Post Mission Trip Report -Day 8 to 18-

I left off just as our team was heading off to the bush bush for outreach on Wednesday

Our bush accomodations

That evening we arrived at the village and set up our tents in the front yard a friend of Iris Ministries. This particular village had been in need of a well and Iris had been trying for quite a while, without success, to find water. After 4 tries and $35000 the were finally able to make a fully functioning well for the people and we were there for the well's inauguration. It was a time of incredible joy. After the celebration a projector was set up and "The Jesus Film" was played in the native, Makua, tongue. After the film Heidi Baker preached a message (the women at the well) and we gave words of knowledge for healing and saw a whole bunch of people get healed. It was difficult to establish exactly what was wrong with people in they were legitimately healed because of the language barrier, but I do know that a friend of mine saw a blind person healed that night, and many others were affected by God's love and power.

March 29 - Thursday
In the morning we went house to house praying for the sick and preaching the gospel. Heidi told us that 95% of those who come to Christ do so when we go door to door, they are intrigued by the film and the miracles the night before, then they accept Jesus in a personal setting. In my group we saw some healings and at least 3 salvations, 2 were parents of a soon to be Christian family.
In the later morning we went to another, larger village to do a church service. The atmosphere was very dark and heavy, it seemed like there were some evil spiritual forces at work whilst we were there, people were unresponsive and it was difficult to muster energy. Nevertheless, at least 5 people got healed and we preached some good news.
After the church service we went to a farm that Iris purchased several years ago and are now developing, the land is 500x1000 metres, though only a portion is cultivated as of yet. It is some beautiful land that will go a long way in providing fresh fruits and vegetables to the orphans in Pemba.
In the evening we repeated the same outreach program in a different village. We set up our tents, played the Jesus film, preached a message and healed loads of people. This night there were two deaf people that got healed and a 4 year old cripple girl walked for the first time in her life. My own testimony of the night was a trio of drunkards that called me over to pray for them. The one that called me over was very talkative and certainly drunk, I got an interpreter and, after talking and praying for them (one was healed of his stomach and ear pain) they all accepted Jesus into their hearts.

March 30 - Friday
In the morning after breakfast we had a very special treat. The tribal king had heard of the miracles the night before and had come to greet us. Each of us went up to him one at a time and introduced ourselves. It was awesome, even more awesome was the fact that the king, the two queens (no relation to the king), the regional chief, and the village chief all accepted Jesus.
After the meeting we again went door to door, preaching Jesus. This village was substantially more Muslim and closed towards us, but we still had lots of fun. One lady had pain in her head and stomach, after we prayed for her all the pain left and she received a Bible, even though she was Muslim. She also convinced the matriarch of the family to take one. Another young couple received us very well. The wife had the same head and stomach pain, after she was healed and we prayed for them to have children I got a prophetic word for the husband, telling him that he wanted to go into business and God was going to hook him up. They were obviously affected and also received a Bible.
Before we left the village they did a wedding, the bride happened to be the deaf that was healed the night before! Because of that glorious miracle she was able to hear and say her own wedding vows. Wow!
The last event of our outreach was a trip to the regional prison. Many of the prisoners were already saved and reformed, we were greeted with the sound of many voices singing praise songs. The whole time we were there I hung out mostly with two cells of prisoners near the entrance who were not allowed to participate because they had been violent. I prayed for them and they got healed and it was incredibly touching to see these men that had nothing and so represented to me that whole world of people out there that are spiritually nothing without Jesus. We must give everything we are to spread the good news of salvation to this dying world!

March 31 - Saturday
On this day we saw the fulfillment of the prophecy that was given the Sunday before. The religious leaders of all northern Mozambique came together for a "Solemn Assembly" and we, as the Bethel team, got to pray for them and wash their feet. It was such a God moment and I am sure that something happened in the spiritual realm. I do not really understand that whole stuff though.

April 1-5
The rest of our time there was more laid back, we went to church on Sunday and were prayed for by the church, a sort of sending of and thanks for the visit, Monday we went again to the children's church, after which many of the group, including myself, gave blood for the sake of the hospital blood bank. Tuesday we went snorkeling and saw a group of dolphins, then did a night of ministry for the staff in the evening. Prophecy and encouragement abounded to all. In the morning on Wednesday we left to come home and 50 hours of travel later we made it back to Redding California.

This trip has certainly changed my life, seeing Roland and Heidi Baker and listening to their wisdom is a tremendous honour, and I will forever be different after seeing the incredible need, physical and spiritual, that was made so obvious in Mozambique. A huge thanks to all who supported me to go and made it all possible.

Post Mission Trip Report -Day 6 to 8-

This is a continuation of yesterdays post attempting to chronicle my life changing trip to Mozambique.

March 26 Monday

Me and my momentary mother's chicken bonding

The day started at 6 in the morning with breakfast. Because of the intensity of the sun and lack of widespread lighting, the Mozambican day starts with the sun's rising and ends shortly after sunset. At 7 we went to children's church, 500 odd kids in the main church sanctuary on the base, we did a skit for them and one of our number gave a testimony. Afterward we did widows ministry, we split up into groups of 4 with and interpreter and traveled with 4 widows to their homes to simply love on them and show that we care. It was an amazing time, each of the widows were very touched that we would care for them, we prayed for them and prophesied and some of them got healed as well, once we arrived at the last widow's house we took our remaining water and washed their feet, calling them queens and people worthy of being served. I got a special connection with the last widow, she felt like my mother for the few moments that I was with her. 

March 27 Tuesday
This day was one of glorious service to the staff/missionaries living on the base in Pemba. Beginning in the morning and into the afternoon, whilst a portion of the group did prison ministry, the majority of us painted the children's admin office a bright periwinkle. The fumes were awful, oil based paint and gasoline to clean it up, but it was an adventure and loads of fun. In the evening we joined the weekly staff home/group, danced in Mozambican worship, and gave prophetic art to those present, spreading much needed encouragement to all.

March 28 Wednesday

Our normal mode of transport whilst in Africa

In the morning our team was organized to take about 100 of the orphan children down to the ocean for a beach day, but as we were leaving we got a call, "It is starting to rain and Mozambicans do not swim in the rain, so instead we are going to play games in the boys housing complex with no set plan at all" luckily our leader had already assigned to team members to game making so they had that covered and another girl and I were charged with teaching the kids about prophecy to fill the last section of time. The whole thing went wonderfully, the kids all drew pictures that they heard from God and many of them lined up with the art our team had drawn the night before, super cool and the kids loved it.  That afternoon we were scheduled to go into the bush bush for an couple day outreach. We had an orientation from 1- 2ish and we had the next hour to pack and leave at 3. Then, 5 minutes after the orientation was finished we got a call from Heidi, could we please come down to the church in 5 minutes to do a skit that we had not practiced yet, bring all of our stuff and leave for the bush from down there. That was probably the most stressed I was the whole trip, trying to get all the stuff down there and telling each person what exactly their roles were as we went. It ended up working out wonderfully and in the next hour we were off to our next adventure...

Post Mission Trip Report -Day 1 to 5-

Last Friday at 4:00 AM I returned from my mission trip to Mozambique. Between then and now I traveled to the coastal Redwoods and went camping on an island, so my time was filled with my immediate surroundings and I have not had much time in front of a computer. Finally I have an evening without events or incredible fatigue, and I can tell the world (or whoever reads this blog) what happened on my mission trip.


Here is an as-detailed-as-possible chronilogical account of my trip, day by day.

March 21-23 Wednesday- Friday
I left Redding at about 6 in the morning, driving down to 's'cremento to fly to 'atlanta, continuing on to Johannesburg, South Africa,  and finally on to Pemba, Mozambique, with a short stop in the capital, Maputo, do work out visas. On the trip from Sacremento I sat next to a wonderful lady on her way to Atlanta for a dentist convention. She was a Christian and had been ever since she got married, some 30 years ago, into a Catholic family. She was a legitimate born again believer, but her husband and the rest of the family seemed to be more interested in ritual church going rather than a living relationship. One friend and I were able to encourage her and pray for her, she is such a mamma! She gave us her info and I will soon be emailing her a similar trip update.
In Johannesburg we had a long lay over, so we stayed the night at the house of a man connected with Iris ministries is Pemba (he started dating Heidi Baker's personal assistant during the mission trip). In return for their hospitality we prayed and prophesied over him and his family, blessing them with divine encouragement, speaking things that specifically addressed what they needed to hear.
After paying $80 for our tourist visas in Maputo, we arrived in Pemba in the afternoon, greeted by the Baker's and ferried in a truck to the Iris base. That night they took the whole team out to a tourist restaurant for pizza and a great time. An honour not given to every team that comes through Iris' Pemba base.

March 24 Saturday
In the morning we went to a village 20 min outside of town, a small collection of houses in the middle of nowhere. As soon as we got there we were mobbed by children, 30 least all fighting for our attention and love. It was touching, and tiring to have all those kids climbing and grabbing all over. In typical Mozambican fashion, we went there expecting to play a game of football (soccer) with the kids, but ended up helping with a church service, prophesying, praying for healing and performing a skit.
That evening we went to a nightly meeting for the male youth of the surrounding villages, I preached a short message about the goodness of God and His promise to turn every one of our circumstances for our good, then we prophesied over the boys and prayed for healing, several of them were healed, including 4 or 5 from hearing loss and many aches and pains. The programs leader, an older woman from America, was healed in her knee and her hip.

March 25 Sunday

Sunday was quite relaxed, all we did was go to church in the morning and recuperate in the evening. At church a Mozambican leader shared a prophetic dream from the week prior, with the interpretation that the team from Bethel was going to pray for the leaders of Mozambique. Little did we know how this would be fulfilled.

That's all for today's post, in the days to come I will be posting the entirety of the trip, day by day.

Leaving for Mozambique

Tomorrow morning I leave for my mission trip to Mozambique, here comes the biggest event for me to write about while I am here at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. I will be gone until April 6 and during that time I will be completely cut off from the internet and contact outside of emergencies. After I get back I will be putting up a good long post of all that I saw and experienced, hopefully I'll have some pictures up as well, if I can keep my camera the whole time.
Check back in about 3 weeks!

Looking to the Future

This is an elaboration on my last post, where I am finding myself being less passionate about the stuff I am doing right now, part of it is certainly that I just love the grace of God in place of my own earning anything, but another fairly large factor is a lot less spiritual. Honestly, I am getting pretty tired of school. It feel like I am just here waiting and preparing for next year, where my life really starts. I have confirmed with the church in Norway that I will be there next fall to intern with them, they are very excited to have me and we will start the process of figuring out what exactly I will do there in the beginning of March. It is going to be so good! But I am not there yet, instead I am here at school which (if I can let out some frustration) does not feel like it is teaching me very much. I know that I am learning, I know that I am growing and that this time is invaluable to prepare me for next year, but I it just is not the most fun thing to do. I wish I could just flick a switch and be fully mature and perfect and skilled etc. Instead I am here, learning how to lead, how to do life, how to preach and all the other things that I will need all the rest of my days. So I will continue and be productive and continue to grow and I will enjoy it, I am committed to enjoying where ever I am. But the things that will keep me going are my visions of the future, I am laying the foundation stones for the rest of my life and I want a really awesome life, so I am going to lay some awesome foundations. Thanks blog viewers for listening to my process, I just went from sulky to excited in the course of a blog entry. Thank you Jesus for the process!

Talking About Passion

I am finding that as this year has gone on, I have become less and less passionate about going after gifts and miracles and more and more about the gospel, everything that has to do with Jesus Christ. Less about the cool things I want to do and more about the way cool things that He has done. As a result of this, and some other factors, I am in an interesting position of feeling like I do not have much passion to do anything, yet still continuing to do everything I feel is necessary and enjoying it. I am still having great prayer times, reading my Bible, doing evangelism, etc. But instead of being part of some plan or goal I have in mind, I am simple taking each day/week as it comes and enjoying myself in the middle of it. It is like the normal everyday life has become my supernatural, yesterday I played football with some friends and it was amazing, lots of fun, and in the middle of it we had some injuries and we prayed for them and they got significantly better, not all the better, but there were some miracles involved, and we didn't pray because we needed to see a miracle, we prayed because they were hurt. I love this season I am in, it is so relaxing, I am okay if I play video games for a while one day or if I don't see any miracles for a month, because God is good and my performance is not what matters. I am passionate about Jesus Christ and everyday life, not my own works.

Living Outside of School

Last week I was talking with a friend about school and life and I realized that I had been living through school. All my purpose and feeling of responsibility had been coming from my school duties, if I finished those I felt I succeeded and could go waste the rest of my time. But next year I will not have the same benefit as I am now with the accountability and godly responsibilities that Bethel's school gives. So, I have decided to make a deliberate effort to establish a lifestyle for myself that I can perpetuate throughout the rest of my life, regardless of external responsibilities. This lifestyle is composed of personal and internally motivated responsibilities that I know I will need to fulfill where ever I am in life. They are as follows:

• Evangelize regularly - Right now that looks like weekly going on the street with friends
• Continually be in the Word - I am now in a process of memorizing a couple chapters each month
• Make sure I have alone time with God - Doing nothing but being with Him
• Build relationships - Keep up with friends and continue to go deeper

I will not depend on school to meet my daily needs, I am going to develop my own lifestyle and I am going to keep it as I go, where ever I go.