We’re In Connecticut
We arrived Nov. 8, and we’ll be in the U.S. until January 17, 2009. Until then, we’ll be visiting family and friends, and enjoying the time the Lord is giving us here resting and relaxing in His presence. And as a family, we are continuing to spend time in the presence of the Lord and His word, crying out for a greater experience of God’s glory and kingdom in our lives, and praying for the Lord’s work that is continuing in Lichinga.

Provision Of Peace In His Presence
When we left Lichinga, we didn’t have enough money to pay for the total fare back to the U.S. (not without using money needed for other things), but the word of the Lord is a promise of His provision. When you receive a ‘call of God’ provision is made as you go (it doesn’t always come at once). A few days before we left Lichinga we received an email with a $200 pledge. When we flew to Maputo, Mozambique we purchased bus tickets to travel to South Africa. In Maputo, a couple w... more

Rebuilding The Fence
When the head coach of the youth and young adult hockey teams (floorball teams) that I minister to found out what happened to our fence, he rallied the other coaches of the teams together to help us rebuild. In a few hours the 5 coaches rebuilt about one-third, 60 feet, of the total length of the fence that had been burned down. They only stopped because I had no more grass. It will take a lot more work and material to finish the fence, but the Lord put an amazing determination in our hearts to rebuild. We continually see that in the Lord’s presence amazing things happen, and can happen quickly. We are amazed at how quickly the Lord can restore things that are lost.

Trusting In His Presence
Tiffany and I have been overseeing the center property since 10/16 because everyone else is either on holiday or attending a conference in Beira. Everyone else that “leads” in church (worship team, translators, musicians, and pastors) is also gone. I ta... more

Seeing the Face of Jesus In the Midst of Discouragement

Not too long ago, Gazani prayed for me and told me not to be discouraged. I now know what he meant. These past weeks have been the most challenging and would have left me very discouraged in the Lord’s work. But Jesus’ assuring love left nothing in me but a fight to rest in His presence, and un-natural strength to continue seeking and doing the will of God for my life. Discouragement is a principality in Lichinga and for some reason the Lord brought me to and through an encounter with it. This principality, which is not of God (Ephesians 6:12), made all the work I have yet to do on the house seem too much, too time consuming, and the fruit of ministering in the city and villages of little value. But the Lord encouraged me, until He became my sole delight, and I knew my life was at rest “in Him”. I pressed on in the work of the ministry being reassured by the word the Holy Spirit gave me in Isaiah 49. God’s pursu... more

At times people have inquired about how they can help, and also have encouraged us to let people know how they can be a blessing. In the beginning of the year, we sent a blog with a list of the main projects and other ministry opportunities to let people know the primary areas they can support us in. We are resending an updated list, which includes the praise report for the things the Lord allowed us to accomplish thus far.

The Lord has a lot of work for us to do in the city of Lichinga and its surrounding villages, and we believe we’ll be here for several years until the Lord says our work is done. Projects that we mentioned are the result of prayer, and are things that are specific to enable us to live here and be effective in fulfilling God’s call on our lives to pursue the harvest, and prepare and release harvesters here in Lichinga.

HOUSE FOR GOD’S PLEASURE
Some people thought it was impossible, but the Lord built our house in 4 months and we moved ... more

HARVESTING THE CITY OF LICHINGA - FLOORBALL (HOCKEY) TEAM
After many months of communicating with the Christian organization in Switzerland that started the floor hockey team (and many months of waiting), they were finally able to send new floorball equipment. The whole team and the coach were really excited. This past Saturday, I visited the team to tell them about how the equipment was truly a work of Jesus Christ (and it was!). Fiel couldn’t go to translate, so I had to express my heart and give glory to God by myself in Portuguese. I think the Lord did it like this because it would impact the team more if I was speaking myself. When I began to speak, I almost started crying because I saw the glory of God over the team. Then instantly, the Lord gave me a love for them that I never had before. (It’s impossible to bring in the hearts for His harvest, if we don’t have the Father’s heart for people). At the same time I was seeing the glory of God on the team, I began to... more

OUR CHILDREN
I’m sure sometimes, people wonder about our children. We are so thankful to the Lord for what He’s been doing with our young, anointed missionaries. They have been overcoming so many challenges since being in Mozambique. Before they didn’t like being in the dirt, or being around all the bugs. Now, they play with dead bugs and collect the live ones as pets. They even play in the dirt without fear of matequenia (the little worms that crawl into your skin). Amerel and Isaiah usually play with 4 of the base leader’s children who are between the ages of 3 – 13. There aren’t any other children close by. It’s a blessing, especially for Amerel who really misses her friends from the U.S. It’s beautiful to see the Lord work in their lives and use them as they join with us in praying, fasting and interceding for the city and the villages.

HARVESTING THE CITY OF LICHINGA
Floor Hockey Team
We asked for the city of Lichinga, and the Lord is continuing t... more

HOUSE FOR GOD¡¦S PLEASURE
We moved into our house on Thursday, September 11, just in time to celebrate our 11th Wedding Anniversary. Our children, Amerel an d Isaiah, were beyond excited, and still are. They are running all over the place. Amerel prayed that God would give us joy moving into our new house. We all are full of the joy of the Lord. My wife and I are seeing and experiencing the gift that God was giving us in providing our own place. Now, we have more time to spend together as a family ¡V just us. For the past 14 months (since June 2007), we lived out of one room, and have been living in a house with other people. For 3 months, I had to sleep with Isaiah, and Tiffany slept with Amerel. The rest of the time, the children¡¦s beds were about 3 feet away from our bed. Now, the children have their own rooms.

Since we moved into our house, we¡¦ve been very busy doing the Lord¡¦s work. Yesterday, we finished installing glass into all the wood window f... more

The spiritual inauguration of the children’s center, Village of Joy, was wonderful. Both Rolland and Heidi Baker came to anoint the first orphan girls house and dedicate it to the Lord (see photo). Pastor Mario, a local Pastor in Beira who is a spiritual covering for the center as well, also spent the weekend with us. We spent time worshipping the Lord, praying for one another, and being greatly encouraged and strengthened by the many prophetic words that were given this weekend. Many people were saved during the outreaches on Friday and Saturday nights in the city and in Sambula village. Follow-up is being done in the village. In Sambula, a crazy woman was delivered and her family said later that she was eating and acting normally.

The main work for on our house has been completed. We had a special lunch for the workers which included goat, sausage, juice and cookies. Some of them have never had sausage. We also spent time worshipping, and I encouraged them with a f... more

We wanted to share with you a little about the testimony of our house. This blog is a little longer in order to give you an understanding of why we are building and what is being built through the ministry of building the House For God’s Pleasure.

First, exciting news: Everyone is waiting for the government to finish its process of officially approving our center as an orphanage. But in the meantime, everyone is planning for the “spiritual inauguration” of the children’s center this Saturday, August 30. Heidi Baker is coming to Lichinga to bless the center, as well as several other people. On Friday night we’ll have an outreach in a village and on Saturday night we’ll have one in Iris’ church in the city. This weekend we’ll celebrate as a praise offering to the Lord for all that He is accomplishing at the center. Our focus is on Him alone, and we cry out for His Holy presence to be made manifest in great ways at our center.

House For God’s Pleasure
All th... more

Building A House For God’s Pleasure
The Lord is continuing to build in the lives of the workers the dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. It’s wonderful to see how much they have grown. Daily around lunchtime, they quickly stop working to worship, receive teaching from the word of God, and drink in the refreshing water of life from the presence of the Lord.

I started teaching one of the workers, James, to read and write. He was so excited that a few days ago he stopped working to spend some time practicing writing in the sand. Another worker decided to stop working too, just to help him out. I’m paying them to work, and here they are writing in the sand. But, I was quiet and watched them with joy. Just last week James couldn’t write his name. “Stopping for the one” is still a very important part of our ministry here.

Construction on our house is going well. For the next few weeks, I’ll be spending a lot of time working on our house. The roof is on! It’s p... more