School Day in Pemba

School is full of the presence of God. It is awesome and such a blessing. It’s impossible to give a short, detailed review of the school because the Lord does wonderful and different things everyday. We’ll give you a general overview of a school day hoping it’ll capture the heart of what is going on.

The school is like a family, the family of God, abiding and working together with the Lord. Outside of formal class times it’s like a living community breathing the fresh air of the Holy Spirit. Every day the Lord disciplines, stirs, encourages, enlightens, fills and refreshes us through the Holy Given staff, International speakers (Heidi and Rolland Baker, Bill Johnson, Fred from Toronto, Lesley Ann, Shampoo Rice, etc.) and the students themselves. Several times during the classes, the Lord gives different students visions, words, songs, etc. and then leads the group in the next thing He is doing through the person He chooses. It’s amazing. Sometimes in the midst of worship, the Pastors in the bible school and the mission students are led to pray for one another. The fire of God rains down. Love flows like mighty, inter-twining rivers. People are being healed, set free from hurts and offenses, challenged by the Lord himself to live holy given lives and stirred for kingdom living. God does multiple things at the same time, but there’s complete order and decency.

The School Day

Breakfast starts at 7:00. 8:15 starts Portuguese lessons with long term staff. (Some things don’t start on time in Africa so 8:15 may be 8:30 or later). Worship begins at 8:30, and until 12’ish we may have international speakers minister to the group (just the students or the Mozambique student pastors may join us as part of their classes). Lunch is a huge plate of rice and beans (or rice and cabbage, rice and a little piece of fish, rice and a little piece of chicken). Our favorite is mataba which is rice with a topping of coconut milk, crushed peanuts and greens. Lunch time is also when we sit with the student pastors and learn Portuguese and just hang out and have fun with them and the Iris children (children that live in the center). A number of the pastors have only been saved for a few weeks…but that’s part of the reason their in school now. (It would take me a while to explain this so just rejoice in the Lord…already the Lord has used them to raise 3 people from the dead along with many, many healings and salvations. They are also maturing in the Lord). Depending on the day, the afternoons are for additional speakers or group activities. Tiffany and I are in different groups so one of us can watch our children. We’ve both had the privilege of feeding the kids from the village. The food from Iris is the only meal most of them get everyday (~200 children come from the surrounding villages). They often carry plastic bags around asking for food for themselves and their families. Poverty is so great here. It’s before our faces everyday. Evenings are for occasional homework, spending with the children or other Mozambican friends, spend one-on-one time with the Lord, cleaning, washing, etc. If the water is running we take cold showers, else its bucket bathes. One time the water was so dirty (no, the dirt doesn’t settle) our whole house skipped bathing. We’ve been able to get well water so we use that now when the water isn’t running. None of the water is drinkable. If it’s Tuesday, we lead our house’s “homegroup” meetings. We are the house parents for are house. Right now, it’s our family and 3 ladies, one from Sri Lanka, another from England and another from Washington.

Our children are with us during class and take part in worship. They got over being dirty all day long. Now, they enjoy running around the student houses, playing in the reddish colored dirt (where the flies lay their larvae), playing with other children, being very loud and just having fun.

Saturdays are a day of rest unless we are in a group that has overnight outreaches. The outreaches can be in villages where Iris has gone before or in other Muslim villages where the gospel has never been preached. Sunday is church and the afternoons are free time (unless the group is still on outreach). Free time means your doing work, reading, washing, relaxing, getting tired from having long conversations in broken Portuguese), playing with children, etc.

That’s it for the overview. There’s so much we could share, but we hope to share more detail information about activities that the Lord is accomplishing here.

We are all well, rejoicing in the love of Jesus Christ as He draws us closer to Himself. The children are having so much fun. Last week, the Lord delivered both of them from very high fevers and stomach and headaches!