Criancas

Carol has done an awesome job with the kids. Every Sunday she works with around 300 kids all at once. It's amazing how much these kids have learned during children's church. Carol also does an awesome job building a team to help her with all these kids. She has embraced the young leaders and has poured herself into them teaching and discipling them to live Godly lives and be young leaders. This past Saturday, these young leaders spent the day together. They were so excited to go to the city and the beach that they were waiting for the van very early. I doubt they slept much. They went to the natural history museum in maputo. They had never been to a museum; then after that, they headed to the beach where they could just be kids. After it all Carol asked them what they thought about their day in the city and they all said they loved the KFC chicken. Of everything they did the whole day, they loved the fried chicken. Easy to please, makes my job easier and so much fun.

Widows

James 1:27

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Parable of the rats

Every two weeks I meet with some people in the church for some teaching. Each time we talk about different topics and lately we've been talking about evangelism so I gave them and assignment. They were to write their testimony and hand it in to me.

This person went on to explain how her life was before Christ. Then she began to explain of the time when she gave her life to Christ. It was when I spoke on 'Hope' and used the story in the Bible of the rats that were put in a bucket of water with a lid on top. The rats died quickly because it was dark and they had no hope. Then another set of rats were put in a bucket but this time there was a small hole where light came in and the rats took much longer to drown because they had hope of surviving. She went on to say that she gave her life to Christ because she was hopeless and saw that she could only have hope in Jesus.

What can we learn from this:

1. God works in mysterious ways.
2. As a pastor, make sure you express very clearly what is scripture and what is not.
3. Don't start adding pages to the Bible.

Wheels

We have been blessed with a van. This has been a great asset to the work going on here. It's four wheel drive so we don't end up stuck in the middle of nowhere. The area where the church has a lot of sand and can get stuck very easily. But I'm loving the fact that we can pick up some widows and widowers that cannot walk to church. As summer comes around it becomes harder to walk to church because of the heat and people would rather stay home. We want to do everything we can for people to come and see God's love for them. It's also exciting to see the young people tell me that we need to go pick up so and so that can't walk to church. They are being evangelists. They are seeing the needs in the community and trying to do something about it. They are being the church. Taking care of those rejected and neglected by others. Lord give us the strength and endurance to be your hands and feet to the lost.

I love this picture. Putting a smile on the face that has gone through so much. most of these elderly would not be in church because they are too weak to walk.

Pastoring

This past Sunday was awesome for me. It was a great service. The "I have a friend" series has been very impacting on the people here. People go through many things in life that are the same no matter where you live in the world. After service a man came to talk to me. He took me aside and began to express what was in his heart and what he was going through. This man is 61 years old and he said to me, "Pastor Isaac, what should I do?" This is very rare in this culture. An older man, asking the advice of a younger person. Even the fact that he's coming to me telling me about his personal life... it was an awesome moment for me. It was humbling. I hear myself preach every week and the only reason I don't leave the room is because I'm attached to myself (if that makes any sense). I was humbled and encouraged at what God is doing in these people's lives. The man went on to tell me how he was praying for me, that God would give me strength to keep helping people. Again, it's not very often we get thanked in such a sincere way. I don't know if the rest of the church went home with anything I said that morning, but I was encouraged that at least one left changed. I have to admit, it is not easy to be here. The battle is hard, but it's moments like these that God sends our way to strengthen and encourage us.

Xai Xai Construction

We as Children's Cup have been working with about 200 kids in Xai Xai for a little over a year now. The work there is going great. We are working on the second phase of the carepoint which is to build the facilities. We are excited about this because we have been trying to build for quite some time but found that Xai Xai is a little different than where we are now. Doubly exciting is that this facility will also be a church. Reaching the people through physical help and healing them spiritually through the church. As Children's Cup we reach out to kids, but the parents need to see and feel God's love also. Having a church and carepoint at the same location is the perfect partnership; a lot of work, but a great way to reach kids and adults spiritually and physically.

The 3 Challenge

Pastor Ben Rodgers from HPC Swaziland brought a group of young people across the border to spend some time with us. We enjoyed having them over here and they taught us so much and I believe they impacted the young people here to keep going and not give up. Despite the language barrier, they connected by showing love and serving in every way possible.

Pastor Ben brought an awesome message Sunday morning and challenged all of us to serve, put others first, and not to say one thing and do another. He challenged us to reach out to 3 people this week. Do something for some one outside your family. Serve in whatever way possible. Here are some stories I'm being told.

Miro (15): I went to an old lady's house and ask her if I could clean her yard. Then I told her that I was from the church and she explained to me that her leg was hurting. So I prayed for her and invited her to church. She offered me money for the work I did but I refused because I just wanted to help.

Rosalina (55): Helped elderly ladies clean their yards and took care of other things around the house. Funny story because she sent word to Carol that she would not be able to go to the women's group because she was helping people. :)

Leonardo (14): Helped an old man clean his yard. Invited him to church but the old man cannot walk too far so I told him we could pick him up with the new van the church has. He was excited about that.

So many stories coming in of people simply serving. People serving people with what they have. Poverty does not exclude people from following Christ's example.