Seeing the Face of Jesus In the Midst of Discouragement.Not too long ago, Gazani prayed for me and told me not to be discouraged. I now know what he meant. These past weeks have been the most challenging and would have left me very discouraged in the Lord’s work. But Jesus’ assuring love left nothing in me but a fight to rest in His presence, and un-natural strength to continue seeking and doing the will of God for my life. Discouragement is a principality in Lichinga and for some reason the Lord brought me to and through an encounter with it. This principality, which is not of God (Ephesians 6:12), made all the work I have yet to do on the house seem too much, too time consuming, and the fruit of ministering in the city and villages of little value. But the Lord encouraged me, until He became my sole delight, and I knew my life was at rest “in Him”. I pressed on in the work of the ministry being reassured by the word the Holy Spirit gave me in Isaiah 49. God’s pursuit of my life for an intimacy with Him sustains me in everything. I am so secure in His love for me.
The enemy tried to make our work appear to be in vain, and our ministering useless. But, on the very day I walked with Jesus out of this “valley of discouragement”, the Holy Spirit had me minister to a Christian brother who admitted he had turned back into a life of sin. This man re-committed his life to the Lord right then. It was the next day that my friend White, came to my house, and turned from Islam to commit his life to follow Jesus. A few days later, I entered a shop in the city and saw the beauty of the presence of the Lord on the woman who works there. I never met this woman before. After I told her what I saw upon her life, she told me that she believed in Jesus as her Savior. I then released the prophetic word the Lord gave me concerning the call of God for her life. Her face lit up with the joy of the Lord (it’s not every day that someone comes into a store to prophecy and pray for you). If she is faithful, she will carry the fire of the Lord and show others how to live that life of love in His presence. The Lord is answering our prayers. He’s spreading a passion for His presence in the hearts of the people of Lichinga. Jesus is harvesting hearts for His presence!
Sunday, 10/19, my whole family was at the house of a Muslim man for dinner (his wife is saved). My children were waiting to give thanks before eating. So, this Muslim man stopped eating and allowed me to pray to Jesus Christ the only Son of God, and give Jesus thanks for the food that everyone was eating at the dinner. So I blessed his family as well.
On 10/20, the Lord opened the doors for me to minister in the two prisons in Lichinga. Hallelujah! Thank you for praying!
On 10/21, while I was in the city, my wife was at home teaching the children. The Lord told Tiffany that there was going to be an attack on our land earlier that morning. Within 2 hours, someone purposely walked through our land and set two fires next to our beautiful ~7 ft. high custom grass and bamboo fence (this is the type the locals build around their houses). When Tiffany heard the fire she ran outside and saw that it was started a little bit below our fence. My wife called me on my cell phone crying out for help. Despite her valiant attempts to fight the blaze by herself, most of our fence burned to ash - over 180 feet of it! Our 4 banana trees and many other trees in our yard burned and shriveled up because of the intense heat. The Lord saved our small pineapple, lettuce, and strawberry plants. When I arrived, I brought the day guard from the white house down the hill where we used to live. Only Jesus allowed us to stop the fire from burning the base leaders’ grass fence next door about 100 feet from our house (yes the fire spread all around the center), literally saving one missionary’s truck that is parked along a grass fence from catching fire and blowing up. (We are the only ones currently at our center besides the night guard who comes in the evening and leaves in the morning. Everyone else is far away in Beira at a conference until around 10/28. The other missionaries, Jesse and Tanya, are in the U.S. for a few months). We later worshipped the Lord, openly forgave the person/people responsible for the fire, and prayed blessings for their lives. This is what we do when we see Jesus in the midst of attacks.
We stand firm and are not being shaken. Jesus is the victorious one who lives in us and He cannot be discouraged. His work is going quite well. We are steadfast in our pursuit of His glory, and our desire to know Him. His kingdom is advancing in Lichinga. Then I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain; But, surely my just reward is with the LORD, And my work with my God. Indeed He says, … I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, that You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’’(parts of Isaiah 49:4,6)
In God we trust. We love you!
Tyren and Tiffany Haynes
Tyren’s phone: 011-258-827-413-545
Tiffany’s phone: 011-258-827-316-365
Email for Ministry only: heartsforharvest@yahoo.com
Blog: http://www.clgonline.net/blog/haynes
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