*This was written about two and half weeks ago. We didn’t have wifi for month one, so here’s the catch up!*
When we arrived in Guija, Mozambique, my heart truly felt at home. We’re in the bush of Africa surrounded by villages of only mud huts, and there are cows and goats wandering around everywhere. The lifestyle is so simple and different here that it takes some getting used to. There’s no internet anywhere; we’ve already tried 3 different cities around us, we hand wash our laundry, the local goat herd wakes us up around 5am every morning, we hand pump around around thirty five-gallon buckets every morning, and the heat is stifling somedays (the hottest day was 109). But these past two weeks have honestly been the best at teaching me to slow down and take time to sit and be with the Lord everyday.
Ministry this month has been stretching me far out of my comfort zone. Everyday we go to the village and pray over people in the community. These people we’re ministering to have nothing. Mozambique is in a severe drought right now, so the crops that these people depend on to survive just isn’t there and they can’t just go buy food because the monthly stipend is only 120 Meticas ($3 a month). And it’s heart breaking because the drought has only made underlying conditions such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and malnutrition much worse.
The thing is though, these people aren’t distraught over their lack of money or food, they don’t seem sad, and they surely aren’t angry. The people we have had the privilege of praying over have joy and love and community. They love receiving prayer and visitors, and many of them offer us something to eat or drink while we’re visiting with them. How many of us truly desire to have someone come into our home to sit and pray over us when we have a bad cold, let alone TB or HIV? That blows my mind because I know when I’m sick, I want to be left alone so I can be miserable. It’s definitely not my first, or even second, desire to have someone visit me so that they can lift my name before the Lord.
At the beginning, it was frustrating knowing that I can’t give these people something that will help them long term. I had the mindset that I was “only praying for them.” But the cool thing about this ministry is that prayer is so vital. We pray over multiple people every single day in the community, we visit patients who might not wake up the next day in the hospital, we minister to men in the prison who don’t get to leave the building for their entire sentence , and we preach in the local churches on Sunday’s. Prayer is not my strength; I am hands-on and like to see immediate results from my actions, but that’s not the case here. We can’t do life without prayer and I’m beginning to see that this month. Even if someone isn’t healed before my eyes, that might have been the first time that that person’s name and need has ever been specifically brought before the Lord. To think about that and to try and process everything that we’ve seen and experience in only two weeks by myself, I would be a literal hot mess. If I’m pouring out into people every day, I have to take the time to fill back up every single day and sometimes multiple times a day.
So month one has been good, hard, stretching, and so God-filled. I’m so excited to see what the Lord has in store for the rest of this year if He’s already done this much. Much love to everyone back home and thanks for reading!
