Mama Rita and the Rat Wars

So last month we were back in Mozambique for two weeks serving at the home of one amazing woman of God named Mama Rita. Mama Rita understands kingdom on a beautiful level. A few years back, her husband was killed by Muslim’s and she was left as a widow and the mother of a good bit of children. She has a serious love for Jesus and it is obvious in how she lives. There were many orphans in the community and so she just decided to take them in. So right now she is taking care of around 20 plus children in her tiny home. She does not have much at all. But what she does have, she gives freely to care for those in need. She is a woman of God in every sense of the word. And when tragedy hit her, she could have easily bailed on life. Yet there was a need that stirred her heart in the Kingdom and she made a choice not to waste her life.

So while we were staying in her home on the first night, we heard this crazy sound all over the place. We could not figure it out at first but soon it became really clear what it was.  We were living in home that was being overrun with RATS. Yeah, I thought it was pretty gross too. For the most part, I can deal with that kind of stuff, but one night it became unbearable.

I was walking into the kitchen hoping to kill a few and I saw three small children lying on a small mat there. And there were rats running all around them. These were little kids that deserve a healthy place to lie down at night instead of having disease-infested rats crawling over them. My heart was totally broken over this one. In that moment, all the iniquity and injustice of the world seemed to be centered on the rat population of the area and I was determine to do something about it. My team and I sat down and tried to figure all the potential entry points and concluded that not only are we going to need a new roof, but we are going to have to patch the place like crazy. So that is what we did. Over the course of a few days, we watched a new roof come to life and we patched the holes in the group. During the process of cleaning out the house, Scott and I managed to get ourselves trapped in a room with two rats that greatly lost that battle.

The roof got finished and the rat problem was drastically cut down. Yet the entire area around there is infested with them and there is still some risk for the children. Thankfully a group of Racers are coming back in June to move Mama Rita and all of her kids to a new home where they won’t have to deal with this kind of issue anymore. The Lord really broke my heart for orphans while I was there. Also learned that a great bit of the world lives in the worst of conditions and that we are to be the light from heaven that does something about that.