I have no clue

I will readily admit I have no clue today. I have no clue what it is like to be hungry. One of the little first graders I work with has come to school w/o any snack the past few days and had been taking food (ok, stealing...) from the room and another room last week. I think she has no food in her house.

I have no idea what that is like. I am so blessed, but also, it is a curse. I can't understand what it is like to not know where the next meal will come from. This little girl is so sweet, I love her, but life for them is hard, I know. Downtown apartment, 5 kids (she's the oldest at age 6) and her mom is barely 24. Geesh. Right here in my own town.

Then I'm talking tonight with some of my friends from other countries, ok, developing countries, and they are sharing with me how hard things are. Wow, I can't even imagine. I am clueless as to what struggles most of the world goes through on a daily basis.

Lord, open my eyes. Open my experience. And yes, thats ridiculously dangerous, but how on earth can I work with street kids if I have no idea what it means to be hungry? How can I feed famine victims and refugees if I have always lived in peace and safety?

I was listening to a sermon from when Mama Aida was speaking at Oxford sometime and she was talking about how many of the pastors in the Bible school have had kids die of starvation, or relatives. She talked about it when I was in Pemba, too. I have no clue what it means to be truly hungry, and to want to feed a kid so much to risk crocodile attack to get a "black nasty bulby" waterlily bulb to eat.

I have no idea what it is like to be hungry and to steal food from another teacher's classroom. I also have no idea what it is like to receive a bag of snacks from a caring teacher (yep, i love the teacher i am working with because she does this for various kids) and maybe that's it for the weekend. I have no idea.

One Room

I had this revelation of what Heaven must look like in the grocery store last week. No, I haven't gone off the deep end, I didn't go into a trance or vision in the store. I just remembered one day in Pemba...

Heidi was speaking about how the Father's House (Heaven) has many rooms. There is the throne room where God is, of course. But she was speaking about other rooms that are in heaven that are accessible to us. She had us pray and rest awhile while we asked God for keys to doors of heaven that could be opened to us.

Heidi told us about her own experiences in finding rooms in heaven. She saw a room with all sorts of body parts, eyes, arms, legs, etc. and she was told that she would be given the key on occasion, but not all the time. So she sees lots of people healed with creative miracles and such when she has this key.

She also saw the secret place, the room where you go to meet with Jesus on your own time.

She also saw a room of food, piles and piles of it. Beans, rice, African vegetables, all there to feed the poor. God gave her the key to this room, to open it up and to feed the poor with it.

I realized that the grocery store looks just like that room must look. In this particular store, there are bins overflowing with canned and boxed goods, vegetables and fruits. There is so much food lining all the aisles of the grocery store, if we had unlimited access to it whenever we saw a need to be filled, we could feed so many hungry people. I'm not just talking about going into the store and buying food, I am talking about unlimited access, like we have in heaven. That means We ask He gives.

If we have unlimited access to a storehouse in heaven, a grocery store, we would be able to feed so many starving people all over the world. Like Heidi. Anyhow, one room in heaven looks like a grocery store, isn't that just simply amazing?

Autism & etc.

I'm thoroughly involved in my job now. I'm constantly praying for my little guy at school. He's autistic and is just the funniest little kid! He was sitting at his desk on Friday, not talking to anyone, but just talking, and holding his nose and saying in a nose-plugged up voice "I can talk like this if I do this, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life" during math class!! He is too funny.

However, he is also hard to deal with at times when he just decides he's going to "sleep" on the rug in the back of the classroom. Or run around the classroom. Or slap me or the wall or other kids. By slapping I mean sort of flapping his hands to hit something. Typical autistic behaviors.

Anyhow, he needs prayer. So does another autistic kid I know. He's 16 (I think) and him and his family used to go my church and sometimes still come tho they live an hr away. They were there today (I wasn't) and on the hour long car ride home, he opened the car door and jumped out while the car was on the interstate highway. He's in the hospital in critical condition. Pray. Pray he gets better and delivered from Aspergers.

Oh my, I can completely see how someone who is autistic would do something like that. Autism is rough.

africa rips my heart out

I could not wear any other shirt today but my one that has africa on it. i could not pray for anything but my kid at school and my African babies. I cannot think about anything but Africa. Again.

And I just slammed the door shut for me to go back there this week. Sometimes we have to give up the things we want the most to find God's heart. Sometimes we have to give up what may be our biggest desire to do what God wants.

My heart burns for Africa. For the people, for the children. Oh Jesus, I want to go back, I can't read about Africa anymore without crying. I just watched a video someone made about Iris in Pemba, and I just cried and cried. Africa is wrecking me, still.

I can't wait to go back. I know I will. I am writing that, because, actually, I have a fear that I will never go back and my 2,700 meticais will just sit on my bookshelf, aging, and never get used. I fear not returning to the children. Because I just shut the door on myself to go back.

spontaneous

Dirty hands etch the pages
penmarks write once again
the love pours out
the bumps are covered
blackened hands from coal smudges
eat away at the edges of life
taking things for granted
as we all may tend to do
as we all may tend to use
the things we see
and the things we want
to remember these days
of childhood pride
and teenage profound thoughts
some kids get things
some kids get it all
how God could love the world
could love the wildest of us
could love the whitest, the blackest
those ones in between
the ones in between the lines
of regulated senses
and pure insanity
so we scratch the paper
pencil pen
again again
we write
those profound thoughts
like we did when we were 14

Decisions, decisions...

I know my decisions are made in heaven before I ever make them, but I have a few coming up that I need serious help on. Seriously. Ok, I know God gave me my job, at least for this time, I can't leave it before the end of the school year. I love the kids, they love me, they need me there, the class literally can't function without me there.

But, Africa needs me. Or maybe I need Africa more than Africa needs me. I need the kids, the love, the atmosphere. They need what I can do, what I can bring. Maybe I could even work with special needs kids there.

And then there is Brazil, my love, my favorite country, my real home on earth, where I would be so at home. But maybe Brazil is not on my plate for this year? No, it is. Rio. Without a doubt.

But my kids!!! The kids at my school!!! I must at least finish this school year, right?

Anyhow, I will have a nice weekend starting tomorrow and get to see some of my Iris friends and Bob Jones (the prophet, not of BJU) will be speaking. Maybe things will sort themselves out there. Yeah. So I'm off to church soon for a prayer meeting. They are always awesome times when God comes. He is soooooo good!!! I love Him so much!

So I am not going to be like my sister and agonize for months over this. Give it up to God, that is it. Lord, show me the way!

Makua Songs online!!

I finally got my mp3 player connected to the computer and got some recordings I made in Mozambique off of it!!! I have now posted a few songs in Makua online!! Yay!! The first is "Yesu Hana Ekuro" (better known as the "Ehi, Ehi, Ehi" song, except I have the Makua version, so its not that language)
The second is "King of the Jungle" in Makua or "Hopanka Matchi Othene".
The third is "Cavo, Cavo, Cavo"
The fourth is a Bible verse song, from Hebrews, but I can't remember the verse... and I don't even know the words!
And the fifth song is John 3:16 in Makua. "Moloku ha fenta Athu"

These were all recorded in Pemba on my mp3 player, nothing formal, so the sound is ambient. Elder who helps with village feeding graciously recorded them for me so that I could learn some songs to do kids' ministry in Makua for extended outreach (but then we went to Makonde villages...)

Oh Jesus help us

Oh Jesus Help Us, help us, your people, the church. We need you, we need Unity. We need to be the One perfect spotless, blameless bride that loves so strongly it has no room to hate, only room to love. We need to agree to disagree on some things, and agree to agree to love each other stronger than we hate.

I am brought back to my Georgia friend Derek's wise insight that he would not criticize any other ministry. Live above criticism. Live above, love above it. I hate finding web pages and books written about the evils of other christians and that they are an "apostasy" and "blasphemy". Geesh, doesn't satan do enough damage to us? do we really have to eat one another's flesh?

This was brought about because I was reading a blog about how Heidi and all these other people (John Arnott, Todd Bentley, Benny Hinn, Seventh Day Adventists, Bahai faith, Catholics, Scientologists, Creflo Dollar, etc) and how bad they all are and how they are not Christian. While I have to agree on a few points, that people who are Scientologists or Bahai are not Christians, I must disagree with 99% of this website/blogsite. Why spend so much time tearing others down? It just doesn't make sense. What on earth DO you believe in if you demonize so many people? Do you even love anyone? Do you even realize that the people you write about are just people too?

People who run ministries are just that, people. They make mistakes, they all sin, JUST LIKE YOU AND ME!!! Haha, what freedom in that! We all sin, we all mess up! I don't like it that people devote so much time to tearing apart the very body that they belong to.

That said, I responded to some questions one of them had on a blog that they were asking of Heidi. I could actually answer almost all of them based on common sense and being in Pemba and hearing her teaching. So I spent awhile responding and said I had been there, and heard her speak alot. The comments are moderated!!!!! Unbelievable!!! My comment didn't get posted, needless to say!!! They won't even let the other side in!!! So much for bloggers being the new journalistic revolution and being less biased than the so-called "liberal media".
Then I read their "comment posting rhetoric" and it says "1. We do NOT promote false doctrines. You may question our premise but if you link to websites that promote false doctrines that link will be edited out. We also do not promote comments that endorses false teachers. “Imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” 2 Timothy 3:13."

So therefore my comment, which answered their questions about Heidi, was not posted because it endorsed that which they are trying to destroy. However, I am glad that Heidi and Iris and I have Jesus' love which no one can take away!!

I leave you with a quote from Leeland's song "Tears of the Saints":

Even churches have forsaken
Love and mercy
May we see this generation
In its state of desperation
For Your glory


Yes, Jesus, we want You more than anything else. More than anything else!

Moz History (in brief)

I just finished reading "The Winds of Havoc" by Adelino Serra Pires, a Portuguese immigrant to Mozambique, who ran hunting safaris there for many years until Frelimo came to power. The book presented me with a fascinating history of Mozambique, but not the type that comes from history books. He presents it as an autobiography of his own life mixed in with how what is now written (or not written) in history books has shaped Africa.

I was intrigued to find out that Frelimo had its start in the far north of Moz, actually based in Tanzania, and it had its first major rebellion in Mueda. I went to Mueda, I loved Mueda. It was chilly there and beautiful! It was also dark and violent. I had been told that the war hadn't gone that far north, which is true, Renamo never got quite that far. Mueda and Mocimboa da Praia and further north to the Rovuma River has been a Frelimo stronghold since pre-independence.

However, en route to Mueda we were warned not to go far off the road to use the bush latrine because of landmines still there. We stayed near the road. Very close.

I also was fascinated to hear about all the fabulous big game that used to populate Moz. Adelino traveled to Beira and spoke about how beautiful it was, and then how he saw it near the end of the war, and it was not looking so great. Now it is just a shell of what it used to be. From the disused soccer field near the church we worked at to the old style portuguese buildings with bullet holes in them and left to ruin by the elements, I saw just a shell of what it used to be.

I also read a bit about the re-education camps, which I have only heard of in brief. I know that Frelimo dissidents were sent to the far northwest, to Lichinga and Niassa Province, to camps to be re-educated there. They also sent the sick and disabled there. There were work camps, a la typical Marxist Communist regimes (gulags in Russia). Sad story of the beautiful country with so much possibility.

I wish there were a simple solution, but for a country ravaged by drought, floods, war, and communism, there is not any one simple solution. Kudos to those working in Maputo, its good enough there and in some of the southern beach towns. But the bush-bush and the north, like Pemba, are far behind. My heart still is breaking for the people of Moz, of Africa in general as well. What will become of Moz? Will it ever become "developing" again, or will it remain in this "underdeveloped" state that it was brought down to after independence.

O que vai ser a historia do Mozambique? O que vai ser minha historia em Africa, em Mozambique? Ninguem sabe. Ninguem sabe. Deus sabe, somente Deus pode ajudar.

(from top to bottom, the photos are of: ruined building that a family still lives in next to a soccer field, also in shambles. a little girl in Mueda, children are the hope of Mozambique. the treacherous road from Mueda, elephants still haunt these remote places, but I didn't see any in 2 1/2 months in Moz. the last photo is from the road on our magnificent Beira trip, somewhere in Moz, ruined buildings, the typical landscape was huts with a few ruined buildings every few hundred km.)

Weekends #2

It seems my weeks are too busy to post during the week, so my second "weekend projects" post is actually not about projects. This past weekend I actually got out of town to visit 2 friends I met in Moz, actually, even better, 2 of my Mozambican roommates!!

It is just so good to be able to see people from Moz again to be reassured that I am not crazy when I say I want to go back. To share my feelings with them about coming back here and re-integrating with society, about hating being heralded as some sort of hero for going. I have had people start telling me how awesome my sacrifice was for going there, for giving up so much, but I have not sacrificed anything I feel! I sacrificed my job, God got me a better one now! (no, not better, just easier!) I sacrificed my family and got my Moz family who I try so hard to keep in contact with. I sacrificed the kids I cared for and cared about, God gave me Carlito and Sabina in Moz to love on, and now I have an entire classroom!

It is no sacrifice. It doesn't even matter! That was one thing that we discussed this weekend, that if we want more of God, we have to give up some things. We have to give up some things, but we gain so much more! The sacrifices amount to nothing compared to the all-surpassing greatness of knowing Christ!

I love my Moz family, I love my American family, I love my soon-to-be-Brazilian family! I love it that I have God with me and on my side and that He loves me more than anyone in my "families". I also love how He makes us wait sometimes for things we really want. Its been over 2 years since I went to Brazil last, and here I am, going back in a few months. Praise you Jesus, my desires are being fulfilled.

And in 2 weeks, I get to go and see one of my Moz friends for the 3rd time plus another Moz friend who is coming up from my old home in GA to visit! Yay! Fellowship with people who understand missions and Moz and Iris and everything is so sweet. I actually met a guy here, locally, who has been to South Africa on a mission trip for 6 months, and could just share about Africa and missions with him! That is so cool! Now just to meet another Latino-phile missionary here!

Weekend projects...

Ah, today was a snow day, extending the weekend to a three-day weekend. I wish I could've worked today, but the snow day allowed me to work on making some puppets. I'm working on making puppets to take to Brazil for kids ministry, and then, when I return to Africa, I will take them as well. Today I started 9 puppets, and have finished 4 or 5 of them.

Yesterday and Saturday I spent quite a bit of time stuck at home with no car, so I sewed. I'm working on making these baby kimonos and blanket sets and dresses for little girls that will be sent to the Dem. Rep. of Congo (DRC). The dresses are for orphans sponsored through Global Fingerprints, a part of Touch Global (the Evangelical Free Church missions arm). They have about 700 orphans that are sponsored there, which is many many more than last June when they had only 40 orphans sponsored! About 15% of kids in that region in the Congo are orphaned from Aids and war.

The baby layettes also go to the DRC with EFC mission, to Tandala Hospital in the northwest region of the Congo. My prayers go with the things I sew, that the kids may know Jesus in the midst of war and Aids ravaging the country.

My heart also goes out to the Congo. I desperately want to go there, almost as much as I want to go to Brazil and Moz. There is so much need there, I have seen some poverty in Africa, but the Congo is still in the midst of violent uprisings in various places and it is still not safe to live there. My heart breaks for Africa, cry the beloved continent.