November and part of December was spent in Mozambique. It was wonderful! We were only able to get onto the internet a couple of times and not for long the whole month. Hopefully, this long blog will give you a good picture of our work in Mozambique. Jared and I were excited about going to Mozambique from the time we saw it on the race route. We were not disappointed.
Our assignment was to help a local church in Vilanculos, located on the eastern coast of Mozambique, within walking distance (African walking distance) to the Indian Ocean. Our work with this church “Jesus for Africa” was to do outreaches into the local hospital, prison and neighboring villages. “Jesus for Africa” was founded seven years ago by Pastor Jaco and his wife, Maria. They have two kids, Maggie (10 yrs) and Rudo (9 yrs). This was an awesome family. Even though their home was very small, they made all of us feel very welcome.
We lived in our tents, camping on Jaco and Maria’s property near a beautiful small lake. We had access to cold water showers and we had the luxury of a flushing toilet. On our first night camping by the lake, some of the Racers were awakened by lots of noise and yelling. Jaco had forgotten to tell us that the natives fish in the wee hours of the morning. They set out nets, then go to the other side of the lake and start hollering and thrashing the water to move the fish into the nets. This was a startling way to start our stay in our new camp.
All sorts of wildlife lived around us and they did not all have four legs. Some were pretty scary. One day we saw a Black Mambo snake and a Spitting Cobra snake. Jaco gave us a good lesson on recognizing these snakes and said that people are paralyzed within 20 minutes after being bitten by a Black Mambo and killed within two hours. Needles to say, both snakes were promptly killed.
Our weeks were very full. Here is a sample of our schedule.
Sunday: Our team ran the morning and evening church services.
Monday: Our day off.
Tuesday: Hospital, prison ministry, and house visitations.
Wednesday: Ran the healing service at the church at noon every week.
Thursday: Hospital, prison ministry, and house visitations.
Friday: Showed the Passion of the Christ movie.
Saturday: House visitations and/or prayer walking.
Many people gave their lives to Christ as we ministered during the week. It was amazing to see how God worked! The people were so hungry for the Word and so receptive of the message. The first Sunday we were there a Muslim man who came to the service gave his life to Christ. He is a very influential man in the city. He works for the city. The following Wednesday a man who was working for Jaco gave his life to Christ. Jaco asked Jared if he would spend a lot of time praying and discipling him while we were there. They were able to spend many hours together praying, talking and reading the Word. This was a wonderful mentoring time for that young man to help him get his feet firmly planted in the Word.
Shortly after we arrived in Vilanculos Jared was preparing to teach at one of the Wednesday healing services when he noticed some of the older village kids had followed our team mates to the church. They had all been playing soccer and decided they would like to join the World Racers at church. Jaco also noticed these newcomers at the regular Wednesday healing service, so he asked Jared to change the healing message into a salvation message. This was definitely the hand of God working. Many of the guys confessed Jesus as their Lord for the first time that day. Jared spent time praying with them afterward as well. Praise God!
Their hospital is made out of UN tents. Their original hospital was destroyed in a cyclone in 2007. It really looks like what I have seen on the old TV show MASH (with mosquito nets). Some of our group spent lots of time in the burn unit. One man who was burned by an oil lamp over a huge percentage of his body just 2 days before we arrived has new skin growing on his back without any scars! By the time we were leaving Vilanculos, almost every person in the burn unit had been sent home, fully recovered.
Jaco wanted to start a prison ministry. This had been one of the things that he wanted our team to help with while we were in Vilanculos. The first time we went to the prison almost all the prisoners raised their hands that they wanted to receive Jesus into their hearts and confess Him as their Lord. We saw a change in the men from the first time we went to the last time. They seemed full of joy and on the last day we went to the prison they were singing praise songs. Jaco is continuing to go, even though we are no longer there. Please read my teammate Amanada’s blog about the prison ministry. It seemed that most the places we went people would want us to tell them about Jesus. I have never seen so many people wanting to hear about Jesus. Everyday our team was able to touch lives and teach about the love Jesus. We were truly able to be messengers of the Word this month.
