Can I be honest with you? I
mean really honest, about how I’ve struggled these last few years? Hopefully
some of you already know how human I am, and others will become more aware that
I am just like you with doubts, struggles, battles with negativity and cynicism.
I promise there is a testimony through the telling of my struggles.
It’s been a long time since
I had seen the real power of God...since I had truly felt he was intervening on
my behalf or on behalf of the ones I love and care for. I became weary, tired
of calling out to the One who I felt was not really responding...reading my
Bible became a chore and one I decided to let dust gather upon; praying,
another chore – for what purpose? Yes God exists, yes He is sovereign, yes He
is love and everything else I am told (and once experienced personally through SO MANY TESTIMONIES...yet these
testimonies felt like ancient history...). I don’t doubt that He is who the
Bible says He is, but I was beginning to believe that He does what He wants,
when He wants, to whom He wants...my attitude was tainting my understanding of
the character of God. I was also becoming quite desensitized to the suffering
and poverty around me...and in that, questioning my purpose in being here, I mean, what difference can I really make?
I was struggling with
everybody’s expectations of me to be a “spiritual” woman, wife, nurse (or maybe the expectations I put on myself to
be that perfect “spiritual” being)...expectations I truly felt I could not
meet and did not want to meet. I am supposed to be filled with rivers of living
water; my soul, a fountain that never runs dry...my reality was not this...I
was spiritually dry, dry, dry, dry...the well within me felt completely stopped
up...COMPLETELY.
We planned this trip to
Pemba – our last opportunity to see the most northern base in Mozambique and
all that God is doing up there; an opportunity to refresh our understanding of
the vision of Iris Ministries; and an opportunity to share with the people up
there our faith walk...HA! I couldn’t do that....I was SO dry with nothing to
give, or so that is what I told myself.
And as the trip drew closer I feared it, as I would be expected to minister and
speak and be a glowing example of a missionary – it felt like a cruel joke and
maybe someone should go in my place?
Someone wise in Pemba said “Often
times when we are facing the biggest, ugliest, worst battles it’s because the
enemy knows that our breakthrough is right on the other side – DON’T GIVE UP!” We
heard (and experienced) so many testimonies of this. I knew I needed to go to
Pemba, that God was going to use that time...I knew He wanted to do something
in my heart, that I would not allow Him the time to do in Zimpeto (my avoidance tactics were fantastic, my
laziness and excuses extraordinary)! So, off we went to Pemba, with Steve
Lazar our director.
Steve had asked us to
prepare a short testimony of how we came to the mission field and our time in
Mozambique. I felt surely I had nothing worthy to say...I am nobody special, I
am not a preacher or evangelist, I get quite nervous when asked to speak to a
bunch of people so I tried everything I could to convince Steve he didn’t want
me to speak – in my present attitude I didn’t know what would come out of my
mouth. God, knew I needed to use my voice, I
knew I didn’t want to.
Steve didn’t feel sorry for
me; there was no getting out of it. What on earth would I share?! Well, our
first evening in Pemba we went out to eat and I was woken a few hours later with
what is becoming a familiar feeling, food poisoning, the food did not want to
stay put...up, most of the night, in between the pain and waves of nausea, I
had plenty of time to think and ask God what He would want me to say, as I
could think of nothing worthy in my own knowledge that would be helpful to
anybody. I kept thinking how I was such an ordinary person, not even a “great”
Christian, definitely not a great example, not a preacher, not an evangelist,
yes I am a nurse and God has gifted me with this, but what do I share with 300
people who have come to Mozambique hungry to understand what missions is and
how God moves through us? Then it hit me...I
am ordinary, just like so many people whose testimonies are written throughout the
Bible, look at how ordinary they were and some not even “great” Christians at
times in their lives, and yet God chose to work through them. We are SO ordinary,
but it is God who is SO extraordinary, in all of His power He chooses to use us
to carry out His plans, to be His hands and feet, to love the unlovable and
pull the poor out of the dust...He chooses ordinary US! We have an
extraordinary God!
The realization started to
hit me, my problem all along was not that God was absent, but that I was navel-gazing...looking
so much at myself, thinking, poor me,
tired me, weary me, fed-up me...I lost perspective that I am serving an
extraordinary God who is able. Many songs are focused on the importance of “Turn(ing) y(our) eyes upon Jesus” or “set(ting) your face as flint before Him now”, etc... I guess
because those who wrote the songs knew the moment you turn away, the needs of
the world crowd in and you lose perspective...focused
on the world and what you can see with your physical eyes so often can convince
one that God is not as involved as He should be and in that we lose our
purpose. Life becomes heavy because we’re not looking to God to carry the hard
stuff, the burdens, we choose to carry these ourselves because we deem God “not
capable” – we grow tired on our own strength so quickly and then everything
becomes a chore and an expectation all because we stopped looking to God as our
help and started looking to ourselves......this seems to be the cycle of my
spiritual journey...a cycle I would sure like to discontinue.
God continued to speak
during our time in Pemba through different situations and people. We were so
privileged to be invited to an outreach on the Iris Compassion (a large yacht,
new to Iris and used for outreaches to the islands and places that cannot be
reached by car). There were 24 of us in all, a mixture of Mozambicans and
Westerners alike, and Heidi, Rolland, Pastor Supresa and quite a few other
great men of faith. Heidi shared with me “Our goal is to reach every island,
every land that is unreachable by car, to speak the name of Jesus to those who
have never had the chance to hear, that is why we have this boat.” God told her
to go get His Makua bride (the tribal group up in the Pemba region). (In
telling this story, she honoured Steve & Ros for saying yes to leading the
Zimpeto base, as that allowed Heidi to say yes to God to go to the Makua
people). Her testimony and heart of love for the people was stirring up the dry
wells of my heart; reminding me of the true, pure call of a missionary. Surely
this is what I was called to. I don’t need to be a famous evangelist or
preacher or some known man of faith to make a difference, to speak the name of
Jesus and His extravagant love for His bride!
We were headed to a special village;
one Heidi has been to many times, the village of Londo – only 60 or so people. Heidi asked us to be ready to share with the
people of Londo...yet, this time I wasn’t nervous, I trusted that God had a
message for the people He loves. After an hour or so of sailing and soaking in
worship we had arrived off the shore of Londo. The sun was starting to set and
we could see the village of Londo as a clearing in the bush directly on the
beach...I felt like I was on the set of movie (see pictures).
We took a dingy to get to
the village from the yacht. I was on the last dingy trip and we arrived on the
beach in darkness...4 other dingies before us Heidi had arrived on the beach
first, so on our arrival she was already finishing a preach to the people.
Walking onto the beach we could only see silhouettes of the people. I greeted a
small group of women sitting to the side of the rest and kissed their cheeks “Salaama”
– a Makua greeting. I sat down next to them and within moments I heard Heidi
say “Sheri, are you here, come share.” Surely
she did not just say my name, I must have misheard, right? Nope, she said again “Sheri” – so I stood up
immediately and greeted the people as a whole, everyone still silhouettes
against the night sky, not even a fire to illuminate their faces. I shared with
them that although I could not see their faces, I knew they were a people of
great beauty and asked them if they knew how I knew that...they did not know
how I could know that...so I told them the word of God tells us we have all
been made in the image of God and spoke about God’s beauty and love and how it
abides in each of them. I thanked them for allowing us the privilege of seeing
this facet of God’s beauty in them and their village. I sat down knowing God
was doing a new thing in me.
Following this, I sat down
next to the same group of women I had originally greeted. I asked the women
what they do when they are sick if there is no clinic in the village. They told
me they have to go to Pemba Hospital for any medical care – now imagine this,
we just sailed on a 2- engine yacht for 1 hour to reach their land from Pemba.
Imagine doing that when you are sick in a canoe and having to row the entire
time. My immediate response was that they truly needed to know & trust that
Jesus is their healer and experience it daily. They brought a woman to me who
had back pain. I asked if I could lay hands on her and ask Jesus who loves her
to come and take this pain from her and heal any injury. This was her desire. (now, just to say that this is another area in
which I was really struggling with my faith, my struggle was that I believe
Jesus heals, but who he wants, when he feels like it, and most likely not using
me). In this moment, these doubts did not disturb me as He was stirring up
deep wells within me and my eyes were fully focused on Him as the healer and
not on ME. After a few minutes of prayer and more prayer, the woman said the
pain had completely gone! At times we would ask people to stand and demonstrate
their healing, yet this woman had a baby asleep on her so I did not want to
disturb them. My medical side had some doubts, but even so my faith was hugely
encouraged as very rarely in the past had anyone claimed complete healing after
my prayers. I felt God wanted to do it again so I testified for the woman and
Heidi said there was another woman who had back pain and I immediately went to
her and prayed for Jesus to heal her. Within a few minutes this second woman (who
was no spring chicken – not young) was demonstrating her complete healing by
touching her toes and twisting to and fro like a young spring chicken! I was
convinced! Thank you Jesus not only for showing this woman your love, but being
so merciful towards me and desiring to grow my faith even in the midst of my doubts
and struggles – what a merciful God!
I am so thankful that my God
is a merciful, full of grace and love kind of God – otherwise He would have
grown tired of my complaining and disobedience long ago. And He still chooses
to use me to speak to hundreds of mission school students and to speak about an
extraordinary God who chooses to use ordinary people as His hands and feet –
and the privilege that we should count that everyday...the privilege of being
used to restore life to the nearly dead, health to the sick, hope to the
hopeless – we are the hands and feet of Jesus – Jesus in us is the door of
hope, how will they know if they have never heard – we are the voice and He
uses us to speak hope and love and healing to a world that does not know! WHAT
A PRIVILEGE – THANK YOU SOVEREIGN GOD! Thank you Abba Father!
That night we slept on the
boat just in view of Londo. Up early I had the privilege of participating in
deep conversations by some amazing men of faith. We discussed faith and whether
it is something that can be lost. Everybody has their own opinion but I loved Pastor
Supresa’s simple understanding. Faith is like a muscle, if it is not exercised
it becomes weak and almost nonexistent, but the moment it is exercised and more
and more, it grows. A little bit later these men of faith laid hands on Matthew
and I in prayer about a situation of ours. Supresa said before he started
praying “We will believe for you, you don’t worry or feel like you have to
strive or do anything, we will believe for you.” God knows us inside and out!
God is in the business of
stirring up deep, deep wells...in me, those wells that were stopped up are
starting to flow again (Gen 26), and I can only hope that in my revelation
(once again) that I can keep my eyes fixed on Him- the right perspective, and
be obedient to what I know not only in my head but in my heart as well...it is
a choice and He desires a relationship. Do I wish this revelation had come earlier? I sure do! But I am thankful that I get to
leave Mozambique with hope, excitement about Who God is and what He is doing – not
at the end of a vision, but at the beginning of a newly revived vision - and the
knowing that it is truly a privilege to be used by Him.
With Love,
Sheri
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