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!!!