Growing up in God's Timing

Last May, when I left to return to Mozambique, my intention was to pair up members of the Centro Emissor church and Maranatha to begin building relationship between the two churches. At that time there were around 40 members who belonged to the church. From the last report I have received, there are over 80 people coming to church on a regular basis. The church of Centro Emissor has been growing in the midst of the leader's frailties.

One year ago in November the leader Zito's wife, Zaria died of malaria while carrying their 4th child. That was a shock to the community and a great set back in the maturity and growth of the church. But not a surprise to God. God knew all along that this would happen and that he would for the next year change, lead, strengthen and be with the weak as we all continued to move forward for His glory in the church. While Zito has walked the journey of healing, the church leadership has continued and slowly moved forward to spread the word and the result is an increase in the flock in maturity and numbers.

Today I want to share some of the prayer partner assignments of Centro Emissor and Maranatha:

Name Age Children MBC Partner
Leopoldino A. Félix 28 Widower 3 Perry and Jane Schoff
Molbino V.Mineses 26 Single - Doug Hoffmaster
Oscar Fransico 27 Single Matt Rosendahl
Pascoal Francisco 30 Married 3 Pat Pisney
Cipriano Francisco 28 Married 4 Jenn Joyce
Joaquim Francisco 50 Married 5 Marilyn Cellemare
Eugênio Joaquim 18 Single - Jay Coppess
Luisa Cimento 40 Widow 5 Jennifer Steadman
Domingos Manuel 33 Married 3 Maggie Noll
António Rafael 17 Single - Diane Ryan
Adelino Domingos 35 Married 1 Maggie Noll
Inês J. Lampi 22 Married 2 Mary Eyansons
Inês Manuel 23 Married - Michelle Staff
Anita Alberto 20 Widow 1 Andrea Petersen
Sonia Mateus 18 Married 1 Deane Watters
Fátima Gonsavel 28 Married 5 Therese Mefferd
Gina Alberto 35 Married 2 Annette Rosendahl
Gabriela Valentim 53 Widow 3 Char Coppess
Rita Madeira 30 Married 1 Mary Ellen
Chica José Aged Married 6 Helen Hunter
Arminda Mateus 20 Married 2 Beth Telecky
Rosa Mário 22 Married 3 Beth Boyles
Lucas J. Lampi 15 Single - Chris Thompson
Cartina Domingos 41 Married 5 Kim Hofmaster
Antónia Paulo 21 Married - Donna Williams
Teresa Afonso 23 Married 4 Josh Peterson
Evordina Oba Aged Widow 3 Gloria Telecky
Filipe Francisco 22 Married 2 Emily Gibsons

Families who need Prayer Partners

Amos Albano 25 Married -
Abel José 22 Single -
Carlos Linguison 23 Single -
José Albano 21 Single -
Domingos Fernando 23 Married 2
Francisca Francisco 59 Married 5
Regina Melo 18 Married 2
Isabel Zacarias 18 Married 2
Jacinto Linguison 28 Married -
Raquinha Tubois 40 Married 6
Horácio Alberto 19 Married 2
José Anibal 17 Single -

Jesus didn't come to make it hard, He came to make it clear. Prayer is powerful and effective, pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

As you can see there are names of people who do not have a prayer partner. And there are 40 more names to be added to the list with the growth of the church. Please be mindful and obedient as to who God would have you pray for. Just make a 1 year commitment to pray for this person. You can trust that when they receive your name, they will be praying for you each week and probably each day.

Life is different in Mozambique. There are not the distractions of life like we have here in America. They may have less, but they have so much more. Trust me.

Send me an email: kathy@childrensrelief.org to give me the name of the person you would like to pray for that doesn't have a partner.

Be blessed, be in prayer for the lost, and be encouraged because we serve a Mighty King giving thanks in all!

Obedience,

kathy

It's time to make a shout!

Have you ever thought about just shouting right out loud? I mean you know like from the depths of your soul just giving it all you got! Just do it, right now, just stand up and shout the name of JESUS! Afraid? Don't want to be embarrassed because you are making too much noise? I know, you don't want your family to think you have lost your mind.

Everyone has been to a football game or some sort of activity that you were able to just let it all out. And the real beauty of an experience like this was that you had people all around you doing the same thing so your particular shout was not noticed. But do you remember how you felt when you finished? It was almost like a cleansing, your whole body was lifted, you felt great, and it may have even exhausted you to put forth all of your energy into your shout.

Let me tell you about worship. Worship in Africa. Where I live in Mozambique, people live to shout. On any given day you can hear the shouts of joy and worship to the King for another day of life. Sometimes you can hear the shouts of pain from their sorrow, but my friends, they know how to shout, how to let it all out. Embarrassed? Nope. They just do not have anything to lose. They already have nothing. You really do not have anything to lose either! I mean come on, like what?

Think about what a shout can do, a shout brought down a wall,"Shout! For the Lord has given you this city." Psalm 20:5 May we shout for joy over your victory and lift up our banners in the name of our God. May the LORD grant all your requests. Psalm 71:23 My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you— I whom you have delivered. 98:4 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music. Isa. 40:9b lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid;

A shout is a strong emotion or a call for attention. Are you shouting today? What are you shouting about? A shout of emotion for what God has, is and will do in your life would be good for you!

Do you wanna start? JESUS!....... IS LORD! HE HAS GIVEN ME FREEDOM! I AM FREE! I AM FREE FROM MYSELF! HE DIED ON THE CROSS FOR ME! HE HAS DELIVERED ME! HE CAME TO SAVE A BROKEN AND DESPERATE WORLD! HE WILL REGEIN FOREVER AND I WILL BE WITH HIM! HALLELUJAH!

Ok... already I am feeling better. Don't delay... do it today.... you will never be the same when you totally give it all to God.

View the link to shouting praise! Cut and paste into your URL http://sharing.theflip.com/session/6a44aa500477fcd319e69a3ed85deeb2/video/35221061

What can wash away all my sin? Living Water..

My heart sang with shouts of joy this morning as David Domingos walked into the church holding his baby son. David has brushed against the grip of death in the last 6 weeks. The church has been faithfully praying and visiting David each Sunday. It was such a tremendous blessing to see God’s hand in this.

Today was just an overall great day concerning our worship and celebration at Centro Emissor. We had a packed house this morning and the singing and dancing was such a great time. I know that God had to be smiling upon His people as we all praised His name.

A visitor from Chicago is here now and gave a message about Moses being called by God to serve Him and to lead the children of Israel into the promise land. I would imagine living life during the time of Moses is somewhat similar to what our friends at Centro Emissor experience. Living in sand and dirt, cooking over fire, water wells, houses made of mud and sticks with no electricity or water in their home.

Our brothers and sisters at Centro Emissor are like any other people at any other time in life and anywhere around the world. We are all sinners and all have a need for a Savior. We have idols, God shows His grace, some turn towards Him and others turn away. We are praying now about how to move forward to encourage our friends to trust in the Lord with all their heart when most of them remain to believe in witchcraft and visit the witch doctor.

The prayer requests from the members for this week are:

Jessica – asthma attack
Deborah 9– was burned on the fire cooking and has a cold and cough
David Domingos – continue to pray for recovery and his appetite to increase
Sammuel – 8 months has a fever and is sick. Pray that his mother will be diligent to take him to the hospital because this child is more sick than what his mother is willing to admit.
Maria – had a broken arm and had surgery and a cough
Zito – is asking for prayer that God would provide transportation for him. He and I have been talking about this and he needs around $450.00 for a motorbike plus fees for drivers training. He is making cards and maybe some of you have seen some of the ones I have brought home and given out. They are $2.75 each so if anyone wants to order some please let me know☺
Big Mamma – continue to pray for the church building and God’s blessing upon that.

I have a tremendous praise the Lord!!! The Texas team came in on last Friday to drill clean water wells and tomorrow we are going out to our future church building site to drill a clean water well! I am so excited to be part of this. I believe this will bring people to the well when they find out that the water is clean and healthy for their babies. We can then preach the gospel to them and not only will the people of Centro Emissor village get clean water but they will receive the true Living Water.

Home Visits

There is a team from Wooddale church in Eden Prairie, Mn here now for 10 days. 10 people 10 days and 10 million things to do on any given Sunday.

Whenever a team is here on a Sunday I need to take them first to the big church in Dondo but somewhere along the line if we have any time I like to make sure we are able to get to Centro Emissor.

After the last guitar string was strung we tried to get away from all of the people in the court yard to make a mad dash to Centro Emissor. It is only 7 klms. from Dondo but it is just hard to escape the Dondo church. Everyone that you make eye contact with wants to shake your hand, say, "Good morning and ask how you are?" and that can take a while to get to the car and then get out of dodge. This is one of the many things I love about this culture, that everyone embraces you and welcomes you.

We were able to get out of the courtyard, jump in the cars and high tail it to Centro Emissor just in time to sit down and be asked to introduce the Americans to the church and then say a prayer and church was over. One of the guys asked, "why did we come here if church was going to be over?" Here's the deal, each Sunday is so very different from the other. There have been times when we have had 3-5 different presentations of singing and dancing that was prepared ahead of time. Some Sunday's we have visitors and we need to find out where they are from and sometimes they have a song for us too. And some times we do home visits to sick people, and the entire church goes to visit and pray. Today unfortunately for our visitors happened to be a short service at our little church.

Last week and this week we did a home visit to a man who lives near by who has been sick for about 6 weeks now. If he lost anymore weight he would be invisible. He did say that he felt better but WOW this guy is thin. Val is worried about him and his health. He told us he feels better than he did but to me, he is still not looking the greatest.

I missed the prayer requests at church but we do know of David the man we visited. Last week Val and I drove home and gathered some food together for this family because David had not worked for 5 weeks and they did not have any food. When we returned with the bag of food no one was around the church and we could not deliver the food for the safety of David and his family. One other time I had visited a friend in Centro Emissor from church and later that night she had been robbed because some thieves saw us at her home and they thought we had taken something of value to her and gave it to her. Because of this incident we are very careful about how we give and when we make this happen.

Pray for David and Wednesday a team of us will be going to the church to do some medical work and one of the team members will give a message to the church. I am always thankful when Americans come ready to give the message of hope in this dark culture. Everyone desires to have hope and without it we will have to effect on helping to change this culture. We all need Jesus!

I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me (John 17:23).

Obedience,
Kathy

Lord You are Good!

Lord You are Good and Your mercy endureth forever. I am listening to this song at this very moment and I have to tell you how exciting it is to live in this land of Moz. At every turn of every day you can see the hand of God and I just love it!! I can't wait for you all to come here and take a journey with me:)

Sunday at Centro Emissor was another day of rejoicing that Jesus is Christ and Lord of all. Zito our leader, had a opportunity to speak at one of our other church plants about 2 hours north of here. When I spoke with him about the other service he said that, "God was there and the spirit was moving and God spoke to the people." It just excites me to hear things like this! This encourages him as a leader and this reminds me of the scripture in Jeremiah 20:9 that says, "But if I say, "I will not mention him or speak any more in his name, his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot." When you start speaking about Jesus and speaking the truth and what God has done and will do, it just makes me crazy. I want to jump up and down and dance and sing! I have to talk about Jesus!

Here are the prayer requests from our little sister church in the bush:
`Philipi - has a cold and weakness in his body
`Moises - stomach problems
`Zinha - back pain
`Isabella - back pain
`Fatima - baby boy has bad cough - he is in the picture
`Marisa - mouth pain from bad teeth
`Antonio - headache

Sad isn't it? Simple pains that we would in America use Tylenol for but this is not available to people here. They would have to walk 6 miles to the nearest clinic for help. (I understand there is a clinic in this village but does not always have medicines.) Even I could be a nurse here... hand out a couple of tylenol for a headache and back pain. Don't tell Val I said that!

These people are survivors. I guess that is why I love it here so much. I am a survivor too. Well, if you think about it... we all are survivors. We will survive the depths of hell because we know a risen Savior called Jesus the Christ. Let me encourage you to tell others about Him. Shout His name from the mountain tops! Jesus is Alive!

Obedience,

Kathy Knight

July 25th, 2010

A goal that I have doing ministry work in Mozambique is to become so invisible so that when I am gone things go on as usual. The bottom line to my greatest desire is to leave them stronger because they were loved and heard words of life from the scripture.

I am home for a month. I received a phone call just a short week ago that my Mom was failing fast and she wasn't expected to make it through this illness. She was on a vent, a feeding tube and her vitals were grave. I immediately started the process to get home and 3 days later I landed in the states having prayed all the way home that God would grant my prayer of letting me see Mom before He took her to be with Him. Psalm 62 kept going over in my mind, "my soul finds rest in God alone, my Rock and my Salvation." I read through Psalm 23, that is Mom's favorite and then 139 because it tells me that God knows it all about me. The Word was my comfort and exactly where I needed to be for 3 days. I never peeped a word to anyone the entire trip, oops except for, "coffee, black please." Today she is doing well and on the road to recovery. My family and I are praising the Lord for His grace and mercy.

So for now I am here and yet able to receive word from Centro Emissor about what is going on and what their prayer requests are for this week. There were 7 women, 12 men and 25 children today in church with some visitors from YWAM, the orphanage located near to where Val and I live in Dondo. Zito spoke this morning from Genesis 22 on walking in faith. I guess that could be somewhat along the same line of what we heard this morning about obedience. They pretty much have to go hand in hand.

This week's prayer requests are:
Luisa - has pain in her shoulder
Venisa - has stomach pain
Antonia - stomach pain
Adelino - back pain
Marta - her teeth are bothering her
Inez - headache
As simple as these requests are, none of these people have simple Tylenol to help relieve the pain. Hard to believe isn't it? No Tylenol?

Another request is for Deborah Zito's daughter. Since her mother died last November she has been spending more time with her Aunt Anna. Now Anna is moving to the states to attend a private Christian school in Tennessee and this is effecting Deborah's behavior. She is very confused and has been acting out. Pray for Deborah and also Zito as he deals with her behavior.

One more important message I received from Val this morning was that our staff member and field pastor, Pastor Todd's, his son Adain who is 4 years old has malaria. This is his first case of malaria after spending the weekend in the bush last weekend with the guys. He is a very sick little guy and his parents are very worried. He is on medication for malaria and is improving but this still is very unsettling for his parents. And Val too being the field nurse.

I am sending along a short video that I took a few weeks back of the young adult choir one sunny Sunday morning.
Click and Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWQPoF008U

Thanks for loving these fine folks. I know that God is gloried by our obedience to love our neighbor.

July 25th, 2010

A goal that I have doing ministry work in Mozambique is to become so invisible so that when I am gone things go on as usual. The bottom line to my greatest desire is to leave them stronger because they were loved and heard words of life from the scripture.

I am home for a month. I received a phone call just a short week ago that my Mom was failing fast and she wasn't expected to make it through this illness. She was on a vent, a feeding tube and her vitals were grave. I immediately started the process to get home and 3 days later I landed in the states having prayed all the way home that God would grant my prayer of letting me see Mom before He took her to be with Him. Psalm 62 kept going over in my mind, "my soul finds rest in God alone, my Rock and my Salvation." I read through Psalm 23, that is Mom's favorite and then 139 because it tells me that God knows it all about me. The Word was my comfort and exactly where I needed to be for 3 days. I never peeped a word to anyone the entire trip, oops except for, "coffee, black please."

So for now I am here and yet able to receive word from Centro Emissor about what is going on and what their prayer requests are for this week. There were 7 women, 12 men and 25 children today in church with some visitors from YWAM, the orphanage located near to where Val and I live in Dondo. Zito spoke this morning from Genesis 22 on walking in faith. I guess that could be somewhat along the same line of what we heard this morning about obedience. They pretty much have to go hand in hand.

This week's prayer requests are:
Luisa - has pain in her shoulder
Venisa - has stomach pain
Antonia - stomach pain
Adelino - back pain
Marta - her teeth are bothering her
Inez - headache
As simple as these requests are, none of these people have simple Tylenol to help relieve the pain. Hard to believe isn't it? No Tylenol?

Another request is for Deborah Zito's daughter. Since her mother died last November she has been spending more time with her Aunt Anna. Now Anna is moving to the states to attend a private Christian school in Tennessee and this is effecting Deborah's behavior. She is very confused and has been acting out. Pray for Deborah and also Zito as he deals with her behavior.

One more important message I received from Val this morning was that our staff member and field pastor, Pastor Todd's, his son Adain who is 4 years old has malaria. This is his first case of malaria after spending the weekend in the bush last weekend with the guys. He is a very sick little guy and his parents are very worried. He is on medication for malaria and is improving but this still is very unsettling for his parents. And Val too being the field nurse.

I am sending along a short video that I took a few weeks back of the young adult choir one sunny Sunday morning.
Click and Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWQPoF008U

Thanks for loving these fine folks. I know that God is gloried by our obedience to love our neighbor.