Thank you so very much for your continued prayers, friendship and
financial giving.
The spotlight of our newsletter will be testimonies from Lana Moroz
our full-time missionary in Mozambique and Natasha, our staff member here who
just returned from 3 months in mission school in Africa. Before that, we would
like to share a testimony as well as brief highlights from our work here at the
LivingRoom cafe and LivingRoom Fellowship. Although the testimonies this month
are longer than usual, they are very, very encouraging, so if you have the time,
please read as we think you will be very blessed.
Here
is a testimony from 2 of our staff members, Imre and Nancy from 2 days ago….
“We
were out on the streets witnessing to people as we usually do on Saturdays. We
try to not only share the gospel, but sometimes ask people if we can pray for
them. We decided to offer to pray for the next person we would
meet.
Then
a woman passed by us limping, so we came up to her and asked if we could pray
for her. After getting her (Kristina) permission we laid
hands
on her leg and began praying. During prayer I felt as if something was pulsing
in her leg and I experienced God’s presence and power. After that we asked if
she could stand on that leg and try walking. First, Kristina was very careful,
but then she started walking back and forth without limping or any pain. She was
so happy to be healed that she hugged us very tight.
As
we were praying for Kristina, a man was standing behind us and watching what we
were doing. As soon as Kristina walked away we turned to this man and before we
were able to ask anything he told us he had a toothache (and wanted prayer for
it). Right away, we witnessed to him about Jesus and laid our hands on him.
After praying for this man two times, he told us that the toothache was gone.
But we felt that God had something else in store for him, so we started talking
with him more about Jesus and we saw that he was ready to accept Him into his
heart. Right on the spot he repented of his sins and gave his heart to Jesus!
Nancy and I were so amazed and filled with the His joy and Spirit! I was shaking
quite hard because God’s presence was so strong in that situation. I believe
that if God is with us, nothing is impossible. I also believe that this is just
a beginning of much more such encounters between human need and divine supply!.
He wants to do much more in Estonia, and we want to be part of
it!”
Also, in the last 4 months:
-
We opened a new church right in our cafe that meets on Saturday
evenings.
-
This past week 3 people came to the Lord through personal
evangelism.
-
Our church attendance grew to 25 people these past two
weeks.
-
Our cafe reopened 3 weeks ago after a 2 week summer
break.
-
Natasha is back from her mission school training in Mozambique and is
back at university in her final year of grad school.
-
This past week we ministered at a local church and have been invited
back again.
-
Katya received positive feedback from her surgeon and does not need
further surgery. She needs to improve her physical health and exercise
regimen.
-
A settlement from her car accident was able to cover of her medical
bills, praise God!
-
We have been asked to do a local TV show on "spiritual
influences".
-
We just celebrated 1 year as a ministry cafe. We have seen so much
growth and maturity worked into the lives of each of our core staff members.
They are a joy to work with.
-
We were blessed with a 10 day visit from a Swedish couple Joakim and
Katya who worked with us and did evangelism on the street.
-
We were blessed with new equipment for the cafe which was desperately
needed.
-
God has continued to supply all of our needs according to his riches
and glory in Christ Jesus.
Prayer requests:
News from Natasha
Dear Friends!
The last three months of my life were indeed unforgettable and
amazing. I feel that the Lord has really changed my heart by means of my
experience on the mission field in Mozambique and Tanzania. And I believe that
this experience will continue affecting me and I will never be the same. I am
very thankful to Jesus that He let me to not only see, but also to be a part of
everything that God is doing in Mozambique. Being so poor materially, this
country is also very poor in spirit. And the Bible says that poor in spirit are
blessed, because the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them. The desire of my heart
is to be hungry and thirsty in spirit all the time, no matter what country I am
in, because being this way, I can really experience His Kingdom in my life. In
fact, God has been teaching me many things, but first of all He let me feel His
heart for His people, for whom He died and was risen from the dead.
Also, I am very thankful to each one of you! Thank you so much for
your prayers, financial support and encouragement. I know that without your
participation this trip would not have been possible and I am so grateful that
you were obedient to the voice of the Holy Spirit to back me up.
Following are several testimonies of what God was doing in Mozambique
last summer. Every little story in this newsletter is not only my testimony, but
also your victory!
The highlight of my first days in Mozambique was “ Children’s Day”
June 1st. (picture on the right). Every year on June 1st, Iris Ministries in
Pemba has an evangelism program for village kids that includes a feast. This
year more than 5000 kids came to the celebration and were able to hear the
Gospel and have a tasty meal.
The second week of the missionary school we went on village outreach.
Thirty of us went to Namapa village in Nampula district. This first outreach
radically changed my insight into the spiritual realm because in this village as
nowhere else, I experienced very strong spiritual opposition in the form of
witchcraft. But Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross is more powerful than any
weapon of the enemy! The first night of the outreach we showed the “Jesus“film
in the local Makua dialect and we prayed for the sick. Though Satan did not want
to release people from his hands, the hunger for Jesus and the things of God was
obvious! The next morning 50 people made a covenant with the Lord and were
baptized in water (see picture on the left). It was such a blessed time! The
same day we had the privilege of attending the wedding ceremony of 11 African
couples.
My second outreach was to the village of Mapupulo. As is our custom,
the first night we showed the “Jesus” film and prayed for the sick. The next day
we went from hut to hut in groups of five to meet the locals and witness to them
about Jesus. This day our group of five witnessed two major healings! In one of
the houses we met a man who was deaf and dumb. (The picture on the right is of
me with him and his family). We laid our hands on him and commanded his ears to
be open. Then, I started walking further and further away from him and asking
what was his name. The young man pronounced his name louder and louder and
clearer and clearer until he was shouting it out because of excitement to hear
his own voice! After receiving healing this man accepted Jesus into his heart
and we prayed for him to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
The second healing took place when an elderly man came up to us
asking for prayer for his eyes. We laid hands on him and in prayer commanded his
eyes to be open. One woman on our team moved away for approximately 10 meters
and started showing different signs with her hands, and the man started
repeating those signs! Immediately, He accepted Jesus into his heart and we
prayed for him to be filled with the Holy Spirit!
The third outreach that I went to was very different from the two
previous ones because this time God allowed me to go with a medical team
(pictures on the left and right). In this village people suffer from worms they
call “Matakenya”. These worms live in the sand and get into people’s feet
through the wounds. The purpose of the outreach was to pull the worms out of
people’s feet and to teach people to do it on their own. The process is very
long and painful: first of all person’s feet are washed, then they are soaked in
kerosene, and only after that you can pull out the worms using a small scalpel
and a toothpick. After that the wound is treated with a medical solution and a
person gets a pair of socks and flip-flops. My task was to soak people’s feet
and pull out the worms. The Lord really gave me supernatural grace and tenacity
to do it! In one foot could be found up to 15 worms and each one of them leaves
a very deep wound in the feet. Also, Jesus performed another miracle on that
outreach by multiplying socks and flip-flops! God always has even more than we
need!
At the end of the mission school along with a team of 30 people I
went to a 10-day bush (remote village) outreach. For all of us it was a
privilege to bring the Gospel to unreached places of the country where people
had never before heard about the living Jesus! For ten days we had a very
intensive schedule: after a several-hour-ride on bumpy Mozambican roads in a
flat bed truck we would do either children’s programs, minister at a service of
newly formed churches, teach new believer’s classes, or pray for the sick. It
was such a blessing to see young and elderly that are hungry for the Lord and
would like to commit their lives to Him.
During these 10 days we saw hundreds of people giving their hearts to Jesus and
witchdoctors burning their paraphernalia and receiving the gift of eternal life.
Personally, I was extremely touched by a story of a young Mozambican from a
Muslim village Nangade (picture of him and members of our team above), who
came up to us with a desire to repent and to receive prayer. He told us that a
day earlier, when he first saw us, he felt a strong desire in his heart to kill
our team with poison. Everyone from our team was experiencing how much God loves
Nangade so that we came out of our compound and started preaching to the crowd
in the street. I believe that God changed the heart of this young man at that
specific moment by telling him that Jesus died for him. As a result, he came up
to us and handed us the poison that he wanted to kill us with the day before,
and invited Jesus into his heart!
Also, I believe that the Lord released a very strong spirit of
forgiveness upon that village, because so many elderly men came up to us to be
prayed for (most of them were missing limbs as a result of civil wars and
“liberation” wars in the country). The members of our team asked forgiveness on
behalf of everyone who hurt these men and we prayed for them. And some of them
made a decision to follow the Lord.
During the ten days of these outreaches we were showing the “Jesus”
film in Swahili and Makonde languages, sharing personal testimonies, preaching,
and praying for the sick and for deliverance of the demon possessed. Each night
we ministered to between 50 and 1000 people, and there was not a single night
when at least a few people gave their lives to Jesus. The fruit of the bush trip
was five new churches planted in different villages, as well as salvations,
healings and deliverance. And as we were heading back to the Iris Pemba base we
found out that the first village that we visited had already built a church
building! One of the families donated its land, and villagers used their own
resources and manpower to build a place where they could worship God
together!
Besides all that I was helping with administrative work at the office
of Iris Pemba children´s center and teaching a young girl, Salina, how to use a
computer.
Every week we were going to surrounding villages to meet the locals,
pray for their needs and tell them about Jesus. Once, I stayed overnight in a
mud hut with Mama Beatriz and her seven children
(pictures on the right and below). Mozambican mamas love receiving guests and
teaching them to cook national cuisine, to wash the clothes “African way” and to
teach them their language.
As well, once I went to the maternity department of the city
hospital. It was an amazing time of praying for mothers and their newborn
babies. God even gave me an opportunity to name a five-day-old boy (I named him
Matthew).
I am very thankful to God for this precious experience in Mozambique;
and that He allowed me to feel his heart for the poor. I was very blessed to be
part of a culture with many physical and material needs but also with a deep
hunger for the Lord!
Thank you all for your prayers and for helping make my mission school
experience possible.
Much love,
Natasha
News from Lana
Hello dear friends!
Finally I have some time to write a letter.
It has been three months since I returned to Mozambique. As you know
I am a staff member at IRIS mission’s school and this year I have even more
responsibilities. I was asked to coordinate medical work and outreaches. Also,
this year my dorm is a “medical house” since most of our girls are nurses or
doctors (picture on the left) and that’s why we always have many visitors.
Two days before the school started we almost had a tragedy with one
of our students who is allergic to peanuts: she decided to taste some of the
local food not knowing that there were peanuts inside. The allergy showed up a
minute after she ate a spoon of a meal. Fortunately, I had several ampoules with
me which also, thank God, had not been confiscated at the airport after they
were found in my luggage. When I arrived to help, the girl was not breathing and
within a hairbreadth of death. Honestly, I was thinking that the first day of
school would be a day of mourning because her condition was so critical. We
started intercession right away and all of the school staff members and students
were praying for her life. I am so thankful to the Lord for His mercy and grace
towards this young lady and also for my experience in emergency ambulance
response. A few hours later her condition became stable and God literally
raised her up from almost certain death. I spent two more days with her, and
we decided to bring her into our dorm so that she would be closer to medical
people. I am so happy that she was in my house because we had such a good time
together. Every morning as I saw her I was reminded of His mercy and
faithfulness and that He keeps us safe in His hands.
My main task at school was coordination of medical work and helping
with organization and coordination of weekend outreaches that we hold every
week. Three teams go to three separate villages weekly. I also had a chance to
go on outreach every weekend. The first evangelism trip for my group was very
tough. There was very strong demonic activity in the first village, though we
experienced God’s heart and love to the people there. During the outreach I
almost fainted without any reason several times and after I came back home I was
sick for almost a week.
Also, I had the opportunity to go out on medical outreaches. This is
my favorite way of preaching the Gospel because people in local villages don’t
have any medical help. Usually we go to places that don’t have a clinic nearby,
set up a tent and people come to be checked and receive treatment for free. In
most of the cases people are very open and are ready to hear about Christ and
are open to be prayed for, even if they are Muslims . It is such joy to see
people healed and giving their hearts to Jesus as we pray for them. We had a
very funny story when we observed one man and gave him some treatment, but he
came back shortly after prayer and treatment. First we thought that we forgot to
give him medicine but then we saw him holding it in his hands. As we asked him
what was wrong he told us that he wanted to accept Jesus as his
Savior!
Another time, one of the teams visited a village that was full of
“Matakenya” worms that literally eat people’s feet (picture on the right). We
decided to make another trip to that village to help them and to bless them with
socks and flip-flops. We gathered an offering at school to be able to buy
everything we needed and asked those who wanted to donate socks and shoes. As I
was chosen to lead the outreach everyone was told to bring their donations to my
house. Fifteen minutes later my porch was stocked with running shoes, socks and
flip-flops, as well as an envelope with donated money. I was so surprised by
this sense of urgency and especially by the generosity of people. We bought some
more flip-flops and materials to pull out the worms (toothpicks, kerosene, soap,
basins, etc.).
As we came to the village we asked the local government for
permission to help the people, and they gave it. They were very happy and told
us that we could come any time we wanted. The entire village gathered around us
because they wanted to get a nice pair of shoes. To be honest, I don’t think
I’ve seen anything like that before in my life! As hard as we tried it was
impossible to organize the crowd, it was real chaos. It was not easy pulling
worms all day but we did it! Later that night we showed the “Jesus” movie and
many people accepted Jesus and received healing. The next day we decided to
hand out the rest of the shoes, prayed for the village, blessed the local
government and returned to our base. After returning I realized that we still
had some socks and flip-flops left, even though we were giving them to each and
every person and some got up to three pairs.
We decided to return to that village, because we had only been able
to deworm the feet of 50 people, and the rest only received shoes. Everything
went much smoother this time, but people still were fighting the idea of
standing in line. This time we decided to teach them how to help themselves. We
handed out toothpicks to them and showed them how to pull out the worms.
Finally, everyone was sitting down digging out their own worms! And we were
giving out socks and shoes again. In the evening we led another evangelism but
we did not show the film, we just prayed for people and worshipped the Lord.
Next morning we went from hut to hut visiting people. We witnessed to
an elderly man, and his son got actively involved into the conversation
translating for his dad. He even emphasized to him how important it is to meet
Jesus! As a result, the elderly man received the Lord. We offered prayer to two
others but they did not want it. But then, the son of the man that got saved
asked us if we could pray for his leg since it had been aching for several
years. We prayed for him and asked him to test his leg. He started walking
around slowly in his yard, then running around, then dancing because of the joy
of being healed. After that he asked if we could pray for healing for his wife’s
stomach. But we had a word of knowledge that she is in depression. It was true
and she never left her yard for almost a year because of that. We started
praying for her and we all got filled with joy and experienced God’s presence.
After the prayer we saw the woman smiling. Then we asked her if she felt
anything during the prayer. She answered that everything was “bubbling” in her
stomach which never happened to her before. Obviously, she was being touched by
the Holy Spirit! We explained to her what it was and told her about Christ, and
she accepted Him into her heart.
As we returned home from that outreach I found out again that we had socks
and shoes left.
This is only a tiny part of what God has been doing in Mozambique.
Very soon I will send you another letter about outreach to Kenya
which I am leading right now (picture on the left). I will spend a month here.
Thank you so much for your prayers, I always need it so much! And for
your support as well.
God bless you in your labor!
With love,
Lana Moroz
God bless and keep you,
John and Sara Russell
for StreetCry Ministries
