Welcome back!  Time to dust off this blog and start recording some of the ways God has empowered our outreach teams and worked through them.  One team just came from Nampula province where they worked with churches in very rural areas.

In one village, they met an old man whose name was the same name as the village.  He had wanted no part of hearing God's Word or going to church.  However team members visited him in his home and encouraged him to come to church the next Sunday.  He gave the excuse, "I'm not strong enough to walk."  "We'll send someone to come and get you," the team offered.  He refused.  However the next Sunday he hobbled into the church to the joy of the team.  That Sunday morning, he not only attended church but gave his life to Jesus.  Later, he also attended the Jesus film showing. He has a new identity - child of God!  No longer is he the old man who wanted nothing to do with God!

Many of the Christians in these rural villages still follow traditional beliefs of using witchcraft and charms to protect them from evil spirits.  When asked to teach in the churches, our students confronted these beliefs with the truth of God's Word.  God wants us to trust Him -- He is all powerful and He cares for us. In one village, the believers repented, bringing together their charms and witchcraft material and burning it all.

In a different part of Nampula province the team was ministering in a local church.  The church was so happy to receive the team that the church members stayed at the church where the team was sleeping in tents and sang until midnight.  They spent the rest of the night sleeping there with the team.

In one of these local churches, the team members taught about Sin and Repentance.  One of the church leaders came forward, publicly confessing his sin of a drunken lifestyle and expressing a heartfelt desire to turn from his sin and live a new life.  The church members were surprised, and thankful, to see their leader's public confession.  His lifestyle had been an embarrassment to them all.  May God indeed give him the grace to leave the drunkenness behind.

In many of the communities, the believers were asking if they could come to the DTS next year.  The team met with openness wherever they went and even a hunger for learning more of God's ways and word.

The outreach team practically served God's people.  In one place they cleaned the yard and home of an older widower.  They also went out and found firewood for him, carrying the wood on their heads back to his house.

One time, when the team was out doing evangelism, they struck up a conversation with a Muslim leader in the community.  At one time he had some Christian upbringing or had belonged to a church but then had become a Muslim.  Now he was a leader in the mosque.  However, he recognized the words of truth and life that the team members spoke to him.  He was so thankful for their visit, that he offered them a chicken, the African way of welcoming and honoring guests!

Well, these are some of the highlights of the team.  They faced challenges in many different ways -- being offered and learning to accept and eat roasted rat in a rural village; taking a bath in standing water that was green with filth from villagers constantly using that pond for washing and bathing; some suffered from malaria; our staff member who is also a mother humbly slept in a makeshift hut that people had prepared for them only to find out in the morning that the ground was infested with fleas and her 3 year old daughter was bitten up from head to toe.

Perhaps, the scariest experience was a spiritual attack one night as the team slept in little grass huts with just a plastic tarp for a door.  A man from the village came in the middle of the night, naked, shouting at them  "The devil you are trying to cast out is here!  It is me!  Come out here and see!  Answer me!"  The team and the local family they were staying with stayed quiet and stayed inside.  "Oh, so you won't respond to me!  So you really are holy people!"  He continued shouting at them until 4am.  Yet God protected them through this all.

Well, that is enough stories for now.....  God's Kingdom is advancing, sometimes in the humblest ways, with simple broken people who are willing to be used by God.