Hello, My Name Is Akunya

Okay, bear with me. There has been a ton to process since the last time I wrote. I think it was only two weeks ago, but it feels like I’ve been here for months. So yeah, here goes.

The first thing I want to do is talk about outreach. This last weekend, June 24th-26th, I hopped on the back of a long transport team with my color group (go yellow) and took a 5 hour drive out into the middle of the African bush. This is like the real deal Africa. From what I could tell there was only one building in the entire village that had electricity, and that only made possible from a large generator that ran when needed. Everywhere we walked there were hundreds and hundreds of homes made simply from tied bamboo, rock insulation, and mud covering. Most mud huts that we went into had 2 or 3 woven beds and a few pots inside. It was a big change from the luxuries that we have around the base (restaurants with projectors set up to watch World Cup games, cokes and chocolate bars on sale at every corner. We’ve got it nice here on the base in Pemba). I imagine that we were the first Akunyas (Makua for “white people”) that the kids in the village had ever seen. When we went to greet them they ran from us like little animals would. They would retreat back to a place of safety and then turn and stare at us once again, waiting to see what we would do. So my first thought was, ‘I need to teach these kids how to high five!’ Priorities. If you ever meet a people group that is living centuries behind you, teach them to high five. They love it. So I coaxed a few of the braver kids to slap my hand, shouting “Yeah!” each time to let them know they were doing something right. Soon I was a lone white guy in the middle of 50+ kids simply high fiving anyone who would give me a hand. It was awesome.

Not soon after we set up our truck in the middle of the village center to show the Jesus movie in the tribal language, Makua. Hundreds of people stood in the dirt in the early evening and watched the film intently while our team sat in the back of the covered truck and prayed for God to be moving in the hearts of the people. After the film finished we introduced the team and gave a call for people to accept Jesus or to receive prayer for healing. Many people responded and gathered around us for prayer. That night I prayed for people to be filled with the Holy Spirit as well as a few people who had headaches, stomach aches, and back pain. There was a bit of a language barrier, but each person seemed to indicate that their pain either completely left or was better after prayer. The next morning we set out into the village to pray for people and to share further about Jesus. We prayed for many people, and had quite a few healings take place. One boy we met had bad malaria for 2 weeks and was hunched over in stomach pain when we found him. We prayed for a few minutes and after he got right up and started walking around free from pain. He even came to our lunch 20 minutes afterwards and had his first meal in a few days! One of the teams also prayed for a woman who had been incredibly ill for the last year. In this year she had not left her bed and could barely keep down food and water. She was very close to death. The team prayed for her and immediately she got up and walked around. She went outside for the first time in a year! While many of these stories were amazing, we also experienced much spiritual warfare. There was one woman we approached who was facing away from us and was completely unaware of our presence. One of the pastors greeted her saying “hello mama!” and the woman instantly began manifesting a demon. She began shaking and crying out singing a song to some tribal god or gods. Total exorcist kind of thing, it was a big dose of a reality that we don’t see much in America. (Just as a side note, much of the rest of the world is used to spiritual aspects and often experience different attacks like this regularly. The main religion here in Mozambique is a form of Islam that mixes in different styles of witchcraft that is even more inviting to the darkness of the spiritual realm). Our team of Mozambican pastors and missions school students set to praying for the woman. Unfortunately, the woman’s husband came home and brought her inside before the pastors could finish praying for her to be set free. Apparently the woman’s mother had died three months previously and had passed on a generational curse to her daughter. The husband also had a second wife who suffered from the same demonic possession. It was an encounter that I had never experienced before, quite the eye opener. We also prayed for another woman suffering from leprosy or scabbies on her arms and legs. We went back to her later that afternoon and our team witnessed new skin growing back over the open wounds, and the woman even cut off her necklace given to her by a witch doctor and instantly joy came into her face. However, the next morning when we returned her wounds had grown worse and the woman was crying because of the pain. We prayed again for the hold that the darkness and curses had over her and believe God for a full recovery. Unfortunately we were unable to see her healing come to completion but are praying daily that God brings her a complete recovery. Just another aspect of spiritual warfare where some darkness can take hold stronger than others. But we’ve got something bigger and brighter in us, Jesus Christ and his spirit that raised the dead, cleansed lepers, and opened the eyes of the blind. When we know who we are and go after the things that God desires us to go after he brings freedom and the love of Jesus. Please keep praying for this village, that God comes and brings strong revival and these people realize the love that Jesus has for them. We did the same ministry with the Jesus film in another village later that night, and the next day with many people responding again to the love of Jesus. The following Saturday morning we packed up camp and then did one last church service for the village. During this time, Joshua, the 4 year old son of one of the couples in the missions school, saw a vision of the blood of Jesus dripping down from the tree above and flowing into peoples hearts. Now when I say this kid saw a vision, I mean he full on saw a vision. I was sitting next to him when he pointed to the tree and shouted “Daddy look! Blood on the tree!” I looked where he was pointing and only saw the tree, but this young boy was seeing something in the spirit that Jesus intended him to see. And then we shared Jesus with the people and many came to know him! It was an incredible weekend. After church we made the 5 hour drive back home to the base and sang Makua and Portuguese songs the entire way, loving our family of missions school students from all over the world and Mozambican bible pastors.

The Outreach was definitely a different aspect of the Missions ministry than we’ve been able to see here at the Iris base. We’ve mostly just been learning different areas of missions and how to relate them to God. Missions are more than just a series of concepts, it needs to be an experience, and it needs to be something that missionaries enjoy doing. It is impossible to be successful in missions if you come over with a plan that doesn’t rely on God. But when you come and give complete dependence on God, try to dream bigger than him (impossible, but fun nonetheless), trust him in everything, enjoy doing things to please them, and love people (instead of treating them as projects) God can multiply and do amazing things for the Kingdom. Outreach was an intense glimpse at that experience. While the weekend itself was amazing it was also exhausting. I would never be able to do that amount of work all the time, but I definitely felt like I would be able to live among the Mozambican people and build community with them and love on them long term. I’m not sure that God has Mozambique planned for me long term, but it helped me to realize that I would be willing to be placed pretty much anywhere, in poverty or no, and would love doing things for God and for the people he loves so much. Twas good.

I was also going to talk about what I’ve learned the last few days, but I think I’m going to save it for another post in a day or two. Everything is really mushed in my brain right now and it’s difficult to really nail down what I want to talk about. So I’m going to take a bit to think about it, and try to do an organizedish post soon. Love you all and thank you so much for praying for me during this summer! Know that God is doing absolutely incredible things in my life and I can’t wait to share it with you when I get home. Bless you all!

Jon Watson