Yielded Hearts » Love never fails

Well, we have been super slack and not updated our blog since arriving back in Australia – sorry 🙁

Here is a short summary, we came back and our hearts were full of love for our beautiful family and friends at home, our city, our region and our nation;  we sold a house, bought a house, felt bad about not updating the blog (it has been over a year now) —- now we are off again and have the privilege of serving in Mozambique for a season!!

We hope to update the blog ….. sporadically but please send us an email if you want your email address included in our regular updates.

Just when you thought our journey would surely have to end, there’s more! There’s always more in God! 😀

Next stop – Cambodia!!!!

The land of tuk tuks, temples and dual currency trading. Another contrast, another language and more wonderful people.

Our main purpose of being here was to catch up with Jordan, our son serving as an intern missionary in Sihanoukville, and Hope, our gorgeous daughter over here to visit her brother.  While only a short time with Hope it was so wonderful to catch up and celebrate her 17th birthday (albeit a belated celebration).  She has grown up an amazing young woman and we look forward to watching her grow into everything God has for her.

It is so evident in our travels that Jesus has gone before us and set up divine appointments. In this beautiful country we again saw the mighty hand of God bless, touch, heal and love.  It really is what He longs to do in every nation and for all people. Jordan sporting his new (yet old) Grizzly Adams  look showed us around and involved us in some of the missions activities.  It was such a privilege to love and serve along side our son in this beautiful country.

It was also pretty cool that God connected us with more Iris family here. A joy we have been given in all countries we’ve visited.

Signing off from overseas (for now). Our next blog post is likely to be at home  – God willing 😉

It has been a while since we’ve updated you and God remains super faithful.
After leaving Peru we spent four days in Spain to reflect, see in the new year and rug up on, much needed, warm clothing. It was also our taste of return to “first world” living. The contrast in temperature to what we had been used to for 2 months made it easy to curl up in bed and adjust to another timezone.

These two images sum up our time in Spain well…

Just as we got used to the new time, we were on the move again to Israel – known by many as the Holy land. This nation and it’s people has such a special place in our hearts despite the many contrasts we saw. We feel extremely humbled and privileged for what the Lord has allowed us to experience there. I don’t know if I can do it justice here on our blog but hopefully one day we’ll be able to share stories of our wonder at God’s greatness! For now it is suffice to say WOW – God never ceases to amaze us.

While staying at Beit Immanuel, a Messianic Christian guest house in Tel Aviv, we picked up some Hebrew, but by this stage our heads were spinning with so many languages it kind of hurt a little to fit another in. Thank God the majority of people we met could speak English. 🙂

During our one month stay, we had opportunities to visit Jerusalem as well as Nazareth in the Galilee region. It is amazing to have walked where Jesus once did, learn about the culture of the day and capture images in our minds of actual places that we read of in the bible. We especially loved the old city, garden tomb, garden of Gethsemane and En Gedi.

Overlooking Jerusalem from top of Mount of Olives

Up on the wall of the old city

The Garden Tomb

Garden of Gethsemane

En Gedi (David’s hideout place from Saul)

Sea of Galilee

One of our favourite things at Beit Immanuel was to worship on the rooftop as we watched the sun go down. How beautiful is our God!!!

While this post comes late, we wish all our family and friends, near and far, a very merry and blessed Christmas. Internet access has been limited in the jungle so we do what we can. 🙂

On Christmas Eve we prepared a traditional ‘chocolatada’ for the kids around the base we were staying at. Chocolatada is where the kids come with their own mugs (of all varying sizes – some even come with jugs and pots) to get hot chocolate cooked in huge pots and a piece of panetone, which is like our Christmas puddings but are more like bread with fruit pieces in them. This tradition is carried out at a lot of different places all around Peru. We added to the celebration by gifting each child 1kg of rice, 1kg of sugar and small chocolate and biscuit treats in a goody bag. It was so special to see eyes light up, smiles and some warm hugs from the kids.

Our Christmas was celebrated on the 25th with short and longterm missionaries from many nations that have gathered in Nauta. We even enjoyed our first turkey (US-style) with gravy and cranberry sauce as well as many other scrumptious delights. We certainly feasted well this day as God brought more divine connections into our lives.

Our yummy turkey feast 😀

So while this is belated, we wanted to send you all our love and prayers for Christmas and pray that your households are filled with His love this holiday season. Thank you all for your love and support!

We leave Peru soon and spend 4 days in Spain for some rest and reflection time, while seeing in the new year. After that we are off to Beit Immanuel and Cambodia but blogging may be limited.

Until you hear from us again – Feliz Navidad y ano nuevo! Dios Te Bendigas

The majority of our remaining time in Peru was spent deeper in the Peruvian Amazon basin in the small town of Nauta with short visits to some villages along the riverbank by boat. We learnt that while the Amazon river runs through a number of countries, it was actually ‘born’ here in Peru where the Maranon river and the Ucayali (U-keye-ali) river cross each other.

We spent three days at Aurora, living alongside a Peruvian host family in a purposed-built facility in the jungle. A recording studio has also been built here to enable the translation of the Jesus film into all the different tribal languages in these remote villages of Peru. Our main focus while being here was to bless the children by playing football (otherwise known as soccer in Australia) and volleyball with them and providing them with good food.

Our safe haven from mozzies 🙂

Very talented soccer players

And volleyball players

An unfortunate incident occurred while the young boys played soccer. One of them had a bone come out of place near his ankle and this put an end to the afternoon’s activities. The team immediately gathered around and prayed for Ronny and released the love of Christ amidst the concerned onlookers. The peace of God truly reigned that afternoon. As much as we all desired to see a creative miracle from God, it did not occur that afternoon. On reflection though, it was a miracle that we had ice (in the form of frozen desserts) to stop the swelling, people available to speedboat it back to Nauta to purchase medical supplies as well as access to a local physician to manipulate the bone back into place – three very rare commodities in the jungle. We have since checked back in and hear that Ronny is recovering at a very good pace and there are no complications – praise Jesus!

Because of the sporting accident as well as end of school year requirements for our host family and their children, we ended up not going to show the Jesus film that night but were able to love and pray for children and families in the neighbouring village of Florida (pronounced Flor-ree-da) the next day. It was an honour to sit in the church that was planted there through the ministry of Joyce Meyer and pray for and prophesy over the pastor there and his family.

Apart from the heat, humidity and mass of mosquitos, Aurora is an incredibly beautiful place and it plays quite a significant role in the gospel being brought to neighbouring villages, different tribal groups as well as those from other nations for conferences. We believe this place will have a big impact on all who set foot on the land and it will be like a ripple affect that will carry the impact to other nations.

A beautiful sunset after the rain

Children’s ministry time in the township of Belen was precious. We love this place. The kids here are adorable and so full of energy. Again we joined the Abundant Life ministry team and Safehouse men and gathered the children as we walked through the village.

On entering Belen, we met an incredible pastor and his family. We were told of stories of amazing bravery in the midst of much physical persecution that he endures on a regular basis – including muggings, bashings and stabbings. Despite this he exudes much joy and passion.

While some of us got involved and led small teams of girls and boys in games, activities and ministry, others sat and built relationships and prayed for some of the local families and their needs.

I was quite amused that, as the designated photographer for this time, I was assigned one of the Safehouse men as a body guard – Ibyan. Ibyan was amazing and took his job very seriously. There wasn’t a move I made that Ibyan was not right behind with his watchful eyes and strong sense of protection.

The following morning, we also returned to this town to give out bread among the community. As we walked around we really got a chance to see the very humble living conditions these Peruvians live in, yet they seemed to beam with happiness. It was a good reminder to rejoice no matter what we have or don’t have or what we are going through. This was also a time we were able to pray for those who desired healing.

On our first Sunday at Vida Abundante, Craig got an opportunity to share at the evening church service. He shared on love, value and surrender. Many were touched and God’s love was poured out.

After the service we met with Safehouse men and longterm missionaries to pray, then go to the streets for some night ministry. This was definitely a highlight as well as an eye and heart opener for us. Many things both broke our hearts and brought us joy. We were reaching out to wonderful people who found themselves trapped in drug addiction, prostitution and homelessness. This is a regular heart ministry of Abundant Life and, through time invested, they have established great trust among this community by simply loving and spending time with them. This night it was our privilege to join them.

We went through three different locations – the boulevard down by the river, the market stalls in Belen (an extremely marginalised community) and the drug dens at Secada. At each location, the Safehouse men played their drums and worshipped as we all gathered around in unity and prayer. We invited Holy Spirit to draw and touch hearts as we sang praises to our King. Our main aim was to love, pray and support as much as we could as we knew we were only there for a night.

Because of the upcoming festivities of Christmas the boulevard was busy and filled with all sorts of music and people at the night markets. While the team were busy meeting and praying for passer-bys, Craig and I got a chance to pray for an 18-year old girl who looked like a frail 6-year old bound to her wheel chair since birth. While we did not see her get up and walk in complete healing, I could see that her eyes were responding to His love as we sang to her.

Some of the sights at the empty Belen market stalls broke our hearts as we saw addicts and what looked like entire families (with vey young children) sprawled out on the market tables. We joined with the local ministry team and ushered in Holy Spirit’s presence as we walked by and prayed for deliverance and restoration. Some people, familiar with the ministry, came out to join us in worship and we got to love and pray for some of them.

We arrived at our last location, Secada, after midnight and were pretty tired as we had been out since 9pm. However we broke through the tiredness and this was the place we felt God’s presence the most. It was also the place we got to spend the most time engaging and communicating what was on our hearts through the help of interpreters. Secada is a place where many addicts consume drugs in dark houses or dens and hideaway from life. Our leaders expressed much love for the people there and it was evident that they had carried these people on their hearts for a long time. It was sad to know that some of the men we spoke to had once been in the Safehouse but because of stray choices, ended back up on the streets. They had tasted and seen that He is good, so they knew the words to the songs and one even had a tattoo ‘Jesus, King of Kings’ on his arm. Still, we know that God’s love never fails and nothing is impossible for Him.

Throughout the night it seemed easy to see how God could love the ‘least of these’. Simply beautiful people who believed lies about who they are and have been robbed by circumstances/addiction. At times we felt restrained by our limited spanish and wished that we knew so much more, however, we knew that God was there and His heart’s desire to see them free would overcome our limitations.

It brought us great joy to see some of the men we prayed for say that God is a good God and that He loves us. Even with language barriers we could tell that they were impacted by God’s relentless love.

~D

So after flying 4 different legs and over 24 hours from Pemba to Johannesburg to Paris to Amsterdam, we finally arrived in Lima extremely exhausted, with the absence of my checked-in luggage but sooo ready for bed. We were just grateful to be able to rest for a night before flying on to Iquitos the next day. Yes it was an epic journey of flights with one missed connection but that did not hinder our journey at all.

Our half day in the capital , while short, was filled with local and international missionary connections. God is so amazing with His divine appointments.

Breakfast with our newfound friends and family

Still slightly bleary-eyed but eager to get closer to the jungle, our team of four bid farewell to our new friends and happily greeted three other amazing ladies from HS18 that were joining us for part of the outreach – Grace, Megan and Kirsten. Now we were a team of 7 ready to meet up with our leader Bridget, whom we had heard so many great things about, especially her laugh 😀

View of river while descending to Iquitos

The newly formed Iris team at one of our favourite hangouts in Iquitos – Dawn on The Amazon

We spent a week in Iquitos, a bustling city near the jungle, staying 2 nights at a hotel and then the mission base of Vida Abundante (Abundant life) church. Time was spent building relationships, serving and ministering with some longterm missionaries, saved ex-drug addicted men from the established ‘Safehouse’ and the on-site family of 9 (one adopted) and one on the way. We love these people dearly and they hold a special place in our hearts. We are especially touched by the passion and love that exude from the Safehouse men and see such hope and promise for the others that are still on the streets. God is so merciful and faithful and their lives are a great testimony to His love! We will expand on highlights in later posts.

Slightly manic Iquitos traffic

Safe and sound in the Peruvian Amazon, with an amazing international and Peruvian family, we are enjoying love and peace in the Lord and endearing locals. We are excited and our hearts are open to all that God has for us in this nation.

Oh and my bag did arrive a day after we did in Iquitos – thank God!

~D

Ever since graduation we have been slowly saying goodbye to people as some leave for home and others leave for extended outreach. We are some of the last people to leave on Monday 8th Dec so will have to endure the sadness of bidding our dear friends farewell each day till it is our turn.

Today was particularly hard as the majority of people left, so with it some of the closest friends we’ve made here. Needless to say tears and hugs were plentiful but God willing we will see them again somewhere down the track.

We have been so privileged and honored to be amongst some of the most laid down lovers we know who are all destined to be nation changers! We love you and pray that your hearts will always stay hungry for Him! Thanks for being a part of our lives and we look forward eagerly to hear of your God adventures!

With mixed emotions we prepare our hearts for the next leg of the journey – Peru and the Amazon jungle! Yay God!

See you when we get there 🙂

Wow harvest school has drawn to a close after almost 4 weeks in Pemba! Again we were blessed with incredible speakers such as Rolland and Heidi Baker, Andy Byrd from YWAM, Duncan and Katie from Toronto, Jason Lee Jones and David Wagner.

There’s so many things that God has shown us and spoken to us that it would take too long to write them all. Suffice to say it has been an amazing experience of intimacy and stretching – that will stay with us for the rest of our lives.

Today we celebrate our graduation and the end of 9 weeks of Harvest mission school.

Here’s to God and all that He has for the next chapter of our lives! We give ourselves away and say ‘yes’ to all that God desires because He is so worth it!