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Saturday, July 23, 2011

Life in Pemba, Mozambique

We are sorry that we have not updated this sooner but the internet is not very reliable here. It fact most of the times it does not work.

Since the 8 weeks that we have been here we have had some amazing experiences. We will try to give you some highlights of what has been going on here. We really can't believe that we have been here for 8 weeks.

We have had a lot of amazing speakers at the school. Some of the speakers include Randy Clark, Will Hart, Heidi & Rolland Baker (Rolland is so full of joy and he loves to make sure we get a dose of joy), Tod McDowell and many others. this past week we had Amy Lancaster, from Jackson Mississippi, and she said something that really made us think. She said that she had always felt like she was going to be a missionary in a foreign country, such as Africa, but that he called her and her family to the inner city of Jackson Mississippi. That God does not always call us where we think He will but that we must be willing to go wherever He calls us to. This is something for all of us to think about.

We have also had the opportunity to help out at a conference in Meize. This is a village that is about 20 minutes away. We were greeted by a lot of children. There was so many children that you couldn't count them if you wanted to. The girls of the village love to try an braid my hair. It really is funny because my hair is so soft that it doesn't stay in very well. But, they love to try however I can't sit very long for this as it hurts. I don't know how they sit for it because it hurts so bad. We also had time to help out at the church service where we got to pray for the sick. There were many headaches, fevers, stomach aches healed that night but, the most amazing thing was when a team prayed for a baby whose eyes where completely white. While the team was praying the baby's eyes turned brown and the baby could see for the first time.

A few weeks ago we went on a bush outreach to a local village that was about 2 hours away. when we arrived here the kids all came out to greet us. They were at first a little scared of us but warmed up to us pretty fast. I (Cindy) started to do something and they would just copy me. I could stand on 1 foot and they would do that, raise 1 arm etc it was so much fun. The children did not need a lot of stuff to play with they just wanted attention. We had a great time with them. At night we showed the Jesus film and we prayed for a lot of people. There was a lot of head pains that were healed and I prayed for a little boy whose eyesight was bad and it got better. We also prayed for stomach aches and a few people accepted Jesus into their hearts. The next morning we prayed for a man that was pretty crippled up and he had a hard time walking. We prayed for this man for about 20 minutes and the whole time we prayed for him he had this blank stare on his face. While we prayed for him he said that he could move a little bit better but he still had a blank stare on his face. We asked him to come back later that night so we could pray for him again and when we saw him about 4 hours later he looked like a completely different man. In fact, we almost didn't recognize him. This man no longer had a blank stare on his face but he was smiling, laughing and was trying to dance to the worship music that was on. He was praising Jesus. We prayed for him again and he said that he could move his arm some more and that the pain was completely gone in his one leg. The best part of this was this man was spiritually dead and now he is spiritually alive. Yeah Jesus! This same night I preached for the first time and about 30 people from the village came to the Lord. The next morning John shared a testimony with the local church. We can't believe how God is using us and how He is using us to do things that we didn't think that we would do.

Today, July 23,John and I went to a local village, within walking distance of the base, and we took some food to a local family. This was such a great honor for John and I to be a part of. The look on the mom's face was of shock and joy. She told us that it made her heart very happy. She also said that we she would like to have us come back to visit. We told her that we would be leaving soon but if we came back to Pemba we would come visit her again. This is the second time that we had visited her and her family the first time was about 4 weeks ago and she feed us some peanuts. Both times that we have visited here we have had a great time. We are so thankful to be able to do things like this.

Again we are sorry that we have not updated this sooner and we wish that we could upload some pictures but there is nothing we can do about the internet.

We love all of you and thank you for all of your continue prayers and support. We will try and post again before we leave for Asia.

Lots of love,
John and Cindy