What a finale to these last 7 weeks of waiting on the Lord to see if He would bring in the funds to purchase the training center in Nampula! On Sunday, 8 pledges came in and we went to bed Sunday night our time with a balance of $611,160. (The balance the Sunday before was $558,155). We woke up this morning and found 13 emails waiting in our email inbox. (Remember we are 8 hours ahead of US central time so people had been writing while we had been sleeping!)
I started opening the emails and started typing in the pledges to the list. My excel program kept up with the math! What a blessing each and every pledge was!
Several people wrote to pledge additional funds, above and beyond what they had already offered! Then there were pledges from family members....2 different sets of parents talked with their adult children and we received pledges from their children. One family spoke to their parents, and their parents gave a pledge! What a beautiful thing to see generations serving the Lord with their finances!
One veteran YWAM missionary wrote to say that we were on his heart. He had been in a situation like this several times and having been there, he was praying for us. He also gave a pledge as a symbol of his standing with us!
Two of our YWAM bases here in Mozambique sent sms s on the phone to pledge amounts -- they were feeling like their pledge of $100 was nothing compared to the enormity of the project. Oh, but how they blessed us with their hearts to stand with us as Mozambican colleagues, friends, members of the same YWAM family!
One family pledged a significant amount and said to let them know if we needed more. By the end of the morning, we stood at an amazing $685,000. We let this family know where we stood and they promptly gave enough to bring us up to $700,000! Wow! What a joy to be able to offer SIL $700,000 for the purchase of the training center.
May the Lord be praised for all He has done! We talked with our YWAM Mozambique leader this afternoon and he was encouraged! He commented that missions has a history of God's amazing provision and there are lots of books that record these accounts of God's greatness. But sometimes, we think that that was in the past and wonder if such a provision could occur in our day and age. This is an example of the truth that our God is the same yesterday, today and forever! What a privilege to be part of God's story!
So now we wait on SIL's answer to what God has provided. We pray for a unity in the Spirit and a peace in the decision.
Thanks for all your prayers!
Selemani Family
Victor, Lori, Victoria, Clara, Joshua, and David Beni
