a little bit of news

rightso
whats the criac? more laughing on straw mats, helped chill me out a bit today,
a prophet called mark dupont was speaking and called me amoungst a few others to the front and prophencied over us
it was pretty sweet, he said i should read william wilborforces (the stop slavery dude) book and would doing education and general freedom for the people stuff,
quite fancy in a masters in harvard or somewhere.
apart from that i found the nearby reef so i can go swimming with the fishes in the mornings, and we are off to nampula another area this weekend, to check out a chicken farm, its kinda a fairtrade vibe so looking forward to it and a bit of chillin.
peace
g

hungary

i was in a cross cultural class the other day, which is one where the mozambiquian pastors and the students of the school (us) get taught together,

Hedi was teaching about hunger, from the sermon on the mount where it says "blessed are those who hunger and thurst for righteousness for there will be filled"
she then asked any mozambiquians who had a family member or close friend die from starvation to stand up.

about half the room did.

including the guy sat beside me who i had eariler been chatting to. it blew my mind and heart apart, she got them all to stand at the front of the room and pray for us to impart a sense of hunger for God.

but seriously can you imagine being so poor that your own mother died of starvation before you and you couldnt even buy her a bit of rice or something, the only reason you didnt die was cause of your youth. that means you both had nothing and i mean nothing to eat for about 30 days. some of us miss breakfast or a few meals, but try doing a 24 hour fast and you'll be feeling it, and the debilitating cycle of trying to find work or water or whatever as you starve. And here are these guys who we are living with who have gone through it, there are guys who have seen God moving in miracles like raising the dead, there are really chilled out friendly guys. Its ridculous, like you can get a meal in local restaurant for 17p so in that room of say 50 pastors like 25 of their friends and familes lives could have been saved for 2.40. a pint. If thats not enough for us cause a relovution i dont know what is.

in other news 200+ people got baptisted yesterday, including me, took part in casting out a demon from a girl, have been smiling lots and enjoying the sun.

coughing demons, eating ice cream and other tales of the pemba underground

another we while has passed in this sublime and magnicient poverty. on the down side i got 18 bites for a certain fly which lays eggs below the skin and as i innocently itched my "bites" the eggs hatches and grew into little worms. I only discovered this as in the shower (of which the water has only been running long enough to have two of on the last two and half weeks) i squeezed one of these bites the the strange looking pussy thing that came out began to wiggle, nice. Despite this is the closest i will ever come to pregnancy no maternal instincts develped and i killed every one of the beggers.

apart from that have been having some good banter with the other nutters who travelled over for the craic. crazyness includes a guy who helped out behind the scences on a trip i did to romania in 2000 (represent to kairos krew) and a girl who learned spanish in turrialba, the base of my expedition in Costa Rica (big up)

spiritual stuff is still on full throttle, currently "having a healing" of my hip, after some nice and spicy prayer last tuesday i considered myself healed and promptly burned all the medication i had with me for it (a couple of hundred pills) it has then given me reducing pain up until today when post some more blasting prayer i was able to sprint around the base, not just a crap jog but full-on pelting it, the elation was slightly marred by the blisters incured running around on hard african ground :) the hip is still a bit stiff but its definately the best state its been in over 5 months so thanks to Jesus for that one.

post the run i went back into the tent where we all meet and there was lots of deliverance going on, and as a guy prayed for me i felt weird coughs come up from with in me and then like i was bringing up and spitting up something nasty, this happened three times and i felt all the better for it so i guess the casting out demons thing is a bit more normal than i had imagined to.

for those who are interested Mark 16, Mat 8v16+17 amoungst many others might help any questions of what the funk am i talking about. otherwise peace out.

I stand up but i get knocked down again,

its only been one week, but it could have been a year or maybe longer, not so much spiritual growth as explosion.

church now involves falling over laughing, which is pure brilliant, there is a sort of mad simplicity to Christianity out here.

Jesus loves you, all thats going on in the world is a little to much for comprehension, so simple trust in God and enjoying Him is all that is required. Compared to the stern nonsense of much of my attitude to faith, its a total breath of fresh air.

I went on outreach last wknd, which involved packing up a truck of westerners mozambiquen pastors, a sound system, projector and generator, driving two hours into the bush and getting involved. it was a truly humbling experience to live alongside those in absolute poverty even if for only 48hours, seeing women pound millet for half an hour to get a crap rice substitue which, will not even nourish her 5 or 6 kids. The ground so dry and hard, the people so beautiful yet desperate, i ended up crying my eyes out, broken. but then that night when we showed the video and people understood that jesus loved them and that that meant he could heal them. A bold statement from a western perspective, not so bold as you watch an old man touching his toes to try out his newly healed back, or you watch a man could fingers from his 10 minutes earlier blind eye. Yes miracles happen, I have seen it with my own eyes, you and can see it with yours. Not everyone was healed and it was hard to understand why, but the healing is Jesus business, all we do is pray and the longer i am here the less understanding seems to matter, only trusting.

mozambique pt 1

alright the world
just landed in pemba after a bit of a monster journey
its all good out hear, just how i like it sunny, no running water for the last three days, eating rice and beans with my hands, carrying blocks and meeting new ppl
seriously but more pastors graduated from their school than have probably trained in ireland in about 10years, then there were about 10 batisms, then feeding the local communitythen distributing food to widows. its pretty immense but in a very normal way, met some cool people, a dude who sold his house to buy a plane to be a missionary,talking to a guy from norway who the last time he was flying through dubai (where i flew threw) was to smuggle bibles ;)its like a world select of hardcore christians out here.
but yeah all is good, its a bit of a mission to get to internet so might be a while before i do this again....