color group and outreach

All the students were assigned to groups called color groups; never with anyone from your house. There was always one student who spoke Portuguese, to serve as translator for the group, and one who was medically trained, because they always send medical supplies on outreaches. The people in the groups were a mixture of about 20 male and female Harvest School students and about 15 Mozambican Pastors. There is a Bible school on the base for Mozambicans, and all the Bible School students are called Pastors. There are over 100 of these Pastors, possibly closer to 200. They are taught for free or a small fee and then are qualified to be Pastors in bush villages. They usually go back to their home villages, which can be quite far away. They also have women in the Bible schools but I don't think they can be Pastors. I am not sure what they will do after graduating but there were some in their 5^th (final) year of school. It's not actually a year of school, it's the same 10 weeks that the Harvest Schools are run, twice a year, just like the Harvest School. They are new Christians and don't really know anything about the Bible when they come. They have some classes with the Harvest School and eat meals with us and are sometimes housed with the Harvest School but have a lot of different classes just for them, in Portuguese.

They have their graduation with us and then they can come back the next time the Harvest School/Bible school begins (6 months later) or the next year or whenever they can. It is hard for them to be away from their families. Most of them are married and have kids they need to provide for so they often can't come twice in a year.

The purpose of the group was to encourage cross cultural interaction. Most of the Pastors didn't speak any English. Getting together with your color group was a requirement for graduating from the Harvest School. We had a kick off night when we played games in the church, 3 legged race and different relays. We had a foot washing; we washed each others feet and prayed for each other. That was actually really fun, it was a good team building event. We had a communion time; served each other communion and prayed for each other. And we prepared a skit for the outreach we did together. 

     The last thing we did together was a fish fry. We asked one of the Pastors to buy a fish big enough to feed 40 people. This was easy since we lived right by the ocean and everyday fisherman had fresh fish. We got sodas for everyone and made cookies for dessert. We had rice from the kitchen and made a lime sauce to go over it and the fish. The guys were in charge of the fish. They cleaned it and stuffed it with onions, garlic, and peppers. Then wrapped it in banana leaves to roast over an open fire. There was a large baobab tree in the student compound with a fire pit under it which was a nice place to set out chairs and hang out while dinner cooked. I actually missed this event because I was on a widows drop but I have a few photos of it.

    We also did an outreach with our color groups. Outreaches leave Thursday afternoons and return Sunday mornings. We met on Wednesday and they told us how far were going and rules like we can't sit Indian style, we aren't allowed to bring any or our own food, and they tried to teach us some Makua phrases like “can I pray for you?” On Thursday there is class as usual and then they pray for outreach groups which leave after lunch.
   The reason we weren't allowed to bring any food is because they didn't want anyone sitting in their tents eating when people were starving in the villages. The village I went to was not so bad but in some there is a lot of malnutrition. Also, the pastors do not have any money so they didn't want us eating anything on the way in the trucks in front of them. 

    Everything was loaded into the back of trucks, which are super crowded, but we only drove for about 2 hours on good roads.  Some outreaches drove a lot farther and on a lot worse roads.
    There were about 30 of us in this truck, with our tents and bags. I'm in the gray shirt with the kid hanging off me.

                       

                                                    This is the village we went to.

                           The kids knew we were coming and are always excited to see us.

           Some little ones have never seen white people before and are not too happy about it.
                                                     This baby is getting ready to cry.

                    

   We did bring food for the trip. We brought rice, beans, pasta, tuna, tomato sauce, bread peanut butter, tea, coffee, and we each brought our own water. When you are a student at Iris you buy all your own water for drinking. They sell it there in bottles. Or you can bring or buy a water filter in Pemba.

    When we got there we put up tents right away and put everything in our tents, anything left out will be taken.

                                                          This was our bathroom. 

 
    We met the village pastor and chose volunteers to set up the Jesus film, stay back to guard camp, and to cook dinner. There are about 40 of us and we cook for about 80 so we can share with the church. We set up generators, speakers, lights and a screen in a clearing in the middle of the village. At dark (5:30 – 6:00pm), 

    we played Mozambican music really loud until people started coming. The kids danced with us and when a crowd gathered the Pastor spoke and then we showed the film, which is about an hour. 

 

                                     They asked a couple of us to share testimonies.

     Then there was an altar call and about 30 people came forward. Then anyone who wanted to be healed could come forward. It seemed like everyone wanted healed and came forward at once. There was not enough translators. People would point to their head or their stomach and we'd pray for them. Then we'd ask them thumbs up or thumbs down and they would nearly always choose thumbs up and walk away.

    We prayed for a long time; I probably prayed for 50 people. Abruptly, they told us it was time to stop praying for people and get loaded up, even though there were still people waiting to be prayed for. We loaded up really quickly and went back to our tents and had spaghetti with tuna and Mozambican mayo which tastes funny so I don't put it on. We didn't get back to eat until after midnight. After dinner we went to bed. 

   The whole village was up at 4:00am and there wasn't much to do until breakfast at 7am which was tea and bread as usual. 

 At 8am I went to help with the children's program. They sang songs and a guy talked a little and then we gave them bread. 

  

     Most of the kids left but one little girl who had medical problems was taken aside and the trained medical person in our group looked at her. She had a boated stomach because she was malnourished but she was not eating her bread and she needed some medication for her eyes. 

    They called a group meeting so we took the girl with us and someone held her on their lap the whole day. They split us into groups and asked for testimonies from the night before about the salvations and healings witnessed. The translator and nurse came and asked if a group could go to the sick girl's house so they went. Both her parents were dead so she was living with sister. They are very poor. They left her some medicine and told them how to use it.

    
                                      My group went into the village to pray for people.

                                                   The village kids followed along.

   I'm in the gray shirt, blue buff. (below)

     In one house they said there was a crazy man that wasn't feeling well. We prayed for him and he said he felt better but he wanted to rest. He was really crazy, we think maybe demon possessed, but our prayers didn't change anything. One lady wanted us to pray for her baby and when we did we noticed it had a witch craft band around it's belly. She let us cut off the band and pray for the baby. We asked her if she knew about Jesus and shared with her through the translator. We watched the baby looking better and better until by the time were done praying for her the baby was well and ran off to play.

    An older lady had come up to have prayer for her legs so we prayed for her and she said she felt better. Another lady who had been watching us came and told us she was a Muslim and wanted to accept Jesus. Then we visited a guy sitting in a chair in front of his house with an arm that looked like it had been burned and had leprosy because it was all white. We saw he had witch craft on his wrist and cut that off and asked if he had witchcraft in his house. He let us remove it and pray for him some more but we didn’t see any change. Later he came to our nurse and she worked on him for a long time. I helped with it and was so gross and smelled really bad.

She even removed some of his fingernails. She thinks what happened is he was bit by some bug or something and it got infected and didn't heal. The witch Dr had made it worse by putting something on it that made it turn white; it was a huge infection. Flies were all over it. It looked a lot better when she was done.

The last lady we prayed for in a house was a lady paralyzed on her right side. We kneeled down and prayed and saw witch craft bands on her wrist and ankle she wouldn’t let us cut off. We prayed longer and asked again to have it cut off. She finally agreed and we prayed some more. We could see her move her hand and fingers a little and wanted her to try to stand up in faith. At first she refused but she did finally stand and could stand on her own and move her fingers.

    When started to leave but she wanted to tell us her story. Five years ago she was walking on her way to the latrine and stepped on a rock. Pain shot up her body and she fell to the ground. She got up and went home and laid down on her bed and died. Then the next day she was raised from the dead, although no one had prayed for her and she had never heard the name Jesus, and has been paralyzed since. We invited her to the church to talk more about Jesus but she didn't want salvation. The nurse said she thinks what happened is she stepped on a scorpion and fell into a coma. That would account for her symptoms. The average life expectancy in Mozambique is 33 years and this woman was around 50 so she was pretty old.

We went back and had beans and rice for lunch. After lunch we hung out and told stories about what happened.

 We were sitting in the shade and the kids started to form a line staring at us, stared at us for over an hour. One guy finally decided to do something with the kids and played some games with them.

 
  We walked to the shade of a mango tree on the edge of the village did a kids program with songs and drums. They took the leftover beans and split open the bread and poured the beans inside it and fed that to the kids. There was still some left over beans so they poured them into the mamas hands and they licked it out of their hands. A woman then wanted prayer to not drink alcohol so we prayed for her. 

  

    It was time to get ready for the Jesus film again so different people were chosen to guard and cook. We went to a different location in the trucks to a soccer field. Because it was Friday night, party night and we were near bars, they told us to expect more guys to come out and for them to be rowdy and drunk. 

 
    They said only men could pray for men and girls for girls. We set up and played the music; not as many guys showed up and they weren't rowdy as expected. We did our skit. Which was the lost sheep and was really funny.   Here I am crawling around in a skirt in the dirt being a sheep.

It wasn't really supposed to be funny but the lost sheep was silly and rooted around bumping the kids and making them laugh. Then the shepherd who was just a small Mozambican went to get the lost sheep and decided to try to carry him home. He half carried, half drug him home and the kids loved it! 
    Then people shared their testimonies, someone preached, and we showed the film. When we called for salvations and about 50 came forward. Then we asked people to come for healing. There were a lot of stomach complaints this time. I was next to a translator so we could ask people if they felt better. People often would say they felt better but they don't react so you can't tell if they are telling the truth. If they go to a witch doctor they charge for healing and the more happy you are about being healed the more they charge, so they are practiced in not showing emotion when they are healed.

One guy bitten by a snake did show emotion and jumped up and down when he was healed. Some actually said they didn't feel better after prayer. Some wanted prayer for husbands or wives; pregnant women wanted prayer for their unborn babies,

We got back to tents at about 11pm and had spaghetti with tuna again. We got to sleep in until 6am even though the others were up at 4am. We ate bread and tea and fed kids and sang songs with them, then treated the little girl again. 
                                         This is the translator, Sophia, and the nurse.

    Since she wasn't eating the nurse looked in her mouth and found she had a terrible tooth and gum infection. She treated her for that and she was able to swallow pills and drink hydration packets.

           We met as group again sang, prayed, shared stories and got group photos.

                                                   I'm in the blue buff (below).

   They took little girl home, gave her more medicine, and she cried when they left. They asked Iris to consider taking her in but since she has family I don't know if they can. 

    Whenever a vehicle stops in a village people come out to try to sell something to you. 
Someone on our truck bought sodas for all of us and someone else bought bananas so we had that on our way back to the base.
 

             
         This is my color group again, all cleaned up. Heidi Baker is in this photo with us.