Our second month here in Tete...
Wow, I can’t believe April has already come and gone! Praise Papa God for another month filled with His amazing mercies and grace. We truly couldn’t have made it thru one day here much less another month without Papa’s extravagant love. We wake everyday knowing that this is Papa’s will for our lives. There’s no doubt we’re supposed to be here. I’ve learned so much about Tete this month...the biggest thing being how much darkness there is here. Thank God we are “THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD”. I truly feel like people look at us differently (not just because we are white)... I know they see the glow. How could they not? If we truly are the light of the world and Christ lives in us how can they not see His Glory? They do. Hallelujah! Not to boast in ourselves, but in Christ because He is the light. We are merely the vessel He chooses to shine through.
Please pray for Tete...Alcoholism has a huge hold on the majority of the people here. At night the streets are filled with drunken people trying to fill themselves with something that is empty. It breaks our heart to see so many people completely lost trying to find something to cure the pain and hunger but waking up day after day finding themselves hurting worse than the day before. Prostitution is another stronghold in the lives of many many young women here in Tete. There’s a demonic sexual spirit realm here that has more people entrapped than you can imagine. Generations of ancestry witch doctor worship and years of war and poverty has filled people with anger and hatred and stripped them of their desire to love. We see so many people fighting in the streets and the markets while onlookers are cheering on the hatred instead of breaking up the fight. We are claiming scriptures over this city and the land of Tete. Psalm 34:15 says, “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry..” We are believing God for reformation and transformation in the lives of thousands because of our cry! This morning as I was worshiping and praising God He gave me this scripture as a promise over our people here: “An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before his eyes. For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin. The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful; he has ceased to be wise and to do good. Even on his bed he plots evil; he commits himself to a sinful course and does not reject what is wrong. Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O Lord, you preserve both man and beast. How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. Continue your love to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart. May the foot of the proud not come against me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away. See how the evildoers lie fallen-thrown down, not able to rise” (Psalm 36:1-12, NIV, emphasis added). I know this scripture is referring to the fall of the wicked but Papa God spoke to me through this scripture in a new light and gave me a deeper revelation of this word, He said, “ Nick the wicked there have no fear of Me but my love for them is greater than the mighty mountains and it’s deeper than the depths of the seas! My love for them will never fail, even though they feast on the abundances of my house (the world) and I give them drink from my rivers and they fear Me not, I will always love them. For in Me is the fountain of life which I have put in you and the light that is in Me is in you my son, LET IT SHINE FORTH!!!! As you fill yourself with Me, the light will grow brighter and brighter and the wicked will soon FALL on their faces, not able to rise because my GLORY will be on them!” WHEW...WOW! I hope each of you can feel the GLORY on this word from the Lord! This is His promise! We are proclaiming this over the people here! They will come to the saving knowledge of His grace! They will experience the GLORY OF THE LORD! They will lay on their faces in awe of Papa God and His love for them! They will cry out in repentance for their sins and they will be FOREVER transformed! GLORY GLORY!
Christ alone gives us the strength to carry out His work daily. Im becoming more and more aware of this mystery. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 the Lord spoke to Paul and said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” And Paul said, “Therefore I will boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” I’m finding that the weaker I get and the more reliance I have in Papa to go about each day carrying on His work the stronger I become! The more I realize that it is HE that is working in and through us and not the power of our own being the more power He gives us to LOVE the “LEAST OF THESE”. God wants us to love the sinner just as much as the saint. He wants us to reach out to the robber and the murderer, the rapist and the prostitute, to show them His love. This week alone our hearts were broken as we found out from some of our younger boys that one of our older boys has been raping them when he gets drunk. What do you do when you find out that one of your older boys that you’ve been trusting as a leader for the younger one’s has been raping them? When one of your boys that you love dearly has been raping your younger boys and telling them that he will kill them if they tell you? One of the boys who you thought were actually “getting it”. What do you say to that? What do you do in this situation? Our hearts broke into a million pieces. We left the boys that morning not knowing what to do. Asking God, “God how could this happen? How could one of our boys who we’ve been trusting as a leader and teaching your word go and rape his little brothers? God what do we do?” We questioned God and wondered if they were hopeless. We wondered if we’ve been doing it right... if we’ve done something wrong. I wondered should we take our older boy to the jail for “justice” to be served. But Papa spoke to us and said, “What’s he gonna learn in jail?” God showed us that the one who was raping our younger boys was raped when he was in jail this past year. So all day we prayed and asked God what to do. Papa gave us comfort with this word, “KEEP LOVING THEM, Don’t stop, don’t give up, don’t lose heart, just keep loving them.”
So here we are, still loving them. Still pouring out everything we have to show them the Father’s love. Loving them and expecting nothing in return. This is the love of Christ, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” John 15:13. Through loving our precious children here in Africa we are finding this scripture to be the very heartbeat of Jesus. There’s no greater love to experience than to lay down your life for someone else to experience “true life” by encountering the one true living God. Some of our boys are already walking as new creations! We can truly see a difference in them...they've quit drinking and stealing and they're doing they're best to live a life honoring God despite the hard living conditions they are in.
We have GREAT NEWS TO SHARE!!! By the amazing favor and grace of God we NOW HAVE LAND HERE IN TETE IN OUR NAME!! It’s truly a miraculous miracle that two little azungues “ah-zoon goos” (means white people in Nyungwe, the local dialect) would obtain a piece of land here in Tete right now. Because of the recently found gold mine of coal here in Tete the government has pretty much seized all the land to sell to these large rich companies that come from oversees to mine for coal. The government is even telling the Mozambicans who are trying to obtain land that there isn’t any available. Only God could open the doors he opened for us to get this beautiful piece of land! We’re amazed by His faithfulness. Please pray for us as we have to purchase the rights to use the land next wednesday which will cost us $40,000 Meticais which is approx. $1,500 US dollars. We had actually been told that it would cost us around $6,000 Meticais which would have only been a few hundred dollars so we were a little surprised yesterday when they gave us the price. We know God will provide for the land and completely provide the rest of the funds we need to build Shekinah Healing Home. Papa has provided some of the funding we need to start building (approx. $14,000 US dollars) and we are estimating that it will cost us $60,000+ to build the Shekinah Healing Home. Pray with us as we are trusting Papa for miracles!
For the next two months we are the base directors for Iris Ministries here in Tete so we are leading the Iris Church and all the base operations as well as continuing our work for PIONEER61. God has placed a huge desire on our heart to evangelize in our village where the Iris Base is located. I’m estimating there are probably 2,000-3,000 small mud hut homes in our village Canangola which in turn means thousands of people who are lost right here in our own back yard. Right now the Iris Church has about 70 to 100 members and there’s no reason that there shouldn’t be at least 1,000! We’re praying that during the next 40 days while we take our church outside of the building and evangelize many many people would come to the saving grace of Jesus as their Lord and Savior! Please partner with us by praying for hearts to be touched and more people to come visit our church to hear the name of Jesus during this time!
We are so thankful for each and every one of you who are praying for us and sowing seeds into our ministry! This work couldn’t be done without you! Our prayer today is that through our journey and mission Papa is touching your heart and taking you to deeper revelations and knowledge of His love. We pray that you are challenged to be obedient to His voice and “step out of the boat” into His will for your life. We pray in the mighty name of Jesus that you will partake in His JOY and LOVE by completely surrendering your life to the great commission of “going into all of the world to share his name and make disciples!”
Blessings, Grace & Peace in Him from Africa,
Nick & Marlene
