Greetings to all of our friends and family! I hope that your Thanksgiving is full of family, thankfulness, memories, various types of meat, green bean casserole, at least nine varieties of pies, some ice cream and whipped cream to top it all off. I give you all permission to eat an extra piece of pie on our behalf, and in our place, as you think of us. We love you all and miss you, especially as we're coming into the holiday season. Just want to give you all some updates on some of the things that we have been apart of and what God has been doing through them. One of the opportunities that I have here is to be able to go into the hospital and pray for people. One day we were ministering in the maternity wing. There were three women receiving care in the room that we went into. Always, when you go into the hospital, the family of the patient is there with them. So we spent over an hour just in that one room. Many of the ladies in our group built great relations with the patients and families and lead two of the ladies to the Lord. Right before we left I asked the husband and friend of one of the patients if they had any pain in their bodies. Both did. We prayed for them and both of them were healed. So they just heard of Jesus for the first time, the wife accepted Jesus and then the men with her were healed! Yay Jesus! So after we prayed we had to rush to get out of the hospital because visitation was over. We walked a long ways to the bus and right as we were about to get on the bus there was the two men that had been healed. The had chased us out of the hospital. These men were so touch by God that they wanted us to pray for a family member of theirs, in which case we did and they were healed too! The hope and excitement on these men's faces were priceless. The next week Tawnya was able to go with me and we chose to go and pray for the people in the broken bones wing. There were many amazing individual testimonies, but to sum up the whole experience, we prayed for 8-10 people and every one of them testified of all of the pain leaving or a good portion of relief. There was not one person that didn't have a significant degree of healing. How cool! Thank you Beautiful King! And, finally, drum roll please........ Our bush bush outreach was this last weekend! What an experience! This is where we go to a remote village and stay for a couple days and evangelize. This had it's highs and lows for us. We learned a lot just in the realm of how to function with our kids in the bush. So between struggling with the thousands of ravenous man eating ants to see who would come out on the top of the food chain, or the hundreds of village children and mamas that won't give our kids room to breathe, or the large garbage pit full of the man eating ants that Lincoln accidentally became intimate with while walking around in the dark, or the over abundance of abnormally fast cockroaches that made for exciting nighttime latrine visits, and sleeping four people in a two man tent with all of our gear also occupying space within the tent, I do believe that we have learned a few things that may help us coupe on our ten day bush outreach that is coming up in two weeks. Now, with all of that being stated and out of the way, on to the things that actually matter! Hundreds were saved and many were healed! Yes! God is so good! Now what exactly did that look like? We roll into a village and the main attraction is centered around showing “The Jesus Film.” All of the ministry is done in the dark under lights, with a screen set up on the side of the truck and a projector. This display attracts hundreds of people. It's common to have 300-500 village people at these outreaches. The first night was very crazy. We “white folk” are just kind of tag alongs for these outreaches. Iris has teams of people made up of the Mozambicans that head these up and do them every weekend. So, they know what's going on and what they're doing, and we don't. Haha! They also don't explain much, and we don't understand the language, so we're usually pretty lost... It's a holy chaos. The Mozambican culture is quite aggressive and boisterous, especially in how they minister. So with this combination it makes for an interesting experience. So, the first night I felt like I was always about five steps behind. Even during the prayer time at the end I had no idea what we were doing. I didn't know if we were just blessing people, praying for them as they were getting saved, or praying for the sick. They would just shove us in front of people and expect us to pray. I had no interpreter that night either. What a ride! Unfortunately because of the aggression of the people toward the kids and their exhaustion from the day, Tawnya thought it best to stay back at the tent with the kids and wasn't able to be at the outreach. The next morning some of the people wanted to be baptized so we all loaded up in the trucks and went to the river. The river was actually an estuary where the river flows into the ocean. It was so beautiful and such and amazing experience. It was one of those experiences where I found myself wanting to pinch myself. Here we are on a breath taking beach on the Indian Ocean in Africa seeing people being changed for eternity. So we waded out in the water and baptized. That evening the team received permission from the neighboring village to do the Jesus film. I felt a little more confident being that at least I had some idea of what was going on. This night, though, before the film was shown, we were going to do a drama that our group had prepared, there would be some preaching from a Mozambican pastor, and then they would show the film. We did our skit on the prodigal son. I was the one that narrated the story as the others acted it out. At the end, the plan was, I would give a short description of the meaning of the skit and how it can help us understand God. But, when we finished the skit, our group leader told me that the pastor wasn't around and then asked if I could preach. “Yes, of course!” When I was done preaching a simple gospel message it was time for the people's response. I didn't even know if it was the right time for this because we hadn't even shown the film yet. But, I felt that the message was received and the people were ready. I also didn't know if it was my place to lead them in prayer and decision. I asked if one of the Mozambicans should come and do it or if it was alright if I did. They gave me permission, and I stood witness as hands went in the air all over the crowd. There is no way to even know how many, but I would estimate that nearly 100 people responded to the salvation call. Wow God! I'm undone by the whole situation. They then watched the Jesus Film and after the movie we again prayed for the people. I was smart this time though and got an interpreter. Wow, what a difference that makes! Throughout the rest of the evening we saw many miracles. There were a couple deaf ears opened and bodies restored. Praise you God for all you are doing here and at home. I know that we are such a small part. Again, be blessed this Thanksgiving. We stand in great thankfulness for all of you and the support and love that you all extend to our family.
Be Blessed, Eric, Tawnya, Lincoln, & Haley P.S. For all of you that are greatly concerned for our health and well being, I just wanted to clearify that the ants aren't actually man eating ants. That was a slight stretch. But they are insanely mean and don't understand their place in the food chain.
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Hello everyone, It has been a while since we have written an update, sorry. Things are truly amazing here and there are so many things that I wish I could tell you, but it is so hard to write it. Last time that we posted a blog, Eric wrote about the village immersion that we had with one of the pastors, we did this immersion as a family but I (Tawnya) had the privilege of doing an optional immersion in the village with one of the mamas. Me and another girl went into the village around 7am on a Friday morning with a mama and went to her house and stayed with her for hours just being a part of her everyday life here in Pemba. We got to her house and met her family, she had 3 daughters and one son, and we sat on a grass mat in her yard and played with the village kids for a while, then we went into the market and bought some vegetables for lunch and all the Mozambicans in the market thought it was funny us white girls buying greens to make Matapa (a Mozambican Dish), she taught us how to prepare the meal and we cooked it over her charcoal fire pit, carried water in buckets on our heads and just had a great time with her and her family and neighbors. Even though we didn't speak the same language and we couldn't talk it was so much fun and such an honor to be a part of their life. We have been praying for rain here because the water situation is very bad, the well is almost always dry and it is so expensive to ship water in to the base since most of Pemba is in the same situation it has to come from surrounding villages. It isn't that we pray and ask for rain so that we can shower ( which is nice ) or so we can wash our dishes but we ask for rain because this is the only drinking water that the village has and with out the water no one can cook or drink so it is very important that it rains here.
Last Sunday our family went into the village up above us with 2 Mozambican boys that could interpret for us and bought some food at the market so that we could pray for and bless people in the village, the first house that we went to the mama was standing outside of a fairly nice house and we asked her if she needed prayer and she said that she wanted to bring us to another place to pray, right across the street was a house that at one point was really nice but now the walls were demolished and the windows were ripped apart, as we entered I thought this can't be where she lives this is awful and how could someone live here she brought us back into one of the rooms and in the back corner was a man in his mid 20's laying on the floor on a grass mat with some water in a bucket and a few sheets to keep him covered, she began to tell us that this was her son and that they all used to live in the house together but he started to go crazy and began ripping the walls apart in his fits and they had to move out but left him there because he was out of his mind, the man knew that it was demonic and he wished he could have a better life but he didn't know how to cope with things without drinking. We were able to pray with him and share Jesus with him and gave him and his mother food. It is things like this that make our hearts ache for Mozambique, and the people here. It really is amazing how God shows up when you need Him and how even with the language barrier you can bless and honor people. We are having such a great time just being among the people and the culture here, 98% of the people that you talk with are open to hearing about Jesus and receiving prayer, even if they are of another faith they are so happy for you to pray and bless them and their homes. School ends in just over 2 weeks and then we have our 10 day Bush Bush outreach and Christmas. We will be home before we know it. We went on a Bush outreach this weekend and we are so excited to share with you the things that God did out in the village, we will blog again in a few days and post photos. We love you and Miss you all Eric, Tawnya Lincoln, Haley |
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