On Tuesday of this past week we left our house and headed out on a three day adventure to see the main site for the ministry we are working with, Africa on Fire, where they are working to build a family style, self-sufficient orphanage. But first we were heading to a town called Inhambane, which is on the coast of Mozambique with some of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. In Inhambane, we slept in our tents at the home of a man who had donated some land for Africa on Fire to start a church plant. It was the first time that our contact had seen the land and been to that area so we spent the majority of our time there walking around and meeting people in the area to tell them about the church. Oh yea, we also had some awesome fresh coconut which we watched be chopped down by a rather nimble-footed man who climbed up very tall trees to get them for us. So good. Another really awesome part of our adventure was our hour or so at the gorgeous beach. Liv and I swam out as far as we could, and when we weren’t diving under fairly substantial waves we frolicked in the Indian Ocean, not a bad day.
After beach time we had another church service, prayed over some of the people from the village, and after that packed everything up and headed to our next sleeping place. One of the women we prayed over invited us to spend the night at her house, so after we ate dinner around 10 p.m. we set up our tents and slept for about 4 hours, we were on the road again by 4:30 or so on our way to Chibuto.
This was our ride for the weekend, fancy no?
At around 8 a.m. or so we stopped in a town and picked up some bread and Felito asked where to get bagia (these really good fried mashed bean things) and so we went down some other roads and picked those guys up for breakfast. We then stopped at this market in the center of the town and went into get some drinks. Felito also was meeting up with one of the pastors of this town and before we left we prayed over his pastor friend. After we had finished praying an older lady came up and asked if we would pray over her, she offered multiple times to pay us for praying for her and it took quite a bit of convincing for her to believe that we would pray for her for free. After we prayed over her more and more of the people walking around the market came over and asked us to pray for them. After about two hours of non-stop praying we had prayed over just about every person there that morning. During that time we saw a man that had been to a witch doctor to try to cure his arm, which he couldn’t raise without help. He had markings put on his arm by the witch doctor but it didn’t help him, after we prayed over him he had full use of his arm. People were so encouraged by this that more and more kept coming up to us. Such an incredibly humbling moment of this journey, here we are, nothing special but these people see Jesus in us and want to know what we are about.
Another one of the men we prayed for approached Felito as we were about to leave and asked him if he donated some land if Felito would be willing to start a church plant in his village, so we went on about an hour trek into the jungle to see the land he wanted to give and talk more about what a church plant would look like. So we stopped for bread and ended up healing people and starting a new church plant. How cool is our God?
After our multi-hour detour of awesomeness, we continued on our way to Chibuto. When we arrived we dropped our stuff off at their house in town and headed out to see the land where the orphanage will be. It is one of the most gorgeous pieces of land I have ever seen. Rolling hills with lots of trees and gorgeous sky. We got to hear Felito talk about the plans they have and see the first family house that has already been built. I can’t wait to hear about the incredible things that this ministry will accomplish as they continue to raise support to finish building houses, dig a well, and begin the projects that will make them self-sufficient such as tilapia ponds, a myriad of farm animals, as well as crops such as rice and corn.
This month truly has been an amazing experience and even in the moments when it was tough, when we had ridden in the back of a truck for hours on end, sometimes in the rain and mostly in rather hot sun, I see so clearly how the Lord has used us to bring the Gospel to His children here in Mozambique.
