Salama! Salama!
I'm in Mozambique at Iris Ministries now for the last 3 weeks. there are so many stories to tell I don't know what to write. My team has already been on one bush outreach in a little village a few hours away from Pemba. We slept in tents and were continually surrounded by crowds of village kids who were observing every move and every word. I did the children's program with some of the women on my team, I shared my testimony with the kids under a big old tree in the village. We told them the story of Jesus' birth and David and Goliath, and we played games with them. We showed the Jesus film to the village and prayed for sick people. People were healed and got saved.
On base at Iris I have been giving the meds to the kids. It is a great way to get to know them. I love them. I also try to spend time with the little kids in the toddler house as often as I can. They have mamas who take care of their needs every day but no one to play with them or disciple them. I want to spend time with these kids and get to know them and take full advantage of the time I've been given here. There is a lot of joy in the toddler house and the kids are precious!
On Thursday I went to the town of Mieze and helped out at the milk clinic. The mothers who come have babies they can't feed on their own because they aren't producing breast milk. If it weren't for the milk clinic the babies wouldn't survive. We weighed them and gave the mothers boxes of powdered milk. There was a mother there whose baby had just died and it was so sad. Even though I didn't know her I had tears in my eyes. The survival rate of these babies is not very high with dirty water and malnutrition.

Being in a third world country is opening my eyes to poverty like never before. I grew up in a poor family myself but we always had food and a bed and education. These people have no food and sleep on floors in mud huts. They have never seen anything else. If I were to tell them that God has dreams for their lives I don't know if they would understand that concept. Their minds haven't been trained to believe that anything else but poverty is possible because that's the reality here in Mozambique. We truly bring the Good News to them when we feed them and teach them about the Kingdom of Heaven.
But it is also the Kingdom of Heaven that first has to be inside of me because I can't give what I don't have. If I don't believe that God is a God of abundance then I won't give abundantly. So I believe that my time here in Pemba is to a large extend about my own transformation and growth. I have come to a place where I've realized that I have nothing to give to the people here other than what I can give by God's grace. I have felt so broken and powerless and I've cried out to God to fill me with his love.
Please pray for God's grace to fill me and the ability to love with His love, not out of my own strength but in His strength. I've come to do God's work, not my own, and I am willing to let God use me in any way He wants. He is an amazing God and His love is unlike anything I've ever experienced before!

My team is going to put on a 12 hour BURN here on the Iris base in 2 weeks, which is 12 hours of non-stop worship and prayer. We will have several teams taking turns leading the worship including the local youth of Iris. We feel strongly led by God to do this, as some of our YWAM leaders have encouraged us to do the same. So please pray with me for an invasion of Heaven during this time, that strongholds will be broken in the name of Jesus, the spirit of poverty and orphanhood to be driven out, and the standard for righteousness to be raised. On Earth As It Is In Heaven in Jesus' name!!