Extended Outreach

I have, until now, avoided talking about the extended outreach trip that I took in Mozambique. Basically, we spent 5 days in 2 different towns in the far north of Mozambique, showing the Jesus film, praying for people, doing kids programs, and ministering to the women and men in the community as well.

The outreach was very hard for me and most of my team members. Our Mozambican leader got very sick, I was feeling sick to my stomach most of the time, and a few other people were feeling sick on and off.

But God was faithful through it all. At first I could not bear to think about the outreach, all its frustrations, and how I felt and acted on it. I However, I have worked through some things and see that God was working through it all.

I had the privilege to meet this amazing 9 year old girl, Graça, who is the pastor's daughter of an Iris church in one of the towns. She was beautiful in so many ways. She had Jesus' love in her, and was able to help out my team so much. We were in a town that spoke Makonde, not Makua, so we had no translators. Graça spoke Makonde and Portuguese, so she helped us translate for the kids' program until we could get a church member to help. She is the future of the church in her town. Jesus, please let her grow more and more in you.

I saw God's mercy poured out to the desperate one day as we were going around praying with people in their houses. As we were headed back to our camp, a boy comes running up to me and the 3 Mozambicans that were with me, and asked us to come and pray for his aunt. She had sent him running to catch us. She had a heart problem that caused pain and the hospital in Tanzania couldn't help her. Tanzania's hospitals (and everything...) are apparently better than in Moz, and Tanzania was relatively close to here, we were far north. So we prayed for her and told her about how Jesus told people in the Bible that their faith made them well. We told her that her faith made her well. Her pain left and she was healed! She was so grateful to us and wanted to pay us, but we told her to thank Jesus and not us, and to trust in Jesus in return.

After having tried twice and for many hours to go to another village to show the Jesus film, we went with a backup plan and showed it in another village. This village had no evangelical church, and was mostly animistic Catholic. We showed the Jesus film and 2,000 people showed up for it! As I was walking around the perimeter of the crowd during the film with some friends, our whispers and footsteps were the loudest sounds other than the film. The crowd was silent and attentive! It began to rain at the end of the film, so half the people left, but we still had many people come forward for the altar call. That was the best night of outreach and it wasn't in our plans, but it was in God's plans!