Hey everyone, I'm giving Tawnya a break from blogging, so you all will have to put up with me this time. I know, I know, just hang in there. I'll try to make this as painless as possible. First off I want to say that I miss you all so much. I've been praying for you all back home. Especially our Faith Tab family. This is made really convenient because of the time differences. When you all are in service it's afternoon or evening here so I have a little down time and often find myself lifting you all up. Well, to sum up my experience so far and my heart for this place and what God is doing, all I really have to say is WOW. There has been annoyances, sickness, inconveniences, and other things that come with the circumstances that we are in. So if you are expecting a blog that's full of all the details of the third world lifestyle and how rough it is, here's my take... Every day I wake up to the love and joy of God filling my heart and family. I live daily in the privilege of seeking God and finding His heart in every circumstance and person I see. I get to have a season of being hidden away with God. We're making amazing friends and we're learning every day how to stay low and live with humble hearts. All the stretching circumstances to this point have been just that. And it's okay. The goodness of God is far exceeding. Tawnya and I love being here!!! We have been able to do some amazing things so far. Every trip through the villages is awesome. We do go out for specific outreaches, but there are also times that we'll just walk through and there are always opportunities to release the Kingdom. We've prayed for, prophesied over, and presented the gospel to Muslims. We have prayed for the sick, blessed homes, and given food. In the midst of all this, what I enjoyed the most was our village immersion last Sunday. This is when we meet up with one of the village pastors early Sunday morning. They take us to their church and we spend the whole day with them and their congregations. Our whole family went with five others from the Harvest school. I've never seen such a humble church in my life. (please check out the video.) This church was a 10'x30' bamboo shack that was leaning to the side and falling apart. The pews were bamboo and the alter/platform was a nice plush bed of red dirt, which is well used. The worship is all vocal with no instruments. I do believe that there are huge churches and beautiful cathedrals that have never housed the glory of God like what filled this shack. When the Harvest school students visit these churches the pastors expect that one of the students will speak. This ended up falling on me as everyone kind of looked around and collectively pointed at me. This was the first time that I've spoken with an interpreter. So amazing! After church we went to the congregation member's houses to pray and bless their homes. We also stopped along the way to pray for sick neighbors. At one of these stops, as we were praying for the sick neighbor a lady from the congregation that was walking a praying with us manifested demonically quite violently right there in the dirt on the sick lady's back porch. We then were on the ride of a lifetime as we experienced deliverance Mozambican style. Interesting... The afternoon then ended as we got back to the church to eat lunch. As we entered the church we found the meal prepared and ready for us all laid out on the grass mats in the alter area. It was complete with glass dishes and silverware. There are very few times in my life that I have been as humbled and honored as this. To enter a disintegrating church maintained by people who all live in mud/bamboo houses, and receive these accommodations was inexpressible. I don't even know where they would have gotten glass plates. With everything to this point Tawnya and I are feeling so blessed. We are continuing to seek God on where we will go long term, but no worries, it will come. We are excited to share these things with you all as the Lord reveals them. There are many more things that we are looking forward to during the school. We have our bush bush outreach coming up in three weeks and then also our ten day bush bush outreach after graduation. There are already testimonies from the groups that have already gone on outreach of the blind seeing, hundreds being saved, and many being baptized. Please be praying for us as we continue to minister daily and prepare for our bush bush outreaches. Again, we love you all and miss you. I pray that Papa God continues to capture each of your hearts so that His kingdom increases in you all and is then poured out and increased in those around you. Be Blessed! Eric
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We have been without internet for several days, so I am going to catch you up on a few things.
When we arrived on the 28th like I said in my last blog we were put into the family housing compound which is a new area that they are constructing there are a few things that you need to know about construction in Africa. Nothing is ever actually finished, they dont clean up after them selves, things are not necessarily done properly, and they like to take breaks A LOT. So to add all that to an area where 33 people are sharing ONE kitchen with sparse water it has been quite interesting. Our family has had the luxury of our upstairs neighbors toilet not actually going out into the sewage but draining straight into our shower. The reason for this is they decided that the best way to do the plumbing is to just make all the pipes (drains, toilets etc.) share ONE pipe. After 12 Days of trying to get this issue fixed and an amazing Harvest School staff getting people here on time to fix it they started with raising the drain and re flooring the shower. Lets just say this is still not working (since all the pipes are connected). We have had the go ahead tonight to move into another room, we will so this in the next day or so (after the toilet is fixed and a few minor electrical issues) but this is such a blessing, not only because of the obvious, raw sewage, horrific smell (we were getting used to it.. I'M KIDDING) but mostly because we are all ready to take a shower. That's right 12 days with 1 shower, talk about getting accustomed to the African missions life quickly. Just a few things to share: You know how I said that Eric built me a wonderful shelf well he also built me a canopy to hold my mosquito net above my bed (we were going to use duct tape but they took it from us in Johannesburg - WHICH IS NOT LEGAL - but I guess he really wanted it and we didnt know any better) any way back to my fantastic furniture creations, they are super useful but also quite the experience. We kept finding these interesting beetle like things in our bed (dont work MOST of there were dead) Termites, yes every night when i climb into bed i remove a good 10-12 dead termites from my bed sheets, it sounds nasty but really not a big deal since the canopy is so useful. The Kids are adjusting quite well still, we have kinda gotten them on a semi schedule, the days here are VERY full and they have been troopers. We have what they call color groups I think that I mentioned that in my last blog, anyway we went out into the village with our color group the other day and had the privilege of going to one of the bible students houses and we met his mother, brother and baby sister. We were able to pray for her and over there house and family, after that we found a woman that way cutting potatoes for dinner and asked if we could pray for her, she said that she was of another faith but asked if we could just pray a blessing over her home, she lived there withe her children and mother. It was so neat to be able to go into the homes of people and love on them. Mama Heidi and Papa Roland Flew in yesterday so Heidi spoke today in class, it was a testimony that we have already heard but testimonies are always so good to hear. We get our practical missions assignments- these are things that we do once a week (mostly Fridays or sometimes twice a week around the base or community, basically there were about 60 different things to choose from and you pick your top 4 choices and then they pick what you get. I signed up for 2 different administrative/personal assistant spots and arts and crafts with the mamas to sell so they can make money for their families. Eric signed up for jail ministries roofing (for widows in need) hospital visits and some other disciple ship things. It has been a challenge with the language barrier because it is hard to minister f you cant even get past saying hello, but I have found that even simply saying hello and how are you to people (in their language) they will smile and say another word to continue the conversation but I just say I dont know and they laugh. It is hard because some people speak Portuguese and some Makua and some both so i always say hello and how are you in Makua and good day and good bye in Portuguese I WILL LEARN THIS. I really could write forever but I think this post if long enough. If you have questions please post them and I will answer what I can. We Love you all and thanks you for your support. The Weavers Eric, Tawnya, Lincoln & Haley After 3 drays of travel we finally made it to Pemba, The Kids did fantastic, we napped on the airport floor in New York for a few hours before we boarded for South Africa, Lincoln and Haley did wonderful on all the plane rides and are adjusting well so far. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and had an orientation and tour of the base, they are doing construction in the family housing area since it is new as of this last school in June, We have a bunk bed in our room and a full bed, we are having problems with the septic in our room so that has been challenging with showers. The power has gone out a handful of times. It has been interesting because we wake up anywhere between 5:30 to 6:30AM - the time goes so SLOW we feel like it is noon and it will be 8:30AM. We are still trying to get the kids on a schedule t is very hard with everything we have to do. There are 8 families so far and one more is coming in the next few days. They have set up an area for the families to live in which is nice for the kids, There are 15 kids in our living area and everyone seems to get along really good they are all near the same ages. We started classes today, basically we were assigned to color groups, in these groups we do our bush out reaches and different events with it is intermixed with some of the Mozambican bible school students (this is a program for men that last 3 years training them up to become pastors in the local bush areas they are from) Town is one of the most chaotic things i have ever experienced, between crazy drivers (cars have the right away) tons of people, and not knowing the language it is a 3 hour trip for fruit or anything. We are kind of picking up on the language but not really, enough to be polite and say hello and thank you. There are hundreds of children and they just wander with their little brother of sisters on their backs wrapped in capulanas, I (Tawnya) was walking back from one of the areas on base that is open to the public and they were feeding some of the local village kids and on the way back up to their village there was a young girl about 8 year sold that was carrying little boy who was about 2 year sold and he was puking sick and she was trying her hardest not make a mess every where, so i stopped and gave him some water and cleaned her hands and his hands. It was heart wrenching to see. I will post some photos of our adventures so far and keep looking I will update as soon as I can. LOVE YOU ALL!!! The Weavers Oh yea.. we have NO shelving or dressers or anything in our room so my fantastic husband made me this... |
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