Signing Off For Now!

This is officially the last blog of my Fall/Winter '07 Mozambique journey! Thank you so much to all of you faithful readers and supporters - because of my slow internet connection, I had never actually been able to see the blog and read the comments until I returned home in December & it was such a blessing to see words of encouragement from all of you!

I returned safely home to the U.S. shortly before Christmas (and was more than a little upset to see snow on the ground!). Just one week before leaving Mozambique, however, I had a tiny bit of a malaria scare. On my last Saturday night I went to bed feeling a little achy in my joints and a bit nauseated. I couldn't sleep much in the night, and when I woke up early in the morning my voice was gone, my throat swollen, and my whole body very feverish. I had a pretty high fever and because 6 other missionary students had malaria at that time, my two roommates who are nurses were pretty sure I had come down with it also. One of my housemates was elected to take me into town to get the malaria test. While she was hailing a taxi and I was sitting outside base however, three of the village boys I had become friends with (especially in the final weeks) came over to talk to me asking why we were going to town because church would be starting soon. I told them that I was sick and might have malaria so they must pray hard for me. The next thing I knew, there were 6 little boys all placing their hands on my and crying out loud to God for me all at the same time (Mozambican prayers can kind of sound like mass chaos sometimes to me!). The bits of Portuguese I could hear over and over were "heal her Jesus!" I kinda laughed inside and said "okay God - I RECEIVE!" and closed my eyes. They were done in a few minutes, I thanked the boys, and got into the taxi. After the test was done, we had to wait another for the results, but by the time we were heading back to base my body was starting to feel better. By noon, my spirit was feeling much more alive, I was starting to feel convinced there was no malaria, and we got the call that the tests had come out negative. It was a big "HALLELUJAH" moment for my whole house! I was able to lie down and sleep for the whole afternoon and by the time I woke up, my fever had completely broken. However, when I fell asleep that afternoon I had a pretty encouraging dream. I dreamed basically, that the whole morning was in reply. I dreamed my roommates were all taking my temperature, I was walking out to the taxi, and then the little boys were in front of me again asking where I was going. In the dream, they all got their friends, placed their hands on me and started to pray, and this time in the dream, right after I closed my eyes and said "okay God - I receive", I opened them back up again. And as I looked around me, in between each little boy there was an angel also extending their hands out to touch my body, and I felt that in my dream, that's when God was saying "you got healed!"

So no malaria...and no sickness at all! Praise Jesus for the body of Christ! I just love it that He says "you do not have, because you do not ask" and He loves it when we stop to "ask of Him" like Psalm 2; he hears our prayers and answers us! Thank you all for crying out to Him for me! Continually He kept encouraging me with the words of Psalm 91: Valerie, you will only "see with your eyes" the destruction around you but it will "not come near your tent". I would see sickness and poor sanitation around me and often think, “But why God, is none of it touching me?!” He told me that there was an invisible shield around me and it was called “the prayers of the saints”. He made it very clear to me that more people praying for me than what I had known and that it was those prayers that not only protected me from dangers I was unaware of, but also woke me up at 5am with strength and energy I had never known to start each new day. I have never before experienced this much power of prayer, sustaining my spirit and physical body with something that I knew had to be supernatural. Thank you because your prayers were heard and even multiplied.

LESSONS

As I’ve been back for several weeks now, I’ve been able to share a few things that my time in Mozambique taught me. A few Portuguese phrases…how to dance (or how to lose 5 pounds every time you worship!)…how to cook eggplant (my family didn’t like that too much), but most of all my time in Mozambique has taught me to get on my face, get real before the Lord, and ask Him to reveal to me what it truly means to be a disciple of Christ. To be a disciple of Jesus – does it just mean to intellectually consent to a certain doctrine of faith and spend the rest of one’s life checking a box that says “I am a Christian” just like “I am a Democrat or Republican?” What does it mean to follow Him – does it mean that a person goes to church on the weekends – sings some songs, gets a sermon, and gives a tithe – or reads their Bible for 15 minutes every day? But what if there is no church around, there is no tithe to give, one is too poor to own a Bible or not educated enough to be able to read one? What does a disciple of Jesus Christ look like?

As we all know so well, Jesus said, "If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”[1] One of the words that struck me to the core every time any of my Mozambican friends would say it was the word “everything.” I’ll never forget the first time my friend Egeus explained to me that when the people in the “bush-bush” came forward to make a decision to become Christ’s disciple, “they know,” he told me, “that it means they have to give up everything.” Everything. Every time I would hear one of them say that word it would literally make my spine tingle as I look at what they’ve given up for the sake of the gospel. Then I look at myself and can’t help but wonder, have I really given Him everything?

One of my most unforgettable moments in Mozambique was on my last one-night outreach in December, about one week before I left. In a local village my team had set up the Jesus film and after one of the pastors preached a message, people came forward for prayer for salvation and healing as would usually take place. One woman in particular caught my eye who had come forward with a baby boy in her arms. I soon found out that she was asking for prayers for her boy – she wanted him to live long and not die as others had.[2] As we started to pray for the boy, I noticed a bracelet that looked like a charm/amulet that might have come from a witch doctor. Immediately I felt the Lord telling me that she was a scared mother who wanted her boy to live and was trying to get all of her bases covered – assurance and protection from the witch doctor and prayers from us, but God was saying, “you can’t have both, you can’t have both.” I stopped the prayer, and we pointed to the charm and asked where it had come from. Since it had come from the witch doctor, I told her that we couldn’t continue praying for the baby unless we cut off the bracelet. Even if we kept praying, I told her, if she continued to go to the witch doctor it would do her no good, for we can’t have one hand holding onto God with the other hand in the world. After quite some time of praying in our spirits and speaking to the woman, I saw a change in her expression – it seemed like an expression of understanding. As she quietly ripped the bracelet off, we resumed praying for blessings and protection over that little boy and she later committed to never visit the witch doctor again.

As I was riding back to the compound that night I started crying because I felt the Spirit pointing out to me, just as Jesus had pointed out the woman who only gave two coins in the temple, that I had just witnessed something really significant. She gets it, I thought, and now, I get it. Dear woman, I thought, although it may appear to a Westerner like me to be a no-brainer and an easy decision – don’t go to a witchdoctor! – I understand. I understand that that is your health insurance. I understand that if sickness breaks out in your village and in your little boy, that may appear to be your only means of hope. I understand that tonight you just rejected that and said, “It’s Jesus or NOTHING. If Jesus doesn’t heal this boy, no one will because I will not depend on Jesus with one hand and the world with another.”

This precious woman understood that you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of the world - “you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.” She understood that to walk into one kingdom, she had to completely leave the other one. She grasped the fullness of Paul’s words, “what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? What fellowship has light and with darkness?” We know that even the slightest bit of “friendship” world the world, liking what it likes or looking, acting, talking like it does, is “hatred toward God.” Christ does not go “strolling with the Devil”, as the Message puts it. But why the command to forsake all? Because God wants us to be completely his. He extends the invitation for anyone to walk into something great:

“I’ll live in them, move into them; I’ll be their God and they’ll be my people. So leave
the corruption and compromise; leave it for good,” says God. “Don’t link up with those
who will pollute you. I want you all for myself. I’ll be a Father to you; you’ll be sons and
daughters to me. [1]”

I believe that that woman (and her baby boy!) became a true disciple of Christ that night and a son and daughter of the living God. I pray that we would learn to follow her footsteps. To be willing to stand out, to be completely and utterly different like Jesus was. To walk in this world as an “alien and stranger”, (which as I was reminded as white person in Mozambique, is not always fun) and so to have the saltiness that can change the world because the world is so desperate, not for another neighbor or co-worker who is living out the American dream & occasionally does nice things and goes to church, someone who only loves those who loves them or is kind to only those whom are kind back, but has TRUE Mt. 5-7 salt! Someone who is willing to be different, because their GOD is different!


NOW WHAT?

Many of you have been asking what the next step is for me, and I have been asking the same of Jesus! I would ask you to keep me in your prayers, that I would continue to learn what it means to be a disciple and have the strength to follow through with whatever His plans are for my life. For the time being, I’ll be living in Kansas City near a place called The International House of Prayer and will be praying about going back to Mozambique.

You all mean so very much to me and I only pray that as you have “given” – support, time, prayers, finances, and most of all love to me – it will be given back to you, “and even more”! May 2008 be filled with many blessings from the Lord for you! And once again “muito, muito obrigada” (thank you very, very much) for your “love and partnership in the gospel” and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (Mozambican style...a little late!)

[1] 1 Cor. 10; 2 Cor. 6 (The Message)

[1] Luke 9:23
[2] The infant mortality rate in Mozambique is slightly over 10% (10% of all babies born die before their first birthday for lack of nourishment)