Mozy preparations!!

Hey everyone!

I want to let you all know how Mozambique preparations are coming:

I leave in two weeks and 2 days!!! WOW! = pretty surreal!

This last week has felt a bit like the calm before the storm. I have been trying to get things done as well as possible, but there are many things that I mostly have to wait and pray for (like my visa to come back without any problems). I have been working my two jobs, trying to learn Portuguese, being sure to spend time with God every day, being sure to get a good deal of exercise (I want to be in the best shape I can for chasing little cute children, and dancing all day and night in the hot hot weather with the church there!!), getting presents ready for the women and children that Im friends with there (I’m trying to draw pictures of people and give them to them), get moved out of my house, see friends here before im gone , and plan a fundraiser/goodbye Tetra evening. Everything is going well! I just need to keep trusting that the Lord has control over every little situation! I’m soo thankful for this time of trusting the Lord, and I’m sooo thankful for this opportunity to GO! YAY!!!

Here are some prayer needs:

-Visa needs to get back to me before I leave May 8^th.

- There are so many small things I need to do that it’s hard to wrap my mind around them!!

- I want to be ready to serve, and I want God to do everything He needs to do in me to prepare me before I go.

- Finances – I need to trust Jehovah Jirah, provider

I need to share praise reports, though!!! I have had a few amazing gifts given to me at times when I completely didn’t expect them!!! At church this last week I was telling how excited I am to go and my pastor asked how much I need in front of the whole group. People I didn’t know came up to me afterwards and gave so selflessly to me. it was so humbling and amazing. I still feel I have to learn how much we need each other as a body of Christ; too often I want to do everything on my own. Thank you lord for giving us these reminders of how we need our community of brothers and sisters. I feel that I am the last person that deserves gifts like this, but that again is a reminder to me of how much God thinks I deserve good gifts even though I actually don’t deserve them.

I wanted to share with you all a list of things that I am going to try to bring with me to Mozambique. These are all presents for either the kids, widows, poor, Bible students , or they are supplies for our class:

Supplies/needs

Girls: Hair clips, ties, earrings, bracelettes, lipgloss, NAILPOLISH, notebooks, diaries

Boys: Balls, flashlights

Ladies jewelry :

Wire ( brass, silver, copper), beads all kinds (wooden are nice), earring holders, hemp, waxed linen, pliers, jewelers wire cutters (most important things I need are the tools – cutters and pliers)

Bible school students:

Reading glasses, Portuguese dictionaries, Portuguese bibles, notebooks

Jump drives

- This is all I have time for, but there is more to come!!

Tetra

The Voice of My Shepard I Will Follow

“Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name…he says: ‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’..I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages, saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out’, to those who are in darkness, ‘Appear’…they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them. And I will make all my mountains a road, and my highways shall be raised up.” Isaiah 49:1 and 6 8-11

The gift of going to Pemba, Mozambique has been given to me.

The scripture up top was one that God specifically told me to read the day that I found out that I wasn’t going to be staffing the school in Pemba (1 ½ months ago) and the day after I found out I actually am going to Pemba (this week). Both times it served as an amazing reminder of who He is calling me to be: “A light to the nations!!” …He knows my name, and He wants to use me to call prisoners out of their bondage or those in the dark into the light. Wow what an amazing reminder; He is so faithful!! It’s amazing how the context of the readings change a bit with both times He put the scripture on my heart ; the first time was to comfort and remind me of my calling, the second as I kind of “I told you so” and that He always fulfills His promises !

It seems that our lives as lovers of Jesus can many times just be a series of scenarios in which God reminds us of things we are supposed to already know or that He has proved to us on repeated occasions! This has been an awesome season of reminders for me. And now I am reminding myself of His faithfulness to get me to Pemba! Ha! I know He can do it, and I have direct proof in that He did it for me last year. This time will be a bit harder time-wise, since I leave in less than a month! Yay! I’m looking at the amount of time compared to the amount of things I need to do, and it is going to be miraculous, for sure, but God is really good at those. J Im totally excited to be in one of these places; I love it when I know I can’t do things on my own and I have to be completely reliant on God. These are some of the best times I’ve had in life.

-So, what do I need to do? I need to get a plane ticket first ( I need to buy it ASAP, so that I can do everything esle! :)

-Applying for a Visa, filling out the letter of invitation (which is time sensitive - please PRAY for no hitches!!) , getting shots, packing/moving my things a bit, and preparing for the Jewelry making classes as well as finding /making gifts for my friends there!

-I am also trying to learn as much Portuguese as I can!!!

-I also am planning an outreach to the Tusculum area here in Nashville which will be the last Saturday of April (I’m soo excited about it!!!) with the Nepalese and Burmese people in that area. This will take a little bit of work, but mostly it will just be a great time. (Everyone is invited!!! Let me know if you’re interested in being a part – its April 30^th and we will be having a potluck, playing games with kids, and playing live music. It’s basically just a hang out time with the people there! It’s going to be wonderful).

I’m excited to see God carry me through, and I’ll love sharing the stories to you all afterwards of how He continues to be faithful always always always!

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A little bit about what I’ll be doing!!!:

-I will be in Pemba, Mozambique for 3 months (Ill be leaving from a trip with my father and sisters that runs from May 8^th – 28^th)! I will be working with a woman named Nathalia who is from Colombia and is starting a class for widows on Micro-business Jewelry making as a discipleship program! Many of the widows there have children and a lack of work options. Teaching them a trade is an amazing way for them to start a small business and support themselves.

-I spoke with Nathalia through Skype video chat, and she is so amazing, has such a beautiful heart, and I’m so excited to work with her!! She was telling me that she is bringing different jewelry making supplies and beads from Argentina (Wow , what a cool connection for me! My mom lives in Argentina and I have wanted to study jewelry making there in the past!). Looks like she has a lot of experience with business and she and Heidi Baker are coming up with an idea to really help widows support themselves there. (I can’t believe how amazing this opportunity is for me! Thank you, Jesus!!)The name of the business is "Iris Arts", and all of the items will be made by the widows, and we will eventually be selling them online! I am going to be doing a lot of creative work and helping to come up with designs looks like. :) WOOO!!! This is what I'm made to do!!!!

-We will also be discipling and making friends with the widows. I looks like there are at least 200 ladies taht are wanting to be involved; so we will probably having classes daily. I'm going to try and stuff my bags with jewelry-making supplies!

The women there are some of my favorite people that I met while living there. If you have read any of my other posts, you’ll know that my best friends were the ladies that worked in the kitchen there on the base; they were teaching me the local dialect, and we would joke around and have a wonderful time together. A few of them are widows, and I’m hoping they will be in the class with me!!!

An amazing thing to look back on now is to remember how my friend, Lurdish, told me that she would be praying that I come back there as a Missionary!! Ha! At the time, I thought, “I will definitely come back, but it will probably be only for visits or to staff the Harvest Mission school.” Being a Missionary on that base is a little bit difficult, because there aren’t usually many openings, and it’s very popular as that is where the Harvest Schools are, and where Heidi and Rolland live. Also, I just had no idea what I’d be doing in the future, though I knew/know that I have a heart for Asia. But I so love Mozambique, and the people that I met there, and this is one of the most exciting opportunities of my life! I love that God and Lurdish had bigger plans for me than I could see. J And I can’t wait to go back and be with my friends like they so wanted me to do!!!!

-The lady to the left of me is Lurdish. She is a widow who works for Iris Ministries. She is such an amazing woman of God and I can't wait to see her!!!

I can’t tell you how much it means to me that there are people that want to know about these things that are so close to my heart, and to even be partnering with me Spiritually to bless the people that I care so much about overseas. I am so thankful for you, and I don’t really know how best to express that, but I very much hope you believe me!

I can only hope that my story is inspiring to you and reminds you of God’s faithfulness and of the fact that we should believe God when He says the we are important to Him and that He has called us even before we were born, and knows our name, and has very big plans to use our little lives. I can’t express to you how valuable we are in His eyes. I hope that it helps you as God is helping me SEE the people around me. This is my constant prayer: that He will open the eyes of our hearts and show us the way He sees His children (including the adult ones!).

I love the way that He has given me more roots here in this country over the last 6 months and opened my eyes more (though there is still a lot more opening to be done) to the needs of the body and the poor here. I thank you to those amazing friends that I have made at Grace Center and in California and Cincinnati and Philly and Charlotte and wherever else I have found amazing brothers and sisters in Christ; you have encouraged me greatly, and taught me a great deal about how to love my own culture. I take you with me on my little trips outta this country and look forward to partnering with you more in the future to rock our country as well.

...most likely going back to Mozambique!! (and teaching Crafts!)

Hello friends
I'm so sorry I haven't posted like I said I would. A lot has been happening that has made me sort have a continual pause button being pushed on what I feel like I should share. I have been really involved for the past month in plans for the future of my little life and what opportunities I should pursue. I have been sort of holding my breath waiting for responses from things I applied for off and on since mid-January.

-I want to share with you what God has been teaching me over these last few weeks. It's pretty awesome.The biggest thing that God has been doing in this season is reminding me that He is good regardless of what my situations look like, or how I feel. I should never believe that I am not going to be given the desires of my heart - God just has interesting timing when it comes to these things.
I applied to staff the Iris Ministries Harvest School that begins in June. What I would have been doing would have been to be a house mom for about ten of the students that come from all over the world, be in charge of one aspect of the school leadership (24 hour prayer week, worship teams, etc), lead a weekend outreach, and lead a week to 15 day outreach after that. I was so desiring to do this as it would stretch me in ways the I have been really desiring to be stretched: Leadership, personal ministry (to the students), and responsibility.

I focused on doing this and basically planned on it, though I wasn't sure if I would be. One thing that I was struggling with was the little nagging thought that maybe I wasn't ready to do this and that it wouldn't be God's timing, though it was the only thing that I wanted to do. I had been hearing God say many times that I am allowed to dream and hope for the desires of my heart, and this was a big dream of mine that I was barely letting myself hope for at times when I wasn't in the right head space. But then I would remember that God has good plans for me that are to prosper me and not harm me - His plans are always bigger and better than we think.

A month and a couple of days ago, I decided that I was going to spend a week praying and fasting. I canceled some of my responsibilities and spent time at my father's house and while I was there I found out that I was not accepted to be on staff for this Harvest School. I was taken aback very much at first. I was incredibly disappointed, and immediately felt a sense that my little worries had come true. I felt these lies creep in; "I am not ready for such responsibilities, and I'm not good enough". But luckily, I had already set all this time aside to be in God's presence, so He quickly set me back up on His lap and comforted me and reminded me of His goodness and His promises. I know very well that if there is an obvious "no" to something, then it's for my good, and God has good plans that will be better than "my" plans. So I just told the Lord, "Ok. Do what you want, and I will follow."
At the end of the email letting me know I wasn't going to be on staff, the leaders of the school, Pamela and Tony Maxwell, said to be expecting a call about other opportunities.

A week and a half later (God also has been working with me on patience and believing He is good when it looks strange) I got to talk with Pamela Maxwell. She told me of a couple of opportunities that I could possibly be a part of. One of those immediately stood out to me: She told me of a woman named Nathalia who is planning to start a Micro-business class/discipleship for the many amazing widows in PEMBA, Mozambique, which is the SAME location as the Harvest School, during the same time as the Harvest School, and I would be helping with teaching CRAFTS AND JEWELRY MAKING!!! Ahhh- wow!!!! Seems a little bit too good to be true, eh? She also mentioned to me the possibility of helping plan events in which the children of the students would spend time with Mozambican children!

-I remember after I hung up with Pamela I sort of stood stunned in my kitchen with, I'm sure a hilarious look on my face of puzzlement, complete excitement and the irony of the situation! If I did this, it would in fact be most of what I was wanting to be a part of if I staffed the school, in the same place, but with the added benefit of getting to use my skills of Jewelry Making and teaching!!! I kept saying, "NO WAY! NO WAY!" and laughing! "God, what are you up to??!" , I said out loud.
I went outside and sat on the sidewalk, just sort of taking in what was happening. I realized I needed to really and truly seek the Lord about the decision of whether or not to be a part of this. Part of me had thought that maybe the reason that I hadn't been accepted to the school, was because I needed to continue to be here in this place of refining and obedience (It has been a hard season for me here in Nashville in many ways - my desire was to be out of the country, but God had me here for this season for many reasons that I didn't understand until recently and He did some incredible thigns in this season that I am so thankful for).

Anyway, i realized that this was an important decision. The thing that I was most worried about not being in Nashville for was my friend, Shyanna. She is a girl that I have been mentoring for about 8 years, though I haven't always been able to be consistent while I've been out of the country or while she was in another state for part of a year. recently she was put into temporary foster care, and the foster mother lives about two blocks away from me!! It has been such a divinely put together situation. I have been able to see her more than i ever have in the past (about twice a week), and i hav ebeen able to take her to Grace Center with me! she has gotten really involved in the youth group, which is a miracle, because she has never wanted to be very involved in the churches that i have brought her to in the past. she also never cared about the worship music very much, but she now has requested that I make her "at least 20" different worship cds! i asked her if she could feel something change inside of her when she listened to worship music (she is now 12 and that is part of the reason why she can grasp these things more than she used to), and she said that, yes she could feel lighter and happier. Two weeks ago, she decided that she wanted Jesus to be in her heart, and we prayed together to invite Him. Woo!! This has been amazing!!
That week I kept thinking, "what if'" this and that in regard to Shyanna's situation, and was worrying about leaving. My friend Jack Beach reminded me of something: he said, what if's don't usually come from God, but from the enemy who wants us to worry." I think that's very true! Why would God want me to worry when He is perfectly capable of handling any situation?!

I set myelf a deadline for making the decision and went to Grace Center and got prayed for. I have some amazing prophetic words including this one: "I see you were recently in a situation that is like you were reaching for a tissue out of a tissue box, but it wasn't there. And it was an opportunity that you were looking forward to very much, but it wasn't there when you thought it would be. but the tissue has actually just fallen into the box, and you have to dig for it." Ha!!! Wow - such an accurate picture of this situation in which I wanted to go to the school, wasn't accepted, but was given the same situation/a better one! Wow! Also that same day, shyanna gave me her permission to go to Africa! Wow. she said, "You can go...I'll be ok". Wow! And she didn't even know that I was worried mostly about her. I take that as a confirmation. :)

So - Isn't God so faithful, and kind??? He wants to give us the desires of our hearts! I am going to Mozambique, I beleive! there are still some things to work out and fill out, but it is the direction that I'm heading!
I don't have a lot of time to get ready, but I believe this is what I'm going to do! It will definitely be a miracle being able to leave here in a MONTH AND A HALF! I have to apply for being a missionary there, apply for a Visa, get tickets, get shots, pack, move my things out of where I'm living - wow!

Tete or bust pt. 1

Alright!

- The last bit that I shared was about our last days of school/graduation. I’ll give you a few more tidbits about that and try to be brief (I’ll share more detailed stories after I catch up!!),

- Then I want to share about my incredible adventure of an outreach to Tete, Mozambique.

-The day before Graduation consisted of hearing Heidi speak and making us cry and want to live our lives with more purpose, fervor, and passion for Jesus (as she usually does). We also heard from Georgian Banhov who quickly became one of my new favorite people. He grew up in Communist Bulgaria, and is now one the most relaxed and happy people that I have ever encountered. Then we had a dance fest for about two hours in which I danced on the stage with all of the African dance leaders. PAUSE – I must explain something: In the worship services at the churches in Mozambique, you don’t have solely a Worship leader, there is also a team of people leading dances on the stage or front of the church. If this isn’t enough for me to fall in love with the culture, then I don’t know what is ( I LOVE TO DANCE!!!). So, if I had any timidity in dancing on stage with the people who REALLY know how to dance, it was completely gone by that point in replace of my LOVE for JESUS and extreme release into the Glorious Freedom found in his love. YES!! So I danced my little heart out and my little feet to blistering on the stone /concrete floor in the church.

- this was an amazing moment for me when I recieved the "stopping for the one" award - which basically just meant that I was recognized for simply living with a gift God gave me, which is love for many people.

-Graduation day (I covered the general things I did in the week and the day after graduation which was also the day before my outreach when I visited people all day and Phillippe’s family etc.). As to be expected, our Graduation was not a normal Graduation ceremony. We first were prayed for and prophecied over by all of the staff ( I have all of these written down, and I have so many amazing promises and big picture things revealed to me by the Father. I’d love to share some, and will share a few key ones soon). Wow, this was amazing. Of course, we were all in tears.

-Some of the no-longer-orphans danced for us before we left, and left us all bawling and thanking the Lord for the chance to interact with them and be blessed by them.

-Then we went to the kitchen with all of the Mozambicans (200 – ish) that were in bible school/pastor school for a chicken, cabbage, and
Fanta feast! You have no idea how special chicken, and cabbage, and soda is in that world – it’s a huge treat, if you can grasp that! Each house of students from my school (about 6 – 10 people per house) also made a dessert of sorts with the Mozambican ingredients to bring to this feast. My house made banana bread. I gave out a few small presents to my Mozambican brothers from my Color Group, and received two drawings from my brothers with scriptures on them and notes in Portuguese/broken English blessing me and telling me that they would miss me. Paper is hard to come by (believe me, it is also a special treat to have!!), so these special drawings/notes meant so much to me. I also received a small wooden, Chinese wall hanging from one of my closest friends in my color group. ** Such a strange gift, but, again, meant so much to me!!!

(If I haven’t clarified the Bible School/Color Group well, yet, then here is a better explanation: There were men from all over northern Mozambique there living on the base for the same 2 and a half month period that we were in the school, and they were more or less new believers that had met Jesus through Iris ministries’ outreaches in surrounding areas . Some of them actually were training to start their own churches as a part of this huge revival in Mozambique that is 10,000 churches strong at this point. Wow! Heidi really stressed the point that we realize we are in the same family with these beautiful Mozambican brothers, and one the biggest growing aspects for all of us was tied up in walking out these relationships with them. We had class with them twice a week, and had other worship nights etc. We also each had COLOR GROUPS (my color was Zinzento = silver!) of about 12 of us International Students with about 12 Mozambicans. We had a meal together in which the Internationals prepared food and we all ate together; We made a special feast of fruit salad and fried chicken rice, and brownies for them, which is food that they don’t get often by any means. We also went on our short weekend outreach together, which I have yet to talk about. These men were amazing, and I will share about some more of that soon. )

- All the students eating and celebrating together for our graduation day! : a feaast of chicken, cabbage and fanta!

= Our color group in a photo with Mama Aida (Heidi) on graduation day!

-We then met in the church with our color Group and had photos with Heidi! Then different color groups spontaneously started chanting our color names “Zinzento, ZINZENTO” and we started dancing, and just being generally really excited that Jesus had saved us from everything our lives would have been if we hadn’t just had the experience that we did!!! It was one of the happiest days we had had!! And then we proceeded to DANCE some more! We topped the amount of time that we had been dancing the day before by about 2 or 3 more hours making a total of at least 4 hours. And I danced the whole time, you better believe it!! We were ALL incredibly hot and sweaty, but we were also so filled with joy and freedom, and I could see in the International students that they had lost so much of a worry over their appearance from being in the environment as long as we had, and realizing that they actually could go without coffee or plucking their eyebrows for a period of time, and be more than content about it. ;) Since I don’t drink coffee or pluck my eyebrows, I was even more feeling a level of disregard for “dignity” than ever, and I worshiped the Lord with so much abandon!! I will never forget this breaking off of my regard for the opinions of others, and I know I will NEVER care as much as I may have in the past. This is something that I PRAISE the Lord for. I remember ballet dancing a bit and hearing the Lord telling me that I was going to dance with Him all over the World (a word similar to one that Heidi received years ago as well – woo!). The dancing (sort of) stopped at about 6 pm or so, and then each student had their name called and blessed by Heidi and was then “blasted” in prayer by David Hogan, our other staff leaders, The Banhovs, and the Bakers. WOO!; Such an amazing time! We stopped worshipping at around 11 or maybe midnight and then at some "hot dogs" by a bonfire.

-Dancing dancing dancing! mozambicans love to dance, and we did too!! We praised Jesus for hours and hours even when we were sweaty and our feet were blistering!!

-The next day was the day I mostly explained in which I visited many people, received gifts that I didn’t feel like I deserved, gave some gifts as well, cleaned and packed, and cried all day (wearing my Kapulana outfit that rita blessed me with). I ended the night trying to see my roommates, the kids from the base, and my Russian friends as much as possible, and helped the Russians clean and pack. The next day I would be heading to Tete, Mozambique, a supposed 3 day journey from Pemba by Landrover.

- I woke up at 4:30 or 5 a.m. and Ruth and I went on our last walk together down to the beach. I was packed and ready to go, and so we went to say goodbye to the Russian team who we thought we wouldn’t be seeing again for at least a year or two. I said goodbye to my good friend Eugenya. She is one of the younger people on the team, about 30, and was one of the 3 translators for the team. She and I became very close. She affected me very deeply, and I knew I would miss her terribly, which I do. She used to be in the Russian ballet, and we showed each other some moves; I showed her some breakdance steps, and she showed me ballet moves ha!! I love her so very much! I also connected so deeply to many of the amazing prayer warriors and tender hearted women on the team – Arianna, larissa, Iriana – all of them were so wonderful!!!

-Top: Ruth and I trying to get a picture with the amazing sunrise that we so enjoyed together every day, and are trying not to think about how our ministry time together was about to end! we were trying to take the picture ourselves and couldnt quite get the sunrise in it! haha

- Katia and Eugenia: two of my wonderful friends from Russia. - The Russian team waving goodbye to us as we are driving off to Tete.

Then it was time for me to leave! I tearfully said goodbye to all of my housemates, and friends and squeezed into the back of the Landrover with 7 other people, who I barely knew, and grew to know oh so well!! Haha – to compare the way we held our general personal space for the first couple of hours compared to the way all of our limbs were sprawled throughout the car by the end up the trip is pretty ridiculous!! And we began our journey with a prayer, a big one because we realized quickly how much of our comfort we were saying goodbye to. We didn’t quite know how much, and I laugh thinking about the imminent adventures and KILLING OF OUR FLESH we faced!!!!

- Our very small living space for the next 5 days!!! - This is how we started, and eventually we had our legs and arms dispersed throughout the small space trying to keep our bums from killing us and legs from cramping and falling asleep! What an adventure we had in that little Landrover!

You’ll find out soon as well. I’m breaking up the post by a few days, unfortunately. But now you have a cliffhanger to look forward to the resolving of!!

Blessings friends

Tetra