My Last Week in Maforga

Thurs 9/18 – I was up all night with muscle cramps and feeling like my skin was on fire although cool to touch. I spent all day in bed with cramps, severe fatigue, and nausea – pretty sure it’s just dehydration, depleted, and over did it yesterday in the heat. I forced myself to eat around 5pm, then 40 minutes later felt great!  As I left Rondavel to find something to do, the women were leaving Thursday evening prayer. When I suddenly felt better was the same time they were praying for me!  I gave Gozo her rabies vaccine. Then I installed a new lock on the Rondavel back door since $100 was stolen from my backpack. I’m pretty sure who took it (one of the orphan girls), but I just prayed about it (this happened a few days ago). Then Roy gave me back the $100 saying the girl was convicted by the Holy Spirit to confess and return the money! I didn’t ask who it was as she confessed and she is forgiven, and I praise God for the work He is doing in her and continue to pray for her. But better safe than sorry – so there’s a new lock on the door. I’m struggling with a few circumstances to fit in with this culture. One is, I want my home open to anyone who wants to come in and fellowship, but I realize that the few simple things I have are much more than many locals have; I don’t want my stuff to be a stumbling block for them, so I struggle with letting people in, which may present them with unnecessary temptations.

Fri 9/19 - Our hottest day yet - 37C (99F). I took it easy today since being sick yesterday and it’s hot. I sewed a Capalana to wear to church then cleaned the Rondaval since it’s my week. I went to town with Steph to guard the truck as the pipe she bought stuck out of the back window so she couldn’t lock-up to run her other errands. Mavis sprained her ankle so I wrapped it up. It’s fun being the community nurse – issues just come up whenever and wherever.  There’s no set hours sitting in a building.

Taken from Chaim Bentorah’s Hebrew Word Study: A Hebrew Teacher’s Call to Silence: “In silence my heart saw what my eyes could not see. ..In this room I found Jesus holding a heart in His hands, a heart which had been broken. He was weeping over that broken heart. He was feeling the heart’s hurt and loneliness. He wept over that wounded heart longing so much to heal the wound that tore it apart, but the heart’s owner would not seek His comfort. I saw Him pick up a heart that was cold and barren and watched His tear drops just roll off that heart. I could sense Him wishing that each tear would somehow penetrate that heart, but the heart’s would not open it to Him to allow His tears to enter and soften his heart. As He picked up another broken heart I reached out to Him and touched his nail pierced hand and instantly I felt His sorrow and pain, the anguish felt by the heart’s owner and I too wept…It was in this quiet weeping room that I saw my heart’s desire. It was to not have a flourishing ministry, books published, or to even experience a healing of my body, it was only to seek and search for these hearts’ owners and let them know that there is a Savior weeping for them, longing to enter their wounded heart to allow His tears, His nail pierced hands heal those wounds.”

Sat 9/20  - I vsited with Carlos this am - Orphan Day is postponed 2-3 wks due to the upcoming wedding. I was really looking forward to participating, but it won’t happen this trip. Today is misty and cool, a nice reprieve from the heat. A rabid dog tried to attack Daniel, Guido’s 13yo son, in front of the small children’s play area. He chased it off with the help of Gozo and Ziek. No one was bit; I’m glad I gave Gozo her rabies vaccine and there’s more left so I’ll give Ziek a booster. I guess the nurse here is also the vet! Today I was contemplating Matt 13:3 Parable of the soil – thorn (cares of this world) choke the Word in us. I feel like I have a weed growing in my heart. I’ve been asking God to pull it out, no matter how deep the roots are, no matter how painful it is.  “Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; Try my mind and my heart Ps 26:2.”

Last day at church in Maforga -
Teaching and sharing my testimony

Sun 9/21 - My last Sunday here. I taught the lesson of Blind Bartimeus (Hebrew name for son of unclean – cool, huh?!) in Luke 18:35-43, focusing on spiritual blindness, as well as being persistent in crying out to God (although I did touch on some of the several other lessons in there). At the end of the lesson, I shared my own testimony on my spiritual blindness the past 2 months. I came to Maforga 1 year ago and fell in love with it. I came back for 2 months this year to seek God’s confirmation that this is where He is calling me, and to “spy out the land” in preparation to move and minster here. I told the church that God tried to tell me several times, but I was spiritually blind to His guidance because of my own desire and will; and after persistently crying out to Him to remove my blind spot, I received my confirmation: I am moving here next year, but I’m to work with a different ministry than the one that I thought.

Afterward, Carlos asked whoever was comfortable to come up to pray for me to send me off as well as to “come back to her new second home” as he put it; in this reserved culture I only expected a few people, mainly the missionaries, to come forward. But to my awe almost the whole church came up! It is such a blessing to be a part of the love of Christ in this community. Maforga may be unorganized and have its problems, but they love God and He blesses that in the midst of the inefficiency. And for all of you who know me well, you’ll know that God is using that to stretch me, as I am a lover of efficiency and organization!

Church praying for my departure & return.
 Roy and Trish behind me.
Right of Trish is Jose-Maforga orphan and language teacher.
Right, Carlos - Rubatano

After church I talked to Vashko, a very nice young man from Beira who’s enrolled in Kees’ discipleship training that the Lord has placed on my heart to pray for. He’ll be leaving the end of this year for nursing school! Tendae is a 24yo mentally impaired man who goes up front almost every Sun to sing a worship song – he can’t carry a tune and has a speech impediment so the songs are way off, but he loves the Lord and everyone gives him great applause when he’s done – it’s beautiful! Steph and I took my 2 roommates to lunch in Gondola so I could finally get to know them better. They’ve been here for almost 2 weeks now and we all keep so busy that we haven’t been able to really fellowship. They are relatively new Christians (one is from a Mennonite background!). We had such great conversation that after lunch we went to Steph’s to continue our talk, which turned into a Bible study of 1 Samuel 28. We were having such a great “girls day out” that it was suddenly 6pm, so Steph cooked us a great dinner by combining the different foods that we each had, then we made popcorn (we had to barter our oranges for popcorn!) and watched a movie. They are really sweet girls so Steph will have them watch her house and pets while she’s on furlough (they’re here til Dec).

Roomates-Johanna, Sarah Michelle & Stephanie

Mon 9/22  - It rained all night and drizzly this am so not much work can be done. Lovemore is off due to the rain so we won’t raise the water tank today. I tried to install new locks on the chicken coops, but the cordless drill went dead.  No electricity and no hand drill, so it’ll have to wait. I tried to make the last window screen, but found I’m two meters shy of screen. No sense in cleaning the dirty Rondavel floors since mud will get tracked in all day. I get the feeling the Lord wants me to spend some time with Him today, and He is my priority…the work will all be there when the rain stops and the sun reappears. 

As I leave in 4 days (very sad), I spent time asking Steph more detailed questions about her vision of the clinic. We discussed where I will fit in to the clinic, and the community, with what the Lord is laying on my heart. I confessed to her my wall that I had put up to avoid her and working at the clinic. Here’s the rest of the story (that I didn’t share with church in my testimony): I was confused when I had dinner with Carlos shortly after I arrived, and discovered that his idea for me working with him was very different from what I had envisioned (he’s looking for a full-time US Ambassador where as I envisioned part-time Ambassador and part-time nurse). I’ve been seeking God this whole time since then for clarification, and felt that an obstacle was blocking my hearing from Him on this particular matter. Finally, I acknowledged to Him the fact that since I had been here last year, I was intentionally avoiding working with  Stephanie and the clinic (once open) for fear that it would interfere with  my work at Rubatano. I have been excited to work with Rubatano since I met Carlos last year, and I thought God wanted me to work exclusively with him. Steph is a very strong leader, and I feared that if I spent much time with her, that I would eventually be influenced by her strong personality, and I would end up giving in and working more at the clinic than Rubatano. However, once I addressed this with God, that wall came down that was blocking my sight. I will be working at the clinic as a medical nurse, specializing in wound care and skin diseases. I will also be working with  Rubatano, but in the capacity as a secondary consult, which is required to receive treatment without having to take the patient to the local hospital – and this can only be done through the clinic. Steph took my confession very well – in fact she laughed. She said she knows she has a strong personality and she’s glad that we’re able to discuss these kinds of issues. Steph and I are different in some ways, but similar in others. It’s been good to spend two months working with her so we each can see how the other works, and doesn’t work. We are both direct and like to address and resolve issues before they become out of control, which doesn’t go over well in this non-confrontational culture, but for us it works so there are minimal misunderstandings between the two of us.

Tues 9/23  - My time here is quickly drawing to a close. Last night I visited Daniel; he and Sarah are under much spiritual attack and discouraged. Sarah is still in the US. I’ll be sad if when I move here next year I find that they’re gone. I visited with Nanna this morning about the “old” clinic, training, enemy’s distractions and Christ’s strength, compost, gardening and baking bread. I talked to Guido about cows, sheep, manure for gardening, and his unending optimism based on His trust in the Lord and His faithfulness.

Ecclesiastes 4:6 “Better is a handful of quietness than both the hands filled with labor and striving after the wind.” “The Hebrew word for better is tov, which means to be in harmony with God. The word for quietness is nachath, which means quietness. It is spelled Nun, Chet, Taw. The Nun represents productivity, which comes from the Chet, a bonding with God and a joining of our hearts with God’s heart. This will result in the Taw which speaks of truth and praise resulting in repair and restoration. In quietness we produce more than all our labors could produce in terms of our relationship with God.” Taken from Chaim Bentorah’s Hebrew Word Study: A Hebrew Teacher’s Call to Silence.