Saturday, October 23, 2010

Deep unto deep Green outreach!!!

On our outreach, we went to a random small village about 2 and ½ hours truck ride away… sitting in the back of a truck on the floor! When we got there we set up our tents and all, talked to and loved on some of the kids… there were so many! That night we went and set up all our sound equipment and the screen for out movie. We showed “the Jesus film” which was really long and interesting! Not really good interesting… it was translated into portugese which was obviously not the original language and so the words didn’t match the mouths at all! There was quite the mocking spirit especially among the older kids… the younger tried to take your stuff… there were drunk men that could possibly have been dangerous… a lot of witch craft influence… but Jesus was so near! We did a powerful skit where one guy was a man and Jesus came and created him… woke him up basically (this is a really common skit I know!) and then he gets distracted by evil temptations and doesn’t find satisfaction in any of them… he then reaches back for Jesus and He breaks through all the demons for his child! Its really a beautiful, simple skit! Which is perfect because some of these people haven’t heard of Jesus before so we wanna be clear and simple! Near the beginning of the movie a momma grabbed my arm and I looked over not knowing what to expect! We were packing in a dirt space and could barely move! She motioned to her daughter and to me and to the front of the seating area for the movie… I didn’t get it at first then I realized she wanted me to take her daughter to sit at the front here she could actually see! So excitedly I did! She was so sweet and layed in my lap… falling asleep after about half an hour! Then after the movie we had some great preaching and prayed for everyone! We were pretty exhausted and extremely cold and hungry by then! So we went back ate and got a little bit of sleep. The next day, to be honest I was worn out and discouraged! I prayed for more of Gods love to give more boldness, and more faith! Communication! The language barrier was really difficult… fear was also an issue because of all the unknown! We didn’t know what was safe or dangerous… a lot of the men here yell at you, grab at you and I never know what they are saying! I can only read tone of voice and that’s usually not sounding so nice ☺ I prayed God would get rid of all my fear!! I wanted so badly for all of the to know God the way I do! So intimately, as the lover of my soul… it has taken me a long time to really understand how extremely close Jesus really is! All the time, He is right there caring and loving and holding me… even when I cant tell, even when I have disobeyed, He still cares about my hurt, even when it was my own decision, my fault! Wow He is such a deep loving, good good Daddy!!! Such a lover, so near and beautiful… I cant explain in words the love I feel from Him every day… every time I think about it and open up my heart His love rushes in, in a tangable way that is so amazing…. I asked God to remove the doubt and discouragment… I felt like it was impossible to get that across to them! They are so hopeless…. So poor and clueless, so hurt and abusive to each other… I needed hope for them! I prayed and opened up my Bible… God brought me to Proverbs 22:2 –
“Rich and poor have this in common: the Lord is the maker of them all.” Wow, powerful! He pressed onto my heart how they are my brothers and sisters in Him! one of my friends here always calls all of us and other believrs… his brothers and sisters and I love that! That’s exactly the truth and gives us such a better perspective of each other! All Gods children together! I asked God to let me see them how He sees them! Then God took me to Matthew where I read tons of good verses for my day ahead! Everything from “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible!’ to “whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine you did for me…”. I went out of my tent and ended up talking with some team mates/friends during breakfast and discovered that a lot of them had been having similar feelings! The devil was attacking us with discouragement, fear and exhaustion… one person said that they addressed the mocking spirit we all felt by looking them strait in the eyes, laying a hand on them and praying, it leaves immediately! If we are bold enough and unafraid to do that! Basically look evil in the eyes and tell it to leave! It’s a powerful thing! Filled with new joy, strength and courage we went out to meet the people of the church there. The church was a small mud and stick hut that people crammed into with us. We sang and rejoiced in our God with dancing! It was so much fun! They love to dance here and it is amazing! They have dances for every song we sing! The church on the Iris base also dances all during worship and how most churches only have song leaders, these have song and dance leaders! Its awesome ☺ so we worshiped, prayed, and our team gave our names, where we were from, and if we were sing or not! Ha wow really? I am not sure why they needed to know that but I told them I am married to Jesus… because they just wanna know if your married or not! Then we gave testimonies, and one man gave money to finnish the roof which was full of giant holes… what they thought was so expensive and couldn’t afford to finish probably cost about $15 American dollars… the people there rejoiced in God so joyfully! You couldn’t expect it… torn clothes, no shoes, probably never had any, hungry… and praising God with everything in them excitedly! It is so beautiful and amazing!
I saw some of the cutest children ever… only a few were afraid of us, because they had never seen white people before!
After that we got into random groups one of the Mozambican pastors put us into very creatively! Ha! ☺ we went to all these tiny, dark, mud huts that were falling apart… and prayed our hearts out for all the sick, hurt people! It was so awesomely amazing! But my feet hurt so bad by the time we were done! Plus I really needed to use the “latrine” ha ha which is basically a nice word for the poo hole. Yep, a hole in the ground you squat over and go! One little experience I will tell about ha – I went to the latrine at night right before I went to bed, had my head lamp or “torch” as all my crazy friends from New Zealand and Australia say! it already stinks and theres bugs and people “miss” if you know what I mean… so I look down with my head light to see a giant, I mean giant roach (which I had seen crawl in earlier in the day!)crawling up the wall of the hole and other bugs too… wow nasty! It was pretty groose… that and the hair still on my pig fat/meat I was served in my rice are competing for the grossest things I experienced…
By the time we went out the second night (after all our praying around the village…) we were all dead tired, my feet were hurting! Really badly… and quite honestly I was running out of love… I know that sounds so bad! But I was running dry… and felt very guilty about it! I was begging God to come help me! I was desperate for Him, to touch me, help me, and even more to touch those village people! He in His simple way He speaks to me ☺ said for me to simply love them with His love and not mine… I am not enough! I can not do anything alone!!!! He needed to love them through me! He said to go dance with the children, sit with them and love on them. That easy. I was like well I can deffineatly do that! So I went and just started dancing with a few kids! Praising my Jesus the whole time! Gradually my little circle grew… more and more kids! Soon I was coming up with new ideas – I was getting bored so I knew that they were! – we started running one way and then the other, all holding hands in a huge circle! Then we would come in and out and then go out wide… then let go and turn around arms up praising God! It was amazing! We were all loving it, having so much fun, praising God!!! I couldn’t have don’t that if I wanted to, but God knew exactly what to do. What works with language barriers, what is safe with all the drunk men around and mocking people… it was simple and exactly right! I love when He speaks and I hear Him and listen! Ha ha because when you do what is His will, it is easy… He taught me this weekend. I can not serve Him, and do Godly works without Him… we need to do them! James 2 is pretty clear on this point! But He kept telling me to rest, to trust and to simply listen to Him… its never me anyways… I will never succeed alone! Its such a peaceful resting place to know that and rest in His love, His arms, His works… its so easy! And without that intimacy with God, and rest… missions is way too hard! Impossible really!
We showed up the second night not having a clue what we should do… the night before hadn’t gone all too well… when we got there we couldn’t get the generator to start. That runs everything for us! Makes it so they can actually hear and see us and understand…. It is vital when you have 300 to 400 people! We prayed and prayed, and the generator turned on!!! We prayed about what to say and do and God showed up! Beautifully! We ended up with some awesome testimonies from the Mozambican pastors, 2 awesome skits and some great words from some of our team! We all had such a Holy Spirit peace the entire night! There was mocking and teasing… witch craft, drunk people… yet God was so present it was amazing! You could just feel the presence! He was bigger stronger and brought healing! Greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world!!!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Deep unto deep

We are about to go on our first outreach for my “color group”! We got broken up into groups of about 15 of us and around 5 to 10 Mozambican Bible school student pastors! My group is Green, “Deep unto deep, green”. We put together a skit to show the depicts a man when Jesus creates him, then the devil distracts him and tempters come to bring him into sin… then when none of those satisfy he turns to reach for Jesus, and this action allows Jesus to break through the demons and save him! it’s a really powerful illistration to take to a remote village that could possibly have ever heard about Jesus before! Also possibly never seen white people before! Ha! Were going to show them the Jesus film in their language, and pray, pray, pray for them! Usually there are many miracles, signs and wonders… many, many people come to Jesus as their savior and Lord! I am so excited for this! Wow I am! We drive out pretty far, on the back of a truck ha, (I’ve heard this isn’t comfortable…) then we set up our tents and start sharing the love of our God!!! Please be praying for this time! ( we leave Thursday afternoon and come back Saturday night nice and stinky… wet wipe bathing ☺). There are some dangers in going out like this… things get stolen, there are apparently a lot of drunk men, somehow they make their own alcohol… sometimes these men don’t treat us ladies so well ☺. Prayers are so powerful and I am so thankful for you all praying so much already for my time here! God is going with me and my team! We pray for His presence all the time! We know we are protected and taken care of! He has gone before us and comes behind! There is no reason to be afraid, and I cant wait to go advance His kingdom a little bit more! Pray for boldness for me in doing this! And also that we can get around the language barriers… the Mozambican pastors will be translating and a few of us also speak Portugese or Macua which is the other language spoken a lot here.
On another note at the moment my room mates are all screaming and laughing because our toilet… lets just say isn’t very powerful when it comes to flushing poo down! Ha ha its awesome ☺ apparently there is a trick that involves using a stick to push the poo down as it flushes… we gotta figure this one out and perfect it! Ha ha ha so fun! I get to shower maybe everyday because of all the stickieness and sweat… but only to rinse off! Hair gets washed about every 3 days or more, which most of you who know me would know I love! Hahaha - The guys all bought a goat in town and are slautering it right now… I hope they actually follow through and eat it so it doesn’t stink! I kinda have a feeling they wanted to feel manly in Africa more so than had a craving for goat meat… I have met a lot of awesome people here! Almost everyone in my house is from a different country! But we all speak English to a certain degree ☺ its been interesting and tons of fun! Rolland and Heidi Baker are awesome speakers of course! Ha! And I am learning so much! About the kingdom of heaven and how to bring it here on earth! How the least of these are actually Jesus faces (Matt 25). How to stop for the one instead of being overwhelmed by the thousands! How to love the one in front of you, to see them the way God does! So so so much more! I could end up putting all my notes on here, but I wont! Ha ha!
I just finished attempting to work out here in this heat… ha! I have missed it so much and all my roomies had gone to town for food and supplies so I got a little bit in! it was pretty funny and most of you would have laughed at me! Everyone here would have! I think I am would of the only ones here who cares to workout… a few will go run with me! But my pure barre/cross fit body weight workout was a lil weird and nobody else would have wanted to join!
I miss all of you (more than working out ha) and cant wait to come back at Christmas and tell you all about the awesome stuff I am getting to do, learn, see, the serving, playing in the dirt with the kids… all of it!

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Wild ride!!!!

Wow! I’ve only been here in Mozambique for about a week and a half and already God has totally wrecked me with His love! Ha and taught me so much! I don’t know what exactly to share with you all! There is so much I could tell you! He has shown me how He loves us so much it hurts! Wow, I know most of you have probably loved someone so much it hurt! Our God is that crazy about us…
He showed me in a healing time a picture of when I was really hurting, and that He was right there with me! Actually holding me and telling me it was going to be okay! Even though I know I had disobeyed Him and wasn’t fully His at that time, He still cared! He was still there, never left or gave up on me, but held me and loved on me, comforted me in my pain! He showed me the lies that I believed and the truth that He was speaking to me! That it was all for my good!
God says He loves us so much, it hurts… wow,
I guess He wants the same from me… until it doesn’t hurt anymore.
He says rest in me and I will do this, what I want…!
He has revealed His love in ways I haven’t experienced before! Just a few of my favorites so far are – a few times when I am really just soaking in His love (Heidi says if we know we are loved only then can we truly love others and not burn out in serving our Daddy, our lover God) I was so overwhelmed that He really does love me that much, in a personal way! That I was crying… and then laughing… at the same time ha ha, I am excited to let His love go deeper so it stays there steady for good! His love is better than all else…. He cares for each of us individually and knows us so deeply its crazy…
Another time was when I was worshiping with both arms lifted… praising Him with all I have, and I heard Him saying that He was reading across my wrists (my tattoos) and that it said “the Lords heart” and He was pleased with me! And that He was so happy my heart truly is His! Wow! That was kinda amazing ☺ My tattoo on my right wrist says “the Lords” which is from Isaiah 44 where he says “and they will write on their hands The Lords” and then on my left wrist I have a hears, which represents my heart, a little different looking… not normal ☺ but that He loves! I got both separately and not thinking about what they say together when I put both arms up! But God was thinking of that all along ☺
Okay my favorite time with God so far was a word spoken to me by an amazing lady named Sarah, she is Australian and she and her husbands are the directors of our school and do an awesome job! She was going around praying for us while we soak in the Lords presence and pray… and this is what God showed her when she laid her hand on me to pray! –

Wild ride –

A prophetic word given to me by Sarah Kotzur –
All written down by my awesome friend and room mate, Esther the Ausie

She saw a horse, me on a big horse, God said its going to be a wild ride!
I am a wild one! Being prepared, hold on!
King of glory riding with me double saddle.
The huge horse is the Holy Spirit.
The Father covering me with a big purple cloak…
we were in perfect union! Perfect union she kept saying!
It’s a path no one else can ride!
He said thank you for trusting me Hannah!
Huge overwhelming horse.
Jesus grabbed me by the hand and swung me up, thank you for trusting me He said! Its going to be a wild ride, hold on sweet heart!
Horse was running for a cliff, but don’t worry it has wings! He is going to teach me how to fly!
Dangerous situations are going to look like opportunities, such union that I will have a fearless mantel.
Might freak people out around me – holy awe of what God is doing with my life! Sometimes they wont understand, but will look on in awe.
Supernatural horse! White stallion.
Me behind Jesus on the Holy Spirit horse, covered in the Father!
Princess warrior! Like the princess in the Lord of the rings, princess warrior Hannah.