MOZAMBIQUE 2012 - Bush Outreach to the Unreached Makonde and Mwani

Mau-sim-boa Da Praia, Mozambique

Friday, July 6, 2012

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Bush Outreach to the Unreached Makonde and Mwani

So many beautiful memories are created not only within our minds but within our spirits as we shine the light of God into the darkest and most unreached places of planet earth:

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I am crammed in the back of a camion that takes our team hundreds of kilometers over horrible roads...our heads pounding and our insides jumbled up due to the constant slamming of our bodies against the truck bed...the human body wasn't meant to take such a beating, yet we smile and count it an honor to suffer a bit for the sake of the gospel...our clothes are covered with the red dirt that the trucks have kicked up into the air...many of us have our mouths and noses covered in order to not inhale this same red dirt.

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I am meeting a people group who has their faces tattooed and their upper lips pierced with big guages...the Makonde were at one time cannibals...I hear a story of a Makonde woman who gave a testimony of once wanting to eat her family before she knew Jesus...now I am explaining the gospel of Christ to them through the tattoos on my body...hundreds give their lives to Christ as our team preaches the gospel and shows the Jesus film in their village called Ma-kum-ia...love is in the air...love for a people that have been despised...old grannies smile revealing the only one or two crooked and rotten teeth that are left in their mouths...I learn a few Makonde phrases and try them out...the people are amused and we all laugh together.

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I am standing in the back of a pickup truck as Henk races to the airstrip...I spot Papa Rolland's new Iris plane in the air and immediately begin to roll film...he lands the plane flawlessly...it is a miracle that he is even flying a plane as he nearly lost his life to sickness years ago...Mama Heidi and six other visitors disembark...they are greeted by their Mozambican sons and Harvest School students...smiles and hugs all around...Mama Heidi races off to find land to buy...this proves difficult as they try to deny us the sale of any land once they find out we are Christ-followers...the Mwani people of Mau-sim-boa Da Praia are followers of Al-lah...we try to get permission to show the Jesus film in the most difficult place in the city...the chief isn't around to sign off on a document allowing us to do so...we instead have our outreach at the existing Iris church...after the Jesus film we perform a drama of the Good Samaritan...Mama Heidi, Pastor Jose and the visitors testify of Jesus...hundreds raise their hands and pray to receive Christ...a deaf-mute is healed as his drunken mother heckles us and curses us...joyful and animated dance carries us into the night...the next morning I run with the local pastor to invite the chief to have breakfast with us...our team greets him and the other village leaders...Mama Heidi leads the chief to Christ and gives him a Bible in the Mwani language...Mama Heidi, Antoinette and I pray for some demon-possesed women who are delivered, almost to the point of vomiting and then openly invite Jesus Christ into their lives in their own language...our team is exhausted, with very little sleep, yet visit house to house, sitting with families and giving Bibles away.

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These are memories that have been sealed in heaven. These are stories that will be told among angels. This is our life. This is our destiny. This is normal. This is the Kingdom.

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Christian Young