Sunday School Begins

Sunday School in the Village: A few weeks ago I started Sunday School in the Assumane church. It starts at 9:00 and right after ending in prayer we start the regular worship service. For several weeks, we’ll be teaching on Jesus Christ and Salvation in order to establish the fundamentals in the hearts of the children. Since many of the children may not come every week, the same lesson is repeated twice before moving onto the next. This series will continue until we see that the children have a good understanding of Jesus Christ and the basics of salvation. The Lord is gracious in giving us the subject matter, dramatized teaching and activities. One Sunday, we even had lots of the adults in church join in to help the children make a paper chain activity.

Prayer for Assumane Church and Village: Please pray for the Lord to break the cycle of fear that is being imposed on muslims in the villages if they visit the Assumane church. Many visit and do not come back, but they welcome us to visit them and pray for them in the village roads and even at their houses. Assumane is such a beautiful village, and many people there are so kind and helpful. It would be wonderful for them to be free to attend the church if they so choose. What we’ve been informed of is that visitors to our church are told that if they continue to come to the church, when they die no one (their family) will bury them, and the church will just leave them to rot or burn their bodies instead of burying them. The people who attend the church trust the Lord, and know that the church community will bury them if they or their families do not have the means to do so. Pray for the Lord to give the Assumane church boldness, power and wisdom in bringing the love and truth of Jesus Christ to the individual people in the village. Pray that spiritual strongholds would be broken and light would replace darkness. The former leaders of the Assumane church are traveling outside of Mozambique, and for an undetermined time Tyren is overseeing the church in Assumane village.

Pray with us and for us as we cry out to experience more of the presence and power of God in the village, the hospital, the prison, the floorball teams and in the streets of Lichinga. Jesus is so wonderful- we just must have more and more of Him in our lives.

Love,

Tyren and Tiffany Haynes

Food Stories (for the Beginners)

Instead of sharing about ministry activities, we figured we’d share some food stories. A missionary has to eat. Here in Africa, there are all kinds of crawling, scurrying, flying, and running things to choose from. Some things are tough, some crunchy and others can squish in your mouth when you bite them. But, don’t worry, we’ll just stick to the normal stuff because we don’t want to discourage any of you who may want to visit us soon (hint, hint).

Food Miracle
One day we had regular beans and rice again for lunch. While we were eating, the Lord surprised us and somehow “put” cheddar cheese into the beans. We couldn’t see the cheese, but ohh, the flavor was beautiful! The next day, we ate beans and rice again. At first, it tasted like regular beans and rice. The Holy Spirit prompted me to ask for cheese again in our beans. So, I prayed out loud and we began to eat. Right after I prayed, suddenly, all of us were tasting cheddar cheese again with our beans and rice. We praised the Lord for His blessing, and thanked Him for the cheese! Yes, our family likes cheese-a lot! And if you are thinking, “Why didn’t they ask for meat?”, well that thought crossed our minds, too. But, Jesus knows just what we need. You are welcome to put that meat request on your prayer list for us.

Making and Tasting New Foods
I (Tyren) have been dreaming of having “pop tarts” for a while, and was thinking of making up a recipe to make some. Yesterday, Tiffany made homemade “pop tarts”- some of which she filled with cinnamon and sugar, and others she filled with strawberry jam which some people from a local Catholic church made. It’s so beautiful how Jesus enables my wife and I to have some of the same desires at the same time. It helps us surprise one another with things we’ve been wanting.

Have you ever wondered how some of the wild animals in Africa taste? A few weeks ago we finally got to taste native African bush meat, that is, wild boar. We had a nice sized leg which we baked and shared with Victo and many of the other missionaries at our center. It had a strong “gamey” taste to it, but was tender and very nice. It tasted more like regular pork after we fried it in oil the next morning.

Now those food stories weren’t bad at all, right? But if you feel for us in any way, remember that you can always get a Priority Mail Flat Rate Box from your local post office and send us some goodies (including canned meat) in the mail! On another note, continue to pray for the Lord to direct our hearts into deeper experiences in His presence, boldness to rise up and declare the word of the Lord, and that Jesus would open the hearts of the Mozambican people to hear His word and do His will.

Jesus is so wonderful!

Love, Tyren and Tiffany Haynes