Are you being or doing?

Are you being or are you doing?

This was the question brought up to the staff by Pastor Eugene on Tuesday. We can continually be busy doing all kinds of good work to help people (even in the name of Jesus) but are we continually being in proper relationship with our heavenly father. May Jesus not say to me "I never knew you, depart from me(Matthew 7)."

On Monday I had the opportunity to go into Njewa community which is located in province two. Here I once again had the opportunity to work alongside the Home Based Care department. One of the patients we visited had cancer in his feet so bad that he could not walk. When we came to his area of the community he literally dragged himself along the dirt to meet us. It's interesting how this man's cancer situation could of been avoided if he was seen in time and if he had the money to pay for the medication. That's one of the problems. If people cannot afford medication they basically sit at home and get worse. After doing some visitation I had a chance to love on some children who had a recess brake in school. Just before we were about to leave, the community coordinator came over with a lady who had a baby. I was then told a crazy story. This lady adopted this young child after some devastating events. The mom's husband left the wife for another woman. The wife then got remarried and conceived. When her ex-husband heard of this he came while the current husband was at work and locked himself and his ex-wife in the house. When the current husband came home he was stabbed to death by the ex-husband. Later on while the mother was giving birth to the child she passed away. So the lady in the picture below adopted the child and was asking for help as she was struggling financially to take care of her own children and her newly adopted child.

On Tuesday I went to Mgona which is a slum. Picture walking down an alley and the gutter with all kinds of waste is right down the middle. Trying to walk on the side, the workers and I sometimes stepped in stuff. I say stuff because I wasn't to sure what it was. Here I only visited one young lady who was the community coordinators daughter. She was bed ridden for several days and I wasn't to sure what was wrong with her. She went to the doctors but wasn't getting better, only worse. I had a chance to pray with her, not only for physical healing but emotional and spiritual healing. It was evident that the sickness had done a lot of damage emotionally and spiritually to the family as well. Understanding that the medication that the doctor prescribed wasn't helping, I realized that her only hope was in the name of Jesus. I prayed in Faith, in the name of Jesus, to the God I have a personal relationship with.

What a transformation. On the left is the community coordinator helping hand out mosquito nets after telling me that her daughter was healed and went back to school. Glory to God. This happened on Thursday and the smile on her face says it all(compared to the sadness seen on Tuesday). There is power in the name of Jesus!!!

On Wednesday I was supposed to speak in community but our vehicle broke down just before we were supposed to leave. On Thursday it was raining be we decided to push on to Mngwangwa community even though we could easily get stuck and stranded. There was several times throughout the drive when your heard cheering as we barely got past some questionable flooded areas. Upon arriving I thought I was going to speak to about 10-15 pastors, chiefs and elders. Little did I know that there was over 150 people waiting to hear me preach. I walked into the room where everyone was tightly packed having a big dance party onto the Lord! The music then slowed down and then all the believers in the room(including myself) went on our knees in the presence of the Lord. Many of us then started speaking in tongues. During this time I basically told the Lord that I was not able to speak to this many people on my own, as one of my biggest fears is public speaking. YUP,  in my weakness he is made strong. Long story short, I spoke about unity in the Spirit through the bond of peace. After, one of the workers went up and reiterated what I said in Chichewa and then asked if anyone wanted to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior. I started counting the amount of hands that went up but lost count. I guess that's a good situation to lose count of!! Below are some pictures of people worshipping, the speaking, and people receiving Christ.

You may recall how in another post I talked about how I was able to explain to a lady the meaning of the name miracle. Below is a picture of Maria and her daughter Miracle as Maria explains what she learned about during the children's rights training.

Miracle with bag on head

This weekend Charles, Wayne and myself were supposed to go to Lake Malawi. However, Wayne was not feeling well so we stayed. On Sunday Wayne still wasn't feeling better after two nights of fever and little sleep. We decided to take Wayne to the hospital instead of going to church. It turns out that Wayne has Malaria and a throat infection. As I got up to leave the hospital my eyes rolled into the back of my head and I blacked out. Wayne caught me just before I hit the ground. When I came to I was on a hospital bed and they asked for my approval to do some testing. I didn't really have a choice did I??? At the end of the testing I was told I was just severely dehydrated. During the testing I was on the Saline drip. They told me when I was leaving to just drink a lot of fluids. About 3 hours later I woke up from a nap and puked 3-4 times. HMMM... I then got Charles to drive me to a better hospital. It turns out that the dehydration, puking, headache and fever that I was experiencing was from a bacterial infection.  I am now on antibiotics for several days and am feeling a lot better. I am not surprised that this happened especially after the amazing week of seeing God at work. Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy. BUT, my king of majesty is mighty, awesome in power, and is the creator and sustainer of all things. Jehovah Rapha, he is God my healer.

Tomorrow and the rest of the week Rita and Richard from Visionledd(international partner of Somebody Cares) will be seeing the work that is going on through this amazing ministry. Please pray that the amazing things that happened this past week will only be a small sample of what is to come. Shout out to my Summit family, "to him who is able to do exceedingly more than what we ever hope or imagine, according to the power that's at work in us, to him be glory forever and ever in Christ Jesus, Amen!"- Ephesians 3:20-21, school verse for the year. Do you believe He's able to do exceedingly more?

This past week I learned what it truly means to "draw near to God, and he will draw near to you (James 4:8a)."
The responsibility is on us for this promise. My prayer, if your reading this post, is that you will simply talk to God and allow yourself to draw near to Him, knowing that he will draw near to you.