Beauty from Death
Death is something that has a strong effect on people. When you die to yourself and are baptized you are buried with Christ. You lay down your comforts and pursue the Lord and love the community placed in front of you. For a few months now I have been praying and asking the Lord if I should re-dedicate myself to him. I wanted to search out his heart. I felt I needed to publicly choose him even though I was baptized as a baby. God showed me I can’t just say I’m going to do something but needs to involves an action. This year is all about action and movement. He’s been working gently and deeply within me.
It’s monsoon season in Mozambique, which mean we’ve been getting our fair share of rain. That brings the temperature down drastically about 20 degrees which makes it a comfortable 80 degrees. It’s been a slower ministry month due to weather but we have been focusing on going around the community and praying for people’s health including: (healing for the blind, sore joints and backs, swelling, etc.). Through the ministry this month I’ve learned to be humble in knowing all I can do is pray. I want to fix the brokenness in the bodies of these people we pray for and feed all the hungry children who are malnourished. They walk around with swollen bellies and still they have so much joy in seeing my team and me. It gives me hope to see all the children running toward us with smiles on their faces and immediately hugging us. The kids are yearning for attention, being it has been fun to show them God’s love. I have been finding peace in the Father as we walk through Geuija Mozambique, Africa.
The group of girls I’ve been doing life with this month has been a blessing to me. God continues to reveal things about this community to all the members of our team. On Tuesdays, we all sat down in a circle and talk about what we observed and what God put on our hearts regarding the community. As we went around the circle each person saw something different. The first week here I saw so much new life, whether that be baby animals or humans, and pregnant mothers. There is so much potential in Geuija I believe God will raise up the children to lead it in the right direction. There are a lot of grandparents that are raising the children while the parents leave to make lives in South Africa. Many of the grandparents are struggling to make it and feed the children. We have been praying this new generation stays in Geuija and restores it to what it once was. The people here don’t live to be very old due to their lack of medical advances and lack of funds among the individual families. Hospitals are like clinics but if people go and stay the night, they are staying there to die.
Prison was a fun time… this past week we got to go to a short-term prison that holds people waiting for trial, and others waiting up to a maximum of 10yrs. As we approach the prison, our ministry host explained how the room they housed all the male prisoners in could hold up to 95 people at one time. If you saw this room, 95 people should not live all live in this one room. The prison itself was big house with a little hallway as soon as you enter the house. As the guards, ministry host, his team and our team all walked in to the hallway, we got snug with 18+ people. They closed the door to the outside world and opened the metal door where they held all the male prisoners. Not completely sure of what we were getting ourselves into we all walked forward. In the room, it was all cement with high ceilings with a metal cage going across it about a foot or two below it. We all took a seat in the plastic chairs provided and got ready to start the events of the day. Our host explained that we would be judging a competition in different categories. The first one was memorizing bible passages, three young men stepped up to the plate and did a great job. I watched as one at a time they went and I was taken back at the time and dedication they put in. Each winner got a cash prize that they could use toward bail or send to their family to support them while they were prison. The second category was singing. As we went through and listened, I realized just how hard they all worked to come up with a game plan and took the time to rehearse. Even the way they dressed they put on the best they had. Finally, the dancing competition only one group was going to perform. They started to sing and dance but half way through the performance one of the guards standing by looked at them stone cold faced and starts to walk in front of them and stops. He said something to the prisoners and then what was going to happen next was unexpected. THINGS GOT REAL! He took off his hat and as soon as he turned around he full on joined in and danced with the rest of the prisoners. It was amazing. I was blown away by all the energy in the room which was full of laughter, clapping, and shouts of joy. What I learned from an African prison is that its low key a musical and God is good even in a place holding people who have done wrong to others. There was healing for the people in that prison. It gave them a chance to stop everyday life and their wrong choices to have the opportunity and tools to seek out the Lord. We listed out the winners and then gave the prison two full boxes of bibles for them to check out at any time.
God has been having me go through Mark and He’s showing me His selflessness and healing others even when it was inconvenient for His disciples and Him. The book of Mark talks a lot about baptism and healing for others. He’s showing me the importance of prayer and not being afraid to ask for the big things. Even if He doesn’t answer it the way I thought He would or even see the fruit.
