Crazy God Stuff and a Worm Story

The weeks are really starting to pick up speed now as we get into a routinue with school, ministry and hanging out with new friends. God has been teaching and showing us some really amazing things. Here is a glimpse of what is going on. . .

Josiah's Dream
It has been incredible to see Josiah's faith grow in our time here. This was certainly not our expectation in “dragging him along” but God loves to do more than we can ask or imagine. Annette fell down the other day when they were playing outside and I overheard him comforting her than touch her knee and pray, “pain be gone in Jesus name”. Last week he told us he had a dream where he went to heaven with Jesus. We asked him what he did and he answered that he went fishing with Jesus. He said they caught lots of fish and had two pieces of bread. Then they brought the fish and bread “down here” and gave them out to everybody. “To the black people, white people, everybody, there was lots of food for everybody”. It is amazing how easy it is for Josiah to have childlike faith, since he is a child! His dream was an encouraging reminder to us of God's abundant resources.

Quotes from Class

All fruitfulness flows out of intimacy with God.

How do we make God happy? By trusting him.

We are totally bankrupt apart from God.

The only way forward in the Christian life is lower still.

We are here to thrill God and if we miss that, we miss the point.

Life always comes from the Spirit.

There is no misery when you know who you are. You can run into dark places when full of joy.

Joy is not overrated.

Go low and slow.

If we lay down our lives for Jesus in service, but don't enjoy him, we have failed completely.

Out of reckless abandonment comes exhilarating joy.

Kanita
Last Friday Jason asked God if he should go on the afternoon village outreach. He heard God say “yes”. Then he asked God, who should I look for? God told Jason “find a girl named Anita who is deaf and pray for her”. So Jason, with Annette in his backpack, headed into the village with a team from Harvest School. They began asking people in the village if they knew a deaf girl named Anita. Eventually some kids led them to a hut where a girl named Kanita lived. Kanita is eight years old and deaf. The team prayed for Kanita and God opened her ears!! A big smile spread across her face as they tested her hearing whispering the word “Jesush” and she repeated. The team ministered some more to the family and invited them to church.
Sunday morning we were greeted by a beaming Kanita and her sisters. She ran up to Jason, giving him a big hug and even bigger smile. All we could do was tell her over and over how much God loves her. We had an extra fun African dance party that morning and it was beautiful to watch Kanita dance to the music she could hear!! After church we celebrated with chicken and coke at the beach. Alleluia!
The crazy thing is this type of miracle is common here!! The last weekend outreach team saw two deaf people healed and cataracts fall off the eyes of nearly blind people. We cry out, “more Lord!”

Worm Story
Both of the kids have had some funky Africa skin rashes. This week Annette developed two zit- looking bumps that we thought were possibly spider bites. After five days they weren't improving and we had the doctor take a look. He told us they were worms that had crawled under her skin. He stuck a needle in and before our eyes pulled a worm out. The other bump wasn't “ripe” yet so we waited a few more days for the worm to come to the surface. When he opened this one up we were shocked at the size of the worm that poked up from the hole!! He said it was the biggest worm he had ever removed (don't go wild in your imagination it was probably ½ long, but still in my baby- ewww!) Here we are outside the clinic, you can see the red bump on her back where the worm was hiding. This is Africa baby!