#mmm2014

SUNDAY 6/1:

I am drafting this entry (to post when I have wi-fi) from the front porch of my little cement house, smelling like chicken, sweat, and dirty kids!

I am praising the Lord for bringing greater freedom inside my heart as I praise Him and serve with this community.

Today, along with my Iris community, I:

attended church service on the Iris base— filled with dancing, kids, and a child preacher (in honor of Children’s Day).

celebrated Children’s Day Mozambique by serving about 6,000 children lunch

bussed and washed thousands of dishes

energized dish-washing by praise dancing and singing with kitchen ladies in various languages

spent time writing and reading with Jesus

went to a “floor meeting” of sorts to get to know girls I am living with

enjoyed an impromptu Spirit-filled worship session led by Harvest School students, during which I had a wild time dancing with my flags

continued hearing stories from all the people here about their lives and 

In the morning we participated in church on the Iris base. It was quite the global experience: kids from the village, adopted Iris kids (we don’t call them orphans), the Bible School’s aspiring Mozambican pastors, the Harvest School students from all over the world, and the long-term missionaries from everywhere. There were two translators, so that whatever was being said could be heard in Makua (local African dialect), Portuguese, and English.

Children’s Day is a day in Mozambique for celebrating children, so church service also celebrated children. Youth led worship, youth girls did a praise dance, and then a child preached on Psalm 1. The preacher shared his life testimony of being thrown out of a broken family, being adopted into the Iris family, and eventually coming to know Jesus who transformed his life and then his family when he returned to tell them about Him. They gave an altar call to any children who wanted to know Jesus for the very first time.

Because it was Children’s Day, hundreds of children who walked into the base for the day’s activities were also at church.  Worship was spirited as I danced with this girl.  During the message she braided my hair.  I’m glad I took my friend Jane’s advice to not cut my hair before coming here, so that kids could play with it!

Here, kids, Harvest School students, and leaders (including Heidi Baker) are praying for the child speaker before he shares.

For lunch we had a special meal for Children’s Day of chicken, rice, chocolate, and Fanta!  I also forgot to bring a fork, and figured now was the time to do what everybody else does here and use my hands. A few sprays of hand sanitizer later I had figured out how to haphazardly shovel food into my mouth.

We are encouraged to have conversations in the cafeteria with the Mozambican students of the Bible School. But after exchanging some Spanishtuguese with a man named Cristover, a little boy came up and called us “maridos.” Seems I need to work on cultural gender norms. Most of the Mozambicans we are able to engage with on a daily basis are male, but my room is doing “Adopt A Dorm” and will be “adopting” a room of Iris girls soon to hang out with them weekly or more. I am very much looking forward to this.

After lunch, we fed lunch to between 5,000 and 7,000 children who came to the Iris base! We fed them chicken, savory rice, cabbage, a lollipop, and a Fanta. Wow! For those who’ve done Father’s Heart Ministries breakfast in NYC… imagine that crowd, times ten, and all children. So many happy kids sitting on the floor and shoveling food into their mouths with their hands. Some children walked for hours from their village to come to this meal, and many with babies on their backs. I saw many children pouring the Fanta into waterbottles to take home, perhaps to share with other family members.

To control the line of thousands, children lined up outside the Iris gate. They were first led into our huge sanctuary space, where they participated in sing-alongs and dancing. As they exited, Harvest School students touched them and high-fived them, while blessing and praying for them inwardly. On the next line into the kitchen, kids got their hands washed, and waited and waited, some laughing while people played with them. One man had a rat puppet and fooled around with the kids.

He was a hoot. Note to self: bring puppet next time.

Kids love photos!

This girl is having a grand ole’ time stuffing chicken in her mouth and watching Iris girls dance!

Wish I could post more photos but the Internet is very slow!

One week later, this is my first update from Mozambique!

There is way too much to report, so I am going to break this up.  This post will be just about our physical conditions.

The past week has been about adjusting to the culture and surroundings. The weather is beautiful as we are in the Southern summer. We are in the 80s during the day and the 60s at night. The foliage is tropical, with palm trees and mango trees, etc.

We are living on the Iris base called Village of Joy.  Here is everything it contains, detailed in this map posted on the side of one of the huts.  Entry to come about all the stuff going on at the base!

We have 40 nations represented in the Harvest School (350 students including myself). There is also a concurrent Bible School for 200 men from Mozambique studying to become pastors and missionaries. Working alongside us are short-term visitors from other countries as well. Also living and working on the base are the Iris kids who have grown up in the orphanage, and Mozambican staff who help run everyday activities like feeding everybody! There are also two horses living here, lizards, and many, many bugs that tend to join us all the time.

I am living in a student house with 3 bunk beds and a walled-off bathroom. We have to be creative with storage, so I've created a makeshift shelf which a line of things on the edge of my bed against the wall, and I have hung my clothing on four hangers off of my bed.

Our running water has been out for 4 days, so we can collect water sparingly from a reserve tank, and cannot flush our toilets, so we must use cement latrines (literally a hole in the ground).  We are all praying it comes back on.  When it does, we are able to take sparing cold showers and 

Food has been mostly carbohydrates... usually my nemesis at home. I've also not brought any coffee. My body has been adjusting to this and I have often been fatigued or at least low on social energy, with nauseous moments.

As for meals, breakfast consists of bread rolls taken from burlap sacks at the foot of a bilbao tree between 6:30-7:00am.  I've also purchased some peanut butter to supplement that, and brought a stash of fiber granola bars from home. Lunch and dinner consist of rice or noodles heavily seasoned, and either beans or cabbage or some other African vegetables called matapa (kind of like collard greens).  Sometimes there is fish or fruit as well, and chicken on special occasions.  We eat with our hands unless we bring our own forks and knives. We are able to supplement these foods with produce and food items purchased in nearby streetside stands, or in town.

Here is the bilbao tree ("the bread tree").

Upper left: my house mom, Aly, enjoys sprucing up the rice and beans with many spices.  Upper right: Aika from Japan is roasting garlic to eat in order to ward off mosquito bites.

God is amazing and has a great sense of humor.

Although I had started praying about IRIS over a year ago, and submitted my application, for much of the winter the decision was unclear and life's discouragements dragged me down.  I fought the blues.  Soon my grandmother became very sick in Shanghai. I decided to visit her for the summer.

I tabled IRIS in my heart for another time.

Three weeks ago, my grandmother passed away. We had a good few sad yet thankful days of grieving her life and counting our blessings enjoyed in her 94 years.

The next day, I got accepted to IRIS's program.

For a week as I waited on the Lord and cried out to Him, it became clear that He uses the most broken, like myself, that equips the called... and that He was still inviting me to have this delight especially now that I had surrendered it, even though I had wavered.

Yet the one-month time crunch was daunting.  I stepped out onto the waters, tentatively like Peter.  God is patient with me.

In the past five days, an avalanche of blessing has been released. My beloved friends have given to help me exceed my fundraising goal for the trip!

I know the money comes not only from my friends but from the heart of the Lord-- how else can you explain raising $2500 in FIVE DAYS, with more checks promised in the mail?!

I am speechless in joy, honor, and worship.

I'm thankful God chose to wait until a month before my trip to open all the doors and provide all the finances.  This gives me less time to over-think things and just say yes, yes, yes, and get myself to Pemba to participate however He wants me to!

March Moleskine Madness Day 5 Prompt

Guilty Pleasures

We all have them, that terrible movie you love, that cheesy pop song you know every word to, that sugar-packed food that you could eat 10 of. Depict your guilty pleasure.

Upload your page to your own tumblr and tag it “moleskine madness”. Answers and photo replies are enabled on every daily prompt so feel free to paste a link or a photo of your daily drawing here. However, please do not submit pieces created for March Moleskine Madness to Moleskinelovers.

Have a great prompt idea? Send in an ask or fanmail and you may see it later this month!

New to Moleskines Madness? Don't worry, it's not too late to get started! Read about this challenge and how to participate here.

March Moleskine Madness Day 4 Prompt

Portrait of the Artist as a ....

Today's prompt is self portraits. Now you can draw a straight-up realistic self portrait if you like, or you can mix it up a little. Draw yourself in a historical or elaborate outfit. Draw yourself in the style of you favorite art movement or your favorite illustration style (such as a certain Disney/comic/anime series you like). Draw your past self, or your future self.

Upload your page to your own tumblr and tag it “moleskine madness”. Answers and photo replies are enabled on every daily prompt so feel free to paste a link or a photo of your daily drawing here. However, please do not submit pieces created for March Moleskine Madness to Moleskinelovers.

Have a great prompt idea? Send in an ask or fanmail and you may see it later this month!

New to Moleskines Madness? Don't worry, it's not too late to get started! Read about this challenge and how to participate here.

Hello, fellow Moleskine Lovers! March snuck up on me and I didn't get a chance to properly explain and promote March Moleskine Madness. So here we go!

First off, March Moleskine Madness has it's own special page where most of these FAQs are answered.

What is March Moleskine Madness? A month long drawing challenge with a pretty simple goal: fill a page of your moleskine journal every day of March.

What do I draw? Whatever you want! Daily prompts are posted to help get the creative juices flowing, but if you have a theme or just want to draw whatever, that's fine!

Do I have to draw?: Nope, you can journal, collage, take and paste photos, any medium you want. The goal of Moleskine Madness is to create!

How do I participate? If you are going to participate, send me a fanmail (not an ask) with a link directly to the tag you’re posting your moleskine madness work under (the url should look like this: “http://yourblog.tumblr.com/tagged/moleskine-madness”). You will then be added to the participants list on the the Moleskine Madness page.

What do I do with my daily page? Upload a scan/photo to your own tumblr, please do not submit them to moleskine lovers, include the date somewhere in the post. Tag your post "moleskine madness" <--- make sure there is a space and make sure it's one of the first 5 tags. It will not show up in tag searches if it is not one of the first 5 tags! Track the moleskine madness tag and see what your fellow moleskinelovers have created!

How do I "win" the challenge? If you fill 25+ pages in your moleskine during march, you will be listed as a winner and get your work reblogged to moleskinelovers (special instructions will be posted on March 25th)

What if I miss a day? No worries, you don't have to post something every single day, it just has to be during March. Since you only need 25 pages to be considered a "winner" you get a six free days. And you are certainly welcome to draw 2 or more pages in a day for the challenge.

I have an awesome prompt idea! Great, I would love to hear it! Please send it in and maybe it will be posted as one of the Daily Prompts (you'll be credited with a link of course).