover a new place where I need grace & Daddy gives it to me abundantly.  Anytime we feel that twinge in our heart when something rubs us the wrong way, if we're paying attention we will usually find that it is an opportunity for Father to show us a new area where we have room for more grace.  He gives it freely & generously, so take advantage.  It is beautifully freeing & you'll notice the "dirt" around you start to disappear.

That's the peek into my last week for now friends!  Thank you for taking time to keep up with me & interceding for me :) Once more, pray for us as we prep to go on our bush bush trip tomorrow!  Pray Father's kingdom down on the village we will enter, pray chains & bonds are broken over peoples lives as they encounter the love of Jesus. Freedom reigns.  Love you all.  I'll catch you next week!

Hugs & Blessings,
Maddie

Pemba Update 1-So far, SO good!

I've only been here 4 days but I'm already smitten with Pemba & sick of rice :)  It's hot & dirty & wonderful. The environment that's been created at the school base is amazing.  There is complete freedom here to be exactly who you are & who you know Father is calling you to be.  You feel like you are coming more & more into yourself with each day.  I already feel completely at home here-like this is what my heart has longed for & it was at rest immediately upon arriving. Complete peace, joy, & right identity abound all the time on campus & you can feel it being carried with us when we leave.   I've even found a bunch of fitness fans to work out with in the mornings!  He loves giving us the little things :) It's so good.

The campus is a beautiful & is much nicer than I was expecting! We have a toilet AND a shower that work when the water is working, praise Jesus.  The only hang up is that the power & running water shut off regularly at random, so we keep 2 big barrels of water on hand for showers/washing & there are squatty pottys available in lieu of toilets (see what I did there?). There's only a 50/50 chance that we'll have water on any given moment  & it can go off for weeks so we take it with thanks one wash at a time :) (Literally, I've found myself thanking Jesus every morning when the water works for me to wash my face)

I'm crazy about my house (House 5 for you veterans) & my family of girls already. There are 10 of us & we're from all over the globe- Canada, Finland, Brazil, England, Mexico & 3 of us are from the States.  Our house mom is Carol from Brazil, & she overflowed with love for us from the moment she met each of us.  She's such a comforter & encourager.  I couldn't have asked for a better group of sisters to do life with over the next 2.5 months.

Classes start on Monday & we will get into the full swing of morning & evening sessions next week.  There is a small village directly behind our base that we are free to visit any time & there are tons of kids who live there and love for us to come play with them.  I went for the first time today & was reminded that love doesn't look like a common language. It looks like laughing, being silly & cleaning wounds on kids feet.  It was a blast.

Here's a few fun facts about Pemba I've learned so far...
- The sun sets at 5pm & rises around 4:30am (Good Morning Sunshine)
- when there is no glass in the windows, the Muslim call to prayer at 3am out side the base will wake you up every night.
- If you forget to check the time zone on your phone to see if it synced to Pemba from Tanzania time you will wake up an hour earlier than you think you did & work out at 4:00 in the morning instead of 5:00.  Nice!  I needed a nap by 11am.
- It will get to be around 120° in November (Holy heat stroke!)
- I ate my first fish head for dinner on Friday
- Peanut butter is currently our hottest commodity
- One day feels like a week - the pace of life is slow & wonderful. Rest comes easy
- If you know a little Spanish, Portuguese is very confusing to pick up!

That's all for today folks!  Nothing deep, just an intro to the practical side of life here. I hope to check back in with you next weekend!  Love to you all!!