Written 1/17/2017
Wow! So it’s finally happened! I’m officially on the World Race! I’m so excited to have finally launched. I have been talking about it for months but it’s the real deal now. It’s been a few days since I left the country with my squad, so let me recap our journey so far. We began our adventure meeting up in Atlanta, Georgia where we spent a few days getting some final training for our mission. Everyone in my squad was super excited to be reunited again after not seeing each other since training camp, and after some final goodbyes to family, we were off. We left the U.S. on January 11th to head to Africa where we’d make our first stop on the list of countries we’d be living in for the next 11 months: Mozambique.
We had a layover in Istanbul, Turkey for a few hours and after some long flights, we entered the continent by landing in Johannesburg, South Africa. Taking a bus from the airport, we drove several hours until we reached our first destination in Mozambique. We stayed in the capital of Mozambique, called Maputo, where some of the teams from my squad would be staying to do ministry for the month. My team “Deep Wells” and another team “God’s Magnolias,” who are partnered with us for the month, still had a ways to go before reaching our ministry site. As the teams began to split ways to go to the different locations God had designated for them to do His work, we too went our own way the next day after our ministry host picked us up in Maputo.
Our ministry host is a good man of God named Pastor Artur who is the brother of another man of God, Pastor Felito, who started the ministry we’d be working with in Mozambique: “Africa on Fire”. It’s an awesome ministry God started through these pastors. You can check it out at the link to their website here to learn more about their ministry: www.africaonfireministries.com. I’m sure I’ll be sharing more about it as I continue blogging through the month.
Anyway, we stayed at Pastor Felito’s house in Maputo with Pastor Artur for two days before heading to our final destination in Mozambique, a province called Chibuto. Pastor Artur ended up being our ministry host for the month since Pastor Felito had just left the country to visit different churches in New Zealand and the U.S. for this same amount of time. Nevertheless, we have been placed in good hands.
After several days of travel and much anticipation, we have finally reached our ministry site in Chibuto where we currently are now. It’s kind of funny because we spent so many days traveling that all we wanted to do when we arrived was start doing the work the Lord had waiting for us here. But since the day we stayed at Pastor Felito’s house in Maputo, it hasn’t stopped raining in Mozambique. This has left us unable to do any ministry work with the kids here our first few days in Chibuto, who will be the main focus during our stay. However, I’m not discouraged by this as I know God is in control of all things.
One thing we learned about when we arrived in Mozambique was that the country was in a water crisis. Pastor Artur had informed us that there hasn’t been any steady rainfalls for months in Mozambique until now, and that it has been very difficult on the lives of the people living here. After learning this and seeing that it almost hasn’t stopped raining since we got here, I can’t help but believe that God is showing something symbolic in the weather. I believe the Lord is saying that just as He has opened up the flood gates of heaven physically to pour out the rain needed on the thirsty land of Mozambique, He is going to open up the flood gates of heaven spiritually to pour out His grace on the thirsty hearts of the people who live here. Just as the rain started pouring for days shortly after we who are His children and ambassadors of His love and truth arrived, His grace is going to pour out on the people here during our time in Mozambique as He works mightily in and through us to minister to them.
So though the rain continues to pour, and though we are all very eager to do the work the Lord has called us to in this place, in much anticipation all I can say at this time is, “Lord God, open up the flood gates of heaven upon this land!”
Note: We did not have any wifi access when we were in Chibuto for the past few weeks which is why this blog is being posted so late. I will be posting more blogs about how our time of ministry in Mozambique went after this point within the next few days. Thanks for following me on this journey and God bless!
