I (Erika) have been wanting to write a post about some of the things God is showing me. It’s so hard to put into words what he’s doing in my life. Some days it feels like he’s doing nothing and other days I think he’s really on the move. Reality is, he’s always on the move but I definitely don’t feel it every day.
Although God has been giving me revelations about different things, the resounding message has been intimacy with Jesus. Yes, we may hear that quite often, but i’ve never heard it preached so strongly and exemplified so clearly. This whole ministry is built around loving Jesus. Heidi and Rolland drip love for Jesus and the message they constantly live and preach is, “ministry, missions, life…is NOTHING if you’re not IN LOVE with Jesus.” Everything is in vain if it’s not being done out of love for Jesus. Our lives were purchased on the cross for the sake of love…of living in deep union and intimacy with Jesus. I’ve struggled with this message for so long and God has revealed to me recently that one of the reasons I’ve struggled with it is because I haven’t really believed that I’m worthy of love and that Jesus would want me. Why would he? Does it make any sense? Not really, but he chose to create beings that he absolutely adores and something is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it, right? Well, Jesus paid a super high price for you and I. We had a 12 hour burn (constant prayer and worship for 12 hours) last week and during that time the prayer of my heart was, “I just want to see your face, Jesus!” and He spoke to my heart, “How can you see my face if you won’t lift up your head.” And all of the sudden God revealed to me that I will only experience as much of Him as I believe I can have. I have always felt so unworthy and when i come into his presence I keep my head down, thinking of myself as such a lowly creature. Yet I am delighted in! Rejoiced over by Jesus himself! He not only welcomes me into his presence, but he can’t wait for me to come! I need this revelation to penetrate my heart so much more deeply, but i’m on a good journey :) The hard thing about being in this place is that I can’t make anything happen. I can’t fall in love with Jesus. I can’t make revelation seep into my heart in a deeper way. I can’t surrender my life to Jesus without Holy Spirit helping me. I am totally and completely dependent on His Spirit. I am totally and completely dependent on His move on my behalf. Is this a hard place to be in? Yes, but at the same time, It’s a wonderful place because I get to trust His heart. I come into deeper understanding of who He is, not just what He does. I get to sit before him and depend upon Him. It’s a place of humility because I realize I can do so little to get where I want to be. I trust His good heart and continue to position my heart before him and surrender my life. Do I wish I could make something happen? Yes and no. I would like to fall in love with Him as soon as possible and experience all of Him that I’m desiring, but I am so thankful that He’s in control and that He knows the perfect timing. I’ve lived so much of my life trying and striving and it’s exhausting. I want to live in a place of dependency because that’s the place of rest, joy, peace and the impossible—where He can do incredible things through my little life because it’s laid down at His feet and He can freely move through me. That’s what’s been on my heart during the last week or so. When we were in South Africa the emphasis was on identity and that was amazing, too. We each wrote an identity statement and I’m trying to remember to proclaim it over myself every day. We become what we believe we are and the words we speak over ourselves are the most significant words—they have more power in our lives than anybody else’s words. I began to realize how much “death” I speak over myself without realizing it and I wrote an identity statement that proclaims truth in place of every lie I’ve believed in the past. Our authority comes when we know who we are and walk in that. I’m sure you’ve gathered by now that there’s a lot going on here and a lot being sown into us. Now it’s up to my good, good Father to make it all reality in my life as I submit to His heart! May God speak these truths to your hearts, as well and reveal more of who He is to you!
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We are enjoying life here in Mozambique! (I’m sorry we haven’t updated in quite a while. Life is busy here and our internet has been very sporadic.) We are living in a sweet little community of married couples on the student compound. The base here is like a little village - there’s a church, school, hospital, library, student compound, Bible school student housing, boys and girls housing, prayer huts, soccer fields…it’s an amazing, peaceful, secure base and it’s beautiful to see such life happening here.
Here, we feel like we’re in Africa. South Africa didn’t feel like it…when we wanted to buy food or eat out, we took a taxi to a western style mall a few minutes away, we could flush the toilets at the campground, take showers with actual water pressure, and eat ice cream whenever we felt like it (it was still quite difficult compared to normal western standards). However, now we’re experiencing real African culture and being immersed in life here. So our schedule here is quite a bit busier. Our day starts around 5:30am and we’re in bed before 10 every night. We have class from 8-1 or 2 every weekday besides Friday and then we have electives/group activities/outreaches in the afternoon/evening. Also, this base is bustling with activity. As I mentioned above, they have a hospital on base which sees approximately 100 patients per day. They also have daily feeding program for the children who live in the surrounding villages, they have a Sunday and Wednesday night church service, there’s hundreds of orphans-turned-sons-and-daughters on base and there’s also a large school. So there’s plenty of people to get to know and always something to do. We eat bread rolls every morning, rice and beans every afternoon and rice and fish or rice and matapa (don’t ask me what it is) every night. We’ve had 2 weeks of class so far, which have been excellent. Rolland and Heidi gave some amazing messages and they have already significantly impacted us by their lives. The motto and mission here is to “stop for the one” and that “love looks like something.” We’re learning to lay our lives down for the one in front of us and not be too busy to stop and love. We’re learning about relationship and the importance of prioritizing people over need and seeing people through the eyes of Jesus. We’re being reminded over and over again to first stop for the One who is the One and that our only job is to love Jesus with all of our heart, mind and strength and that everything flows out of our intimacy with Jesus. (I intend to write a blog post in the next few days to share more about what we’re learning.) We’ve been able to go into the neighboring village twice so far and we’re planning to go again this afternoon. Both times were wonderful experiences. The first time we went we got to pray for quite a few people and one sweet mama gave her life to Jesus (we’re going to visit her today.) Last Friday we went into the village a second time. We were told to go in groups of 4 and our requirement was to find a mama and bless her and spend the morning with her and her family. We weren’t sure how it would go since none of us spoke the local language, but we were excited for the adventure. So we set off into the village and as we walked, a mama walked up to us and asked us for prayer - her stomach and back were hurting so we sat down next to the road and prayed for her. She was on her way to the market so we walked with her and got to purchase some groceries for her. Then we headed back to her home and spent the morning sitting on their grass mat in the shade. We brought markers and paper along and played with the kids. Then the mama made us lunch on her tiny charcoal stove outside and prepared the food in her two (and only) steel pots. She made us Chema and beans (Chema is somewhat like grits). We ate Mozambican style - with our hands. One of the girls who lived in the house had a 4 day old baby! We held him (as he peed all over our laps ;) and blessed him! The mama was super thankful that we spent the morning with her and she welcomed us back any time. She said, “I was just walking to the market but I came back with family!” (One of the girls on our team spoke Spanish so we were able to get by.) We are learning so much from being here in Mozambique. The culture is extremely generous and relational. It’s an absolute privilege and pleasure for the people in the villages to welcome us into their home. They love to offer food, even though many of them have so, so little. They love hugs and prayers and sitting and enjoying relationships. We’ve also been able to get to know some of the amazing Bible School students (there are about 200 of them on base). Many of them have left their families for a season and given up so much to spend time being trained to go back to their village as pastors. (When Iris goes into an unreached village, they lead people to Jesus and build a church, then they train men of the village at the Bible School here to go back and pastor the village. They have an incredible model here.) A few nights ago we prayed for America with 8 Mozambican students. It was so touching to see how much they cared, they prayed with such passion that God would have mercy and crash into our nation. Then they asked us if we wanted to pray with them the following day. One of the guys asked us, “Do you want to pray with us tomorrow? We meet at 3 in the morning.” We responded, “In the morning?! Like, in 7 hours?” “Yes, we pray from 3-6am”, they replied. Wow. We have so much to learn. They wear the same clothes day after day because they have nothing else, but they are hungry for more of God. Sometimes the students come over to visit us - they love building relationships. We’re learning a lot but still very hungry to encounter more of God. Nothing else matters to us, so we’re crying out to him and surrendering our lives before him so he can really fill us. This is an amazing school and incredible ministry and we’re so thankful to be here. As I mentioned, I plan to write a post in the near future to share more about what we’ve been learning. Thanks for your prayers! Lots of love to you all! P.S. We want to say “thank you” to those who gave us donations—we handed them in and were thanked profusely and told that our donations were so very helpful and needed. So, thank you, to all of you who donated! You’re a blessing! We've so enjoyed our stay in South Africa! Tomorrow we will be in Pemba, Mozambique. We wanted to post a few photos of our time here in South Africa. Last time I updated we were about to head to outreach in one of the surrounding towns. The picture slideshow below is of our outreach days. For our outreach weekend, we got to spend two days and two nights in a nearby town. We took part in a tent revival service and walked around during the day praying for the sick and blessing people. We were able to witness God touch and heal people and we were able to greatly encourage the church in the town. It was an absolutely exhausting weekend, but we gave it our all and poured ourselves out, then went back to our cabin and crashed :) Another day we went out to a village nearby to walk around and share Jesus. It was such a fun day. We started off with a bang as one of the girls in our team got a picture of a lady with a pink zip-up sweatshirt and a head wrap. We began walking through the village and one of the first people we saw was a woman that matched that description perfectly! We got to share about Jesus with her and then pray for her wrist which was hurting her. After we stopped praying she immediately looked up at us with a big smile on her face--God completely healed her wrist! Seeing Jesus pour out his love on people never gets old! A little later we stopped to talk to three teenage girls and we asked them if they wanted to know what God said about them, they replied that they'd like to so we asked God for his words. When God spoke to us, we began to share with the girls and encourage them in their destiny's. As we shared, they verified that the words fit them and they were so blessed. What a privilege it is to be able to reveal God's heart on earth! Last weekend we went on a two day safari tour! Below is a picture slideshow of our experience in Kruger National Park! What an experience to be on a safari tour in South Africa! We were able to see lions, zebras, hyenas, monkeys, baboons, elephants, giraffes and many other animals. Besides being nauseous the first day of the tour (Erika), it was a fun ride! Below is a picture slideshow of our life at the camp where we had school. As I mentioned earlier, tomorrow we will be in Mozambique. Our time here in South Africa has been wonderful. It's been much more quiet and restful here than Mozambique will be, so we soaked up as much reading and quiet time as we could. The most significant thing that we learned during our time here was the importance of knowing our identity and speaking that out over ourselves. The words we say over ourselves have the power to change our lives completely, either for the better or worse. We find it so difficult to believe God's words for us, but we are determined to begin proclaiming them and walking in them. We have the mind of Christ, so we can have the right thoughts and speak them out, first over ourselves and then others. (Ps. 23:7; 1 Cor. 2:16; Prov. 18:21) It's been a very important time for us here and one day we will have time to sit down and write more of what God is teaching us.
This is our last night of flushable toilets, bug-free sleeping quarters, somewhat clean water and decently reliable electricity...tomorrow everything will change, but we're really excited to begin a new chapter of Harvest School! Be blessed! Greetings from South Africa! We are currently in the city of Nelspruit staying at a lovely little campground.
It's been one week since we left and we can't believe all that has happened already. Seems like we've been here much longer than that! There are 230 students in our Harvest School. It's such an international school, there are 14 other couples and only two of them are from the states...shows how international it is. We are so blessed to be a couple in this school because we get awesome perks :) We get to stay in a beautiful little cabin and all the single students are squished into dorms together. Being married is awesome ;) Seriously, though, it's so amazing to be able to do this together. We feel so blessed to be able to spend this time together. The only thing we have to watch out for as we stay in our little cabin are monkeys. We have to make sure we keep our door shut and locked so the monkeys don't break it. They already broke into a girls dorm and stole some items! That's not a joke. I thought it was at first, too, but it actually happened! Also this morning as I walked to the meeting hall I saw a big ostrich right by the hall. We are definitely in South Africa :) Apparently there is a very severe drought here and so that's why the monkeys are coming closer than normal (you can pray for rain!) We've only been here 1 week but we've learned so much already! We've already received awesome revelations about God's grace and Holy Spirit and we've had amazing worship times and been blessed to hear from such anointed men and woman of God. We also have made some neat friendships and are enjoying the community. So many amazing men and woman that have the same hearts and passions as we do. Our day starts at 5:30am with exercise, a nice South African breakfast of porige (grits), meat and eggs. Then class is from 8-1pm. In the afternoons we either have electives, free time or meet with our outreach teams and at night we have another teaching, worship night or free night. However, our schedule will change as time goes on, especially when we go to Pemba, Mozambique. We set up a hammock right outside of our cabin so that's where we are if we're not busy :) Right now, as I type, Alex is bundled up (it's a cold spring day today!) reading in the hammock. Today we leave for a weekend outreach - we will be going on a two night outreach to a surrounding South African town with a few other individuals. We don't know exactly what this will entail, but we believe we're going to be a part of a village tent meeting and we're excited to put into practice what we've been learning and see God work wonders for His glory. There is an Iris base nearby and so we'll be assisting them in their outreaches and ministries. Every weekend we'll be doing some type of outreach and our classes will continue throughout the week. We will also be going on a two day safari trip right before we fly to Pemba. We fly to Pemba at the end of October. Unfortunately we have absolutely no internet connection here and we're not able to get a SIM card so I doubt we'll be able to post again until we get to Pemba. We apologize for not sending out our newsletter yet and for not being able to update our blog frequently. We asked to use our staff's hotspot for just a moment to upload this post but we can't promise that will happen again. So you may not hear from us until we get to Pemba unless something changes. However, we trust you will continue to pray for us and we will update as soon as we can. We thank you so much for your prayers and love! We covet each one of them! With love from Africa, A&E We are currently sitting in the airport awaiting the flight that will take us to South Africa. We are about to embark on a journey that will leave us forever changed. Tearful goodbyes have been shared, many hugs given and prayers prayed. It's not easy to leave; we're giving up a lot, but the resounding cry in our hearts is, "God, we want to KNOW you!" and because that is the deepest desire of our hearts, we are following Him into the unknown. With God, the unknown is exciting. If He doesn't show up, all is wasted and we're totally screwed. But we know He will reveal Himself, He always does. He has a way of exceeding expectations all the time. We know that His fire falls on sacrifice and our sacrifice of giving everything up to go to the other side of the world will attract his fire. We have tested him and he always gives back more than we could give in the first place. He is always faithful. He always provides.
So we're excited! Excited for all the next 6 months will bring. THANK YOU for your prayers as we travel and get acclimated. We will be traveling for over 24 hours, so prayers are much appreciated ;) Our next post will be in Africa! Stay tuned! :) Our departure is getting closer and closer. We leave in 20 days! Everything continues to fall into place. God is blessing our efforts and preparing the way. We have our airline tickets, our visa is on the way, we have all our necessary vaccinations and we are over half way packed! It's been very busy and stressful getting ready to go...we had no idea it would be so much work, but just about everything is in place now. Currently we are vacationing in California and getting much needed rest before we head to Africa. We are greatly enjoying this time and laughing a lot, enjoying family, seeing beautiful sights and getting refreshed to move forward.
We have no doubt this is our time to go to the nations. The time is right for us--we have peace in our hearts and expectation for all God has for us. No doubt it will be an intensely hard and stretching time, but we are ready to grow and be changed. We can honestly say that we have no fear or hesitation to go. We know God is good and he will prove himself faithful to us yet again. We are expectant to encounter Him and build alters to his faithfulness so that we, and all the generations that follow, will always remember. In the meantime, we are seeking to enjoy all these moments leading up to our departure. We are thankful for all the love and care we are receiving as we prepare. We are grateful for each of you! We promise our posts will get more interesting in the coming weeks and months...don't go away ;) It's a full time job getting ready for our missions adventure. Feels like every waking moment is spent reading books for the school we are attending, researching something, looking into flights, etc. Life is very, very busy right now. We are one month away from our departure for California. We're going to spend some time in Sacramento with family and then head to a friend's wedding in the San Diego area. This will be a wonderful time for us before we head overseas. Once we come back from California, we'll have about 4 days before we leave for Africa.
We're excited to go but the reality of what we have to do beforehand and being away for 6 months is sinking in a little more... Both of us are expectant for all God is going to do in and through us as we go. We're so excited to grow in the Lord. Since giving our lives completely to Jesus, there is nothing that excites us quite as much as knowing, loving and growing in Jesus more. No doubt, this is a crazy step for us to take. We are quitting our jobs and leaving everything comfortable. Instead of purchasing a house and settling down, we're going to Africa. Why? Jesus means more to us than anything else. Period. We're not saying that you can't stay where you are and be totally surrendered to Christ, it's just important that we're obeying God in the places we're in. For this season, obedience is our going. For the next, it might to staying, we don't know. We're just saying "yes" to God and oh the things He can do with our simple "yes"! We will continue posting weekly until our departure and giving you updates. Thank you for your prayers and care for us! |
AuthorA & E. Currently living in the USA but called to the nations for this season of our lives. Devoting our lives to His Kingdom Come... Archives
April 2017
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