For some time we have sensed that the cloud of God's leading is lifting from Lichinga and slowing moving forward, eastward towards the province of Nampula, Mozambique.  As hard as it is to think of leaving Lichinga, we have taken steps of faith forward, crying out to God to make the way clear, the path straight!

This has involved the possibility of purchasing a training center to facilitate a ministry of training and discipling God's people here in northern Mozambique.  The training center belongs to SIL (a Christian organization that translate the Bible, connected with Wycliffe).  They are offering the center to us, YWAM, below the market value of 1.3 million USD and are asking $900,000 USD.  

We sent out our Vision Statement on Sunday, October 26. (If you did not receive it and would like to learn more, please contact us at victorlorifamily@gmail.com)  For two days, it was quiet, with a couple of emails of friends assuring us of their prayers.  We felt the weight of the burden of 900K.  I battled doubt.  Are we so foolish to ask/expect 900K to come in?

Tuesday, October 28, Victor woke up feeling like we mustn't be under this burden -- God calls us to walk up on the water not under it.  Jesus is calling us ...we are to walk and not look at the waves and wind.  That after noon, we had a Nampula team prayer meeting, crying out to God to do what we can not do!

Wednesday morning, October 29, we awoke to find an email (sent yet on Tuesday American time but got here Wed. our time since we are 8 hours ahead) to find the first pledge for .........$300,000!   I was floored!  Stunned!  Just like that, we are a third of the way there!  The plans for Nampula had been plans of faith, of hope -- was God really making them a reality?   Victor danced and laughed and cried at the news!

And since then, the Lord continues to amaze us.  We will try to record some of the stories here and keep a current account of how many pledges of come in so that you can watch and pray with us.

TO DATE:  We have received $389,665 in pledges.  We need a remaining $510,335 by December 15, 2014.

Sunday, November 2, two pledges came in for a total of $5000 that day!  Wow!  Thank you Lord!  Bless those who have given generously, sacrificially!  Then my mind jumped ahead to do the math.  If $5000 comes in per day and we 43 days to go....that will only bring us another $215,000.   Lord!?   And then I was reminded that we add, but in the Kingdom math is done by multiplication.  Did not God multiply the fish and loaves? God was able to take the little we had and multiply it!

Would you believe the pledge that came in Monday, November 3?   What is 5 x 5?  That's right! A pledge came in for $25,000.   Only God!

Tuesday, we received a pledge from a friend very involved in the Lord's service.  She had wanted to buy a different car, replace her car that she is currently driving.  But she felt from the Lord that she was to wait to buy a new car and rather give that money towards His Kingdom.  Then she received our email about the training center in Nampula and she felt that this was where the Lord was leading her to give some of that money!  We were blessed by her obedience!

These pledges received include a contribution from our YWAM Nampula team, a contribution from folks at the SIL center, and from a missionary family working in Nampula.  The pledges have ranged from $15 USD to $300,000.  No amount is to small when offered up in faith!  We are encouraged by each one standing with us in prayer and in finances!   God is doing what only He could do!  Praise His name!

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. 

Opening day of our YWAM Discipleship Training School 2013 came and went.  June 6-7 we welcomed 28 students to the training center, 10 of which are families with a total of 30 something children.  Then Saturday June 8, we welcomed around 100 friends and families, missionaries and pastors for our Grand Opening  See the picture above.  It was a time of rejoicing in the Lord for the students He has brought and a time of asking His blessing over the next 5 months together.

Then we had our first week of orientation....giving the students a tour of Lichinga, doing team building games, having fun together, doing the first work duty jobs together, getting the kitchen organized and running to feed 70 people, the guys spent all day one day going 30 kilometers away into the bush to chop firewood and filled a huge truck full and a myriad of other details. 

We as a family made the BIG move to 2 LITTLE rooms last Sunday.  I said I felt like a turtle or snail...most of our family sat up in the front of the Land Cruiser with all our belongings piled up in the car behind us.  There was a lot of excitement!  The girls have made some new good friends, especially 2 sisters named Vanessa and Suzana.  The training base was humming!

So much humming, that our little Joshua found it impossible to rest and what began as a viral infection developed into major mouth ulcers all over his lips and tongue.  He went from bad to worse, his lips swelling and he was only able to swallow liquids, and that with much forcing from me and screaming. 

Thursday morning we woke up and our socialite Victoria couldn't even get out of bed.  She was exhausted too.  So the children and I went home to our house and spent the last 4 days resting.  Thursday, Victoria and Joshua both spent about 4 hours in bed.  Thankfully, Joshua is on the mend now, eating better and he has his spunky joyful energy back.

So we are headed back to sleep at the base again tonight.  I plan to return with the children 3 mornings a week to do school and to give them a rest from all the activity at the base.

All this to say, the first week with its battles and rushing and welcomings is behind us.  We praise God for the good group of eager students that we have!  And we are so THANKFUL for the staff that has worked tirelessly, each in their own area and own way to make this school happen.

And THANK YOU for your prayers!  We could still use a few more PRAYER PARTNERS for students.  Email us at victorlorifamily@gmail.com if you are interested in participating in this way.

Now we head into the first week of classes, this week's topic being WORLDVIEW.  What is a Biblical worldview?  How does that compare to our worldviews?  Pray for the students to begin to see things in a whole new way -- God's way and be open to change from His Spirit!

More later.  Time to load up the Land Cruiser again.

Work Day, Children's Play

Wednesday was our YWAM team’s Work Day at the Training Base, cleaning up for the coming Discipleship Training School (DTS).  I helped sweep and clean out dorm rooms that have only been occupied by birds for months!  It tugged our heart strings to remove the nests from the roof, some nestling eggs or newborn chicks.  Clara carried around a baby bird for most of the morning, reluctant to even put it down to eat lunch (I can eat lunch with one hand, Mom.)

 

This guy went weed-wacking in the bush!  Literally!  Too bad I didn’t get a picture of the 6 feet high grass he was cutting as he tried to clear the way to open up a new driveway into the training base.  Our old driveway has been blocked by the construction of a new housing block for families.  All the dots on him are the sticker seeds of the weeds he was wading through!

If children’s play indicate was has impacted their life, my kids’ play is very telling!  They play “airplane” probably 4x a week, if not every day.  Here you can see their luggage under their seats, pillows behind their backs, and snacks in front of them.  I guess the flight attendant had already passed by.  These airplane flights are not the short ones!  One day I walked in to find Joshua leaning back on a pillow in his chair with a blanket pulled up to his chin, eyes closed.  This was the LONG over- the- ocean all night flight!  The kids also love to PACK up their things and pretend to go on any kind of trip.  I guess we’ve done a bit of traveling in their short lifetimes!

 

Mother's Day

Sunday Victor was invited to preach at the church, I’ve nicknamed the oven church.  The congregation is in the process of building a bigger church building which should be nice when it is finished.  In the meantime they meet in a temporary building which has the roofing sheets on 3 of the 4 walls and on the roof.  Since we packed the church that Sunday, the inside soon felt like an oven!  Add the exuberant singing and dancing and it was hot, even for normally cool Lichinga this time of year!

This is the best picture I got on the run on Mother’s Day.  We were 45 minutes late (I thought) and so we were running.  Or I should say, I was running.  The children seem to be oblivious to late.  However, when we got the church, hardly anyone was there and we ended up waiting another 30-40 minutes for church to start.  I guess I shouldn’t stress so much on Sunday mornings.

 

Enjoying our yard

 

 

Our avocado tree finally is bearing fruit!  We planted it over 6 years ago and this year we finally have avocados!

The first avocado was given to the Lord since it was our first fruits!  A local missionary just happened to be here when the first one fell, so he got to take it home.  Little David Beni was the first in our family to eat the next avocado.  He got it smashed up with his porridge! 

We are also enjoying the roses in our yard.  These yellow ones grow near our front door.  I cut these two and we enjoyed them on our day the next couple days.

We are especially glad to be enjoying ripe avocados and bright roses when we here of late snowstorms in the USA.  We hope you all can be enjoying spring soon!

DTS Update:
Thank you for praying for more staff.  We now have several different people considering and praying about helping us staff.  Some graduates from the 2011 DTS are willing to come.  The challange is that they lack finances to cover their stay here.  Please keep praying and hopefully in a week or two we can report on who has committed to help staff the school.

DTS is coming!

61 day and counting down to the Opening of our Lichinga 2013 Discipleship Training School!

I apologize for the dormancy of this blog for a year + now.  I'm hoping to revive it, mostly to provide more details about the DTS than I have space for in the monthly prayer updates. 

Perhaps I will squeeze out some time to squeeze in some pictures and news about the kids.  We'll see.  The days are full, leaving little time for "extras" besides the normal daily activities.

There.  I have it!  A new post.  More next time!