To say that the month of July was a challenging time for me is quite an understatement; but “challenging” has more of a positive connotations in this situation than a negative one.
Like I previously mentioned in my first blog of the month, the moment I entered into Mozambique I felt like I was back at home. And the moment I arrived at our home location for the month, I fell head-over-heels in love with the people of Mozambique.
We were blessed with an amazing contact, Elias. The moment we stepped off the bus, exhausted and disgustingly dirty after three days of travel, Elias greeted us with hugs, laughs, and “Wow!” He was definitely a breath of fresh air for my tired body and spirit. He continually encouraged us saying, “God didn’t send me a team, he sent me an army!”
Elias operates completely in the Spirit; he doesn’t work for salary and depends on God to provide for him because he knows he heard God calling him into this ministry. He is currently in the process of getting a children’s home from the planning stage to the operating stage. He has one section complete and has started building two other wings; all of which has been done in a leap of faith since Elias did not have the money to purchase the land or even begin construction.
But the money has come in for the land purchase and the beginning construction phase, just like God promised him it would.
Unfortunately, the government won’t let his dream, Emmanuel Children’s Home, become a functioning reality until he has “sponsors” for all the children that will be living in the home. This is to ensure that there will be a constant source of money coming into the home to provide for the children’s’ needs.
But he has faith that it will happen in God’s time.
In the meantime, he spends his days walking around the neighborhoods surrounding his house and the site of Emmanuel Children’s Home talking to people, loving children, and praying for and getting to know the widows.
Elias’ vision for Emmanuel is actually two-fold. The first part is for the children to live there, of course. But the second part is that the widows who are struggling to provide for their children or grandchildren will be housed in the complex as well. They will fulfill the role of “house mothers” and take care of the daily duties around the house, including overseeing all the children there.
We stayed at the house that Elias shares with his brother and his wife and 18-month-old-son and two other 20-something-year old men (although, the two men were away on holiday until the last few days we were there). We camped in our tents outside their brick house, which consisted of three bedrooms and a small central area where our food preparation took place.
We had “running water” in the form of a single spicket for the entire neighborhood to share and filled up buckets for cooking, drinking, and showering. We had electricity in the form of a single lightbulb above our tents and one in the central area inside and one outlet for all 14 of us to share only from sundown to sunup, when the electricity was turned on by the city. We had a squatty-potty out back that was modified to contain a cement “throne” section and the whole thing was held together by sticks and rice sacks.
We walked everywhere.
We walked to the market every day to purchase our food ingredients for the meals that day, since we had to way to store or preserve them for longer than a day at a time. We walked to the widows’ houses. We walked to the site of Emmanuel. We walked to church. We walked to the Pastor’s. Occasionally, we took chapas (taxi bus) to deliverance church services of 3,000 people and to the larger supermarket to purchase meat. But mostly, we just walked.
We watched people who were manifesting demons be cast out in front of us. We had women and children come specifically to us after church and ask for us to pray blessings over them and their family or to heal their pains. We had impromptu worship sessions at widow’s houses. We laughed and danced at church gatherings.
The church body became an extension of our family. They loved us. They hugged us. They greeted us when they saw us in public. They fixed us meals. They taught us how to dance. They found us a place to stay when our security was threatened. They asked about us when we were sick. They laughed with us and made sure we always had a translator. They invited us to lead worship at the 3,000 people service.
They were incredible beyond words, showing Jesus in all that they did.
God really met me where I was every single day in Mozi.
God showed me how clearly I can hear Him speak when my joy is found in Him and I trust Him completely. I experienced more visions from God than I have in my entire life; visions that were confirmed later in the day or week or visions that overwhelmed people with affirming emotions. I learned something new every day during my quiet time between the children waking me up at the crack of dawn and our morning devotionals. God increased my empathy spirit, allowing me to feel what those around me were feeling and showed me how to pray for them.
God has begun to show me what I am really capable of, through him, if I just activate myself completely in Him.
Every day, my heart overflowed as I was able to just sit and love on the neighborhood children in every minute of my free time. We couldn’t communicate much because they spoke Portuguese and I spoke English, but they didn’t seem to care. They would sit for hours, playing with my hair and tracing the lines on my hands as they sat in my lap. They would look in my eyes and giggle as they said “Cass!” and I responded with “Whaaaat?”
I fell in love with two eight-year-old-neighborhood boys, in particular: Ferrum and Binga.
They greeted me with hugs, laughter and “CASS!” every morning and didn’t leave at night without sitting on my lap for at least an hour and hanging on my neck.
I love all children, but the ones I tend to attract are young girls and babies. On the Race, however, I have found a few older boys in almost every country that are drawn to me like a magnet. At first it was a place of uncomfortability for me, mostly because I haven’t been around enough boys that age to know how to interact with them. But, now, I rejoice when that boy (or boys) finds me and we can just be goofy together and, yet, he still wants to just sit on my lap and cuddle.
Those two boys, however, rocked my world this month. They honestly made it worth it for me to get out of my tent in the mornings when I was sicker than I thought possible and just wanted to sleep. They would stand outside my tent, open the rainfly and say “Cass! Levante!” (Get up!) And I just couldn’t resist that command.
They would shower me with love (and sympathy when they saw the bandages on my arm after I had a staph infection drained) and never leave my sight throughout the days I spent at home, absent from ministry. They filled the days where I felt like I was missing out on ministry, with ministry. God showed me that, by missing the team ministry, I was actually ministering how He had intended me to, sickness and all.
I was able to show and overflow onto them the unconditional love that God has lavished on me because I was so filled up by God. They knew there was a time to play and have fun and there was a time for me to be stern, yet still loving, and tell them to stay out of the tents and go home. Whatever I said or did, they knew they were loved and didn’t hold onto the fact that I swatted their behinds when they didn’t listen to our rules just a few hours before.
I love those boys. I cannot imagine leaving them in just a few days. My heart breaks when I think I won’t be seeing their beautiful, pearly-white smiles every day…
I was able to talk and connect with two men my own age who attended the church—another thing I’ve never been “good” at before the Race. The men my own age I have been acquainted with before the Race are very worldly focused and driven by selfishness, so I’ve never been able to find enough common ground to hold conversations with them. Lionel and John were different, though. Our conversations were always one of three things: them teaching me Portuguese, us talking about Jesus in our lives, or about the dreams we had and the plans God has for us. I spent hours talking to them and could continue doing so for a long time, if I stayed in the same country as them. It’s amazing to see God moving in the youth of the nations, like He is in Lionel and John.
So, I spent a lot of my time in Mozambique too dizzy and nauseated to stand up, too weak to walk, too physically aching to go to ministry, and too exhausted to leave my air mattress; while spending even more time popping antibiotics and Tylenol to reduce swelling, infections, and fevers; and even more time lying awake at night fearing the return of the thieves that struck our tents twice every time I heard the faintest noise.
Just because all those hard things happened doesn’t mean my time in Mozambique was a bad experience.
In fact, those hard places are what has made Mozambique my favorite place.
