I'm going!!!

Here it is everyone! The news you’ve been waiting for! …

I really am going to Pemba! And Im leaving Nashville June 21^st, and after doing some exciting things with my family en route to Pemba, I will arrive to Pemba between July 7^th and 10^th (depending on flights)!!

I will be in Pemba 6 months continuing to work with the amazing and beautiful Makua women, the widows and single mothers teaching Jewelry-making and discipling. I am hoping to begin work with other types of Jewelry-making as well, using the natural resources that the beaches offer us as well as the trees! 

I want to truly thank each of you for waiting patiently with me and giving me the freedom to be obedient to the Lord by waiting in this time. Thank you for your prayers, support and all that you’ve done for me. And most importantly, thank you for allowing your heart to be caught by what God’s putting on mine; Thank you for being interested in what God is using me for, and for letting your heart break with me over these women who so need to know God’s love and learn that He is their Father.

My plan for these two or so months before returning to the amazing Pemba, are to continue to allow God to work in and prepare me for ministry, as well as continue to learn Jewelry-making techniques (I just found a school in Nashville that teaches bead-weaving, wire-wrapping and bead-stringing! I’m going to take as many of these courses as I can afford and have time for!!!!) I am continuing to try and learn how to manipulate coconut shells and make jewelry with them (if you know of any good resources or anyone who makes coconut shell jewelry, please let me know!). I have begun to start learning Makua, the local dialect that isn’t a written language without even a Bible completely translated. I’m learnining it with the help of an amazing man from the Pemba area who actually speaks english and has moved to the U.S.; our classes are over Skype, and I am having the TIME OF MY LIFE learning it!!! I am also practicing Portuguese, so I’m technically learning two languages! HA!

I n this time, I feel it’s really important to HAVE FUN with my friends, like YOU! So, let me know if you’d like to get together in this time when I’m home!

Financially, I am very close to my original goal! I was estimating that I need about 600 or 700 dollars a month for food and hospitality (I love sharing meals with my friends that don’t have much food and rarely have meat or treats), communication with family (internet and phone), communication with Iris co-workers (a huge necessity), and transportation around the city (I’m planning on getting a bike to be able to travel more efficiently).  I am at this point going to have about 550 a month including supporters that I have and what I have raised and saved.  It would be really helpful to have closer to 600 or 700 a month, but  I am SO THANKFUL for the amount that I’ve saved , raised and am receiving !!!

Prayer points:

-          Please pray that I can find ways to be prepared for the teaching: I want to be able to tackle the coconut Jewelry-making, but I really don’t know the best ways to make many pieces efficiently, and don’t know many people or resources that teach how to make Coconut Jewelry-making. I also feel that my experience with metals, isn’t as helpful as beading and wire experience would be, so please pray I will learn all that I need to in order to help the ladies learn good techniques.

-          Please pray for strengthening of my abilities to lead and disciple: I really want to disciple the women well. Please pray that God will give me ideas of things that they will be able to relate to that also helps them to mature and grow in their relationship with Jesus.

-          Please pray that God will continue healing and growth in me: I had an amazing time in Pemba last year, but it was difficult in many ways. I realized many areas of undealt with hurt and insecurities in me that hindered me freely walking into the destiny and person God has planned for me to have and be. Please pray that God continues to use this time to continue that work in me and heal wounds and reveal His truth about who I am in Him! One area that I specifically see His finger on is where I find strength and comfort; I want God to be my one and only source, and I see myself run to things like food or entertainment instead of Him often. That isn’t what I want, and especially doesn’t help on the mission field. I really want breakthrough with this!!

-          Finally, direction: I feel myself wondering about the long-term direction of my life, and though God has given many amazing specific outlines for long-term, such as: “the creativity inside of you is the same creativity that God used in creating the earth”,  I’m going to have involvement in “Arts and fashion industry; this is tied to releasing others from bondage”, “you are able to see the unloved, forgotten and broken, and love them well”, “you are God’s gypsy. You’re to be travelling all over the world, possessions will never hold you back, and your people group is without number”.  Yet, my practical brain is wondering about whether I need more schooling in Jewelry making, and/or education. And I’m also wondering about what’s next after this 6 months. I know that God has an amazing plan, and as I’m obedient, He will continue to have me exactly in the right place at the right time as He has been, but I also want to make wise decisions. I see myself teaching Jewelry-making all over the world and at different Iris bases, and see Pemba as a training ground for that, but I don’t know the practicals!

-          Thank you all, again - Love you!

If you feel God prompting you to give monthly or one time you can give here:
give tax-deductible online: https://miraculouslove.com/tetra/ (sorry the Bio needs an update!)
 or mail to this address (Miraculous love ministries in the memo line and indicate for Tetra):
P.O. Box 1543
Franklin, TN 37064

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My sister Lauren is going to the Harvest School!!

Lauren Brown, my beautiful friend with a beautiful heart is going to Pemba!

Huts in Mozambique close to Pemba area

Hello dear friends and loved ones!

I wanted to share with you that one of my amazing friends, or spiritual sister/daughter, Lauren Brown, is going to Pemba for the Harvest School this summer!!!! She and I have walked through a lot together. I met her last year on a choir trip in Europe, and we were drawn to eachother by Missions. I also thank the Lord that He used me as an example to her of something that she was really desiring: the Holy Spirit and an intimacy with Jesus that brings freedom and joy! She told me that she could see that there was something different in me, that there was a joy that I didn't seem to strive for. I was able to tell her that those deep yearnings in her heart for a closer and more REAL relattionship with God exists and was made for her as part of our inheritence (Ephesians 1:14)!! We talked about the relation to all of this and Missions, and I got to share with her that God has so shown me that it's through intimate and close relationship with Him that we are able to love others or do anything of the adventurous Missions things that should be really difficult in the natural. 

God has been giving her those desires of her heart, and then some! Including sending her to Mozambique! He has opened the doors in a big way, and I’m so excited for her! and we have been so excited to see the ways God has been preparing her for such an amazing time and experience that God prepared just for her!!

Would you join me in being excited with her and being a supportive family for her through this journey of getting to Pemba!  I know how difficult it is to stand in faith going through the process of getting there, with the hurdles of getting a visa, shots, preparing for lifestyle change of being in Africa etc.

She has some deadlines for payments that I'd love you to join me in believing for. She has one TODAY for buying her plane tickets and another deadline coming  up in about 2 weeks for her tuition payment. Please pray with me for the money to come in!

Please pray this in with us:

-$400 by the end of today!!

- Around $3000 more over the next couple of weeks!

Here is some of her testimony and also sharing a bit of why she is going to the Harvest school. It also has her contact information, and you can find her on Facebook if you'd like to follow her on her journey to get there! More than anything, I feel I'd like to offer her some friendships with people that I know PRAY! And I believe many of you that read my blog will do so! So will you join me in praising the Lord for getting Lauren to Pemba and changing her entire paradigm!

Here are some of Lauren's words:

  Last summer, I accepted freedom in Christ for the first time, and this is an excerpt from that night’s journal entry:

“Yahweh has adorned my head with jewels of adoration!  After a lifetime of feeling completely inadequate, I finally feel enabled.  Equipped.  Empowered.   To be humble is not to be ashamed. To be humble is not to be timid.  To be humble is to bow.  It is to weep. It is to yearn for something more.  It is the realization of something beyond myself.  It is sweet liberation! From mountains to mountains I will run.  Over rough terrain, I will run!”

            The moment I decided to let go of myself and grab hold of God, everything changed.  Before Jesus ascended into heaven in Acts 1:8, He told His disciples, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”   My life has been turned inside out by the power of God within me!

            The Lord recently led me to apply for Heidi Baker’s Harvest School of Ministry, so I did.  This school provides 10 weeks of in-depth missionary training while serving the people of Pemba, a city in Mozambique, Africa.   Due to the small amount of housing available at this mission base, only 350 out of 5,000 applicants were accepted.  The Lord has opened this door wide, and I am ready to run with arms wide open!  This is the mission of Harvest School of Missions:

“Called to LOVE.  It costs everything.  It’s passion and compassion.  Extravagant

love that gives without expecting back.  A laid down life.  A love that looks like something practical.  It is a huge vision that is changing the world person by

person and nation by nation.” 

I am honored to proclaim the healing power of Christ to a hurting world.  There is hope, and I am excited for the opportunity to be sharpened, equipped, encouraged, humbled, and taught.  In the name of Jesus, I will run!

I am thankful for the light you have been in my life, and it is my hope that you might ask the Lord how you can support me in this season.  The cost of this trip is $7,000, and the value of your prayer is priceless.  I pray that you will be filled with joy and peace that can only be found in Christ!

Love,

Contact Information:         Lauren Brown                                   Email:  lmbrown@mail.trevecca.edu

333 Murfreesboro Pike                    Cell:  731-394-3878

TNU Box 735

Nashville, Tennessee 37210