good times at the expense of the............witchdoctor!!!!

So my color group team (Vibrant Grey) which I lead went out into the village on wednesday to help a family repair some of the walls of their house. The local pastors whom we went with ended up being extremely unprepared so we didn't get much done (not a big surprise, this is Africa after all) but we arranged for them to be more prepared another day and we made a date to go back. While we were hanging around and playing with the baby though, we noticed he had a strange looking bracelet on him. I asked Justinho about it, and if it was a witchdoctor charm to ward off evil spirits and stuff. He asked the mother and she said it was. They had been having problems with him, so they took an hour and a half journey to see the witchdoctor who informed her that her child had a demon attached to it and this bracelet was supposed to keep the demon away. I told them this was unacceptable and that the bracelet needed to go. We asked the mother if we could remove it and she said we could. I expected a little more resistance on her part. Many families are terrified to remove a witchdoctor's amulet because they fear a demonic attack upon their lives. Anyways, we cut the bracelet off (with the help of Elise's key) and then gathered around the baby and prayed for the blessings and peace of Jesus to abide on him and heal him. Then we explained to the mother that trusting in Jesus was so much more steadfast and everlasting than trusting in the witchdoctor. It was good times.

The children here at Iris make their own bracelets out out different color beads which symbolically represent the new life which is found in Christ. One of the members of my team bought one and when we go back to the house we will replace the bracelet we took from the baby with one that represents the everlasting covenant God made with us through Jesus. How absolutely awesome is that?! It's pretty awesome. I love it.

update from HG5

I'm at this sweet internet spot in downtown Pemba. It's hilarious. Not really high speed or anything, but it's what we got, and for here, it's absolutely fantastic. So I'm full on in the role of staff for HG 5 (short for Holy Given) and things are well. It is a wee bit more chilled in Africa right now than I remember, but afterall, this is their winter. I mean plus 20 degrees is still pretty warm, but I expected some major heat to be cranking out. We got about 150 students here and only about 40 guys!! So the girls have us slightly outnumbered. It's all good though. So far we have had a steady diet of rice and beans! But don't worry, there are some restaurants that cater to our western needs!! All in all though, things are well. My mind has been preoccupied with things other than Holy Given, but God is good, and He's starting to minister to me in intense degrees.

I believe I have been approved by Iris to go to Sudan in september. But as of right now noone knows what the leadership wants to do with the ministry in Khartoum so nothing is finalized right now. As of this moment I have no idea what is taking place in september. It is totally up in the air. I don't plan in being back in Canada till at least January, but as I said, I've no idea what the Fall holds. I'm not too worried about it though.

So thats the latest. Pretty much been entertaining myself with the kids, refreshing my portuguese, getting the lay of the land again, and dying to self (which seems to be never-ending). It's all been real good though. We'll see what God intends to do in the next little while, but I'm expecting it to get A LOT more intense. Sometimes God pushes things to the forefront that must be dealt with; internal things. Here we go. See ya's.

welcome home

Yee haw!!, back in Africa. A 7ish hr trip from Montreal - Zurich, followed by a 8ish hr trip from Zurich - Dar es Salaam took me into Africa again. I grabbed a taxi [they ripped me off >:(] and drove to the Holiday Hotel for the night. The sights and smells of the poverty of Tanzania shocked me. I have been away too long. I had forgotten a little the severity of poverty. After checking into my room, I get a knock on the door and guess who...........Paul Adams, who arrived in Dar es Salaam the day before and hunted me down. Good stuff. We catch up and head into Mozambique together the next day.

I hit the ground running in Pemba when I arrive. The regular Iris staff all are going to Maputo for a staff retreat, so Kylene and I are put in charge and given a host of duties to see to. I immediately get put on key duty at base 1, work duties for the missions school, and distribution of donations and gifts directed towards the children and student pastors. I also am generally in charge of the 50 or so guys that are coming is as students for the missions school. It has been fairly busy indeed.

But enough about crazy busy time, here are some funny, interesting things that have happened since arriving about 5 days ago:
-- we go to town to buy some fruit, etc and get followed around by this demonized girl who is stripping in front of us and stuff. It was interesting all right.
-- I come home my first night and am greeted by an enormous hairy spider on my floor. After a 30 minute battle, I spear a Croc at it and injure it enough so that it falls off the wall. I finish it off with the other Croc. Victory!!!........and peaceful sleep!
-- I go outside to check up on my unfinished kitchen and an even BIGGER spider (pictured) has taken up permanent residence. My friend Paul grabs a loooong stick and whackes it, but it doesn't die. The thing is huge!! He squishes it with his shoe and ends the life of this terrifying creature.
-- I am awakened saturday morning at 6:15am by a text from Kylene saying some guy had lost control of his car and had rammed it through the wall of our water house (pictured). I walk the 15 minutes to base 2 ans sure enough, some guy had lost control of his car and had rammed through the wall of our water house!! So, we have to manually move 700 (1.5L x 12) boxes of water out of the room so they would not be stolen. It was a heavy duty move job.

I can't really think of much more now cause it's late and I have to go to bed. A lot has gone on in the last few days and rest is a GOOD thing. Staying close to Jesus in these busy times are also a GOOD thing, the very best thing, in fact. There will be many more stories to come, be sure. Internet is accessible here, but not a whole lot, so I will update as God allows me to. Sleep time.