Update On Bush
Bush In Chuiba
I know this is now two weeks late, but I did my best with everything has been going on which is a whole other blog.
Two weekends ago I got
to lead my Harvest School color group (MENTA) into to the bush bush. I didn't
find out what village or area we would be going to until the day
before we left. I was ecstatic to hear that my team and I would be
heading to a village called Chuiba. which is the Village my home
church, Grace Center, had adopted a few years ago. I couldn't believe
it.
Thursday the fun
began. My color group, mozambican team, and a few guest speakers
headed down to the camions where we began to wait. Soon we found out
one of our camions was broken and that was why we had been waiting
for 3 hours. Finally we were able to get a truck and get things loaded.
Luckily, for us Chuiba is only 30 mins away from base, when roads are
good that is.
Finally we
arrive, we set of camp, and we come together to pray right outside of
the church that was washed out by the floods and the new church
Grace Center help build.
Heidi and her
team arrive and we all drive out about 10 minutes to the
place where we are showing the Jesus film.
We pile into the
smaller trucks. The truck I am in stops. The transmission has gone
out and we are parked right in front of a little store shack where
all these Mozambican mama's are watching with curiosity. When the
truck wasn't starting I decided to go over and try and chat with the
Mamas and invite them to the film. They laughed at my broken
Portuguese and Makua, but eventually got the point. Finally, the
truck started up again and everyone jumped back in. I think we
stopped just so we could invite those mamas. Alas, the sand got too
thick and the truck was stuck again. We all decided to jump out and
walk, but we made it half way through the film.
The film ends and
the chaos begins Heidi began to preach. Jumping from Portuguese to
Makua my team and I are quickly lost in translation. The next thing
I know was that we were being asked if we were ready. Confused I said
“yes?” Then I was asked again are you ready? I replied “Yes, to
pray?” To which Heidi replied “no for your skit.” To which I
replied “yes of course” running back to my confused team I told
them very quickly to get ready for the Good Samaritan skit, that we
had only practised one time before. They jumped in anyway and did there very best.
Then Heidi
preaches again and asks the village chief to preach, who has only
just become a Christian recently. Then we are pushed in to a fire
tunnel line to begin praying for people. It all happened so fast!
Surrounded by kids on all sides, trying to stay in our fire tunnel
formation, having my hair pulled at by fascinated girls behind me,
and still getting very lost in translation we all just keep praying.
Hundreds of people are going through the line to receive Jesus a
blind man starts to come through the tunnel to receive Jesus He stops
right in front of me and Heidi everyone is praying the man gets
healed and the line keeps moving. Just like that He was healed 3 years of cataracts and this man can see again. The mamas I had invited to come
earlier show up and come through the line. After about an hour of
standing in a line the crowd breaks out into a worship dance party as
we begin to pack down.
With no Truck
coming to pick us up we make the long 30 min trek in the dark through
the village back to our camp sigh,t accompanied by, literally,
hundreds of children.
Exhausted,
hungry, and covered in dirt we do our best to keep the kids out of
our tents. We have our traditional bush-bush supper of spaghetti and
tuna and head for bed.
The next morning
we have breakfast (two bread rolls one with jam one with peanut
butter) and complimentary Starbucks Coffee served by Heidi herself.
We had a time of prayer then we split up into many different
activities. House visits in the village, children's program,
discipleship program with the church leaders, fixing latrine walls, and cooking lunch. As
the day went on we got to hear many more testimonies of those who
went out into the village and saw many people of another faith
receive the Love of Jesus into there hearts, give up there witch
craft and get healing in there bodies.
Praise the Lord I
love my life and the things He allows me to see.
That night we had
showed the Jesus film again in a different location it was an
interesting night and the area was a more spiritually difficult area than the night before, but God
only knows the impact we had on those villagers and what all they did
received.
The next morning
we had the amazing opportunity to honor the village chiefs with
Breakfast and capulanas (mozambican fabric used for everything).
At one point I
was speaking with the Pastor of the church, that Grace Center has help
build, and told him that Grace Center was my home church! His eyes got bright and
his smile increased and he said “oh tell everyone thank you so
much! An that you are now my very good friend!”
Not long after we
honored and blessed the villgae we packed up and headed out back for
base.
The trip over all
was a beautiful time to really connect with the village and see God
work in ways there that even Heidi was excited to see because of the
hesitation of the village so much before.
