Africa - Mozambique
Gracie and I were first exposed to Heidi and Rolland Baker’s ministry in Mozambique when Gracie first attended a Catch the Fire conference in Toronto in October 2003. The Baker’s life-long calling to see the Kingdom of God come amongst the poorest of the poor caught our attention. Heidi’s dramatic story of personal renewal at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship and the subsequent growth of their ministry among orphans and villagers is truly hope inspiring. I first met Sopresa Sithole, the overseer of Iris’ network of African churches in Abbotsford. He subsequently visited Tierra Nueva and spoke at an ecumenical outreach in our area. Gracie and I then with met Heidi at a TACF conference and an Embrasse Nos Coeurs conference in Paris where she was the main speaker and I led a workshop. Heidi invited me to come and see Iris ministries work in Pemba and to teach in their pastors training school in May 2006. There my son Luke and I witnessed first-hand the following signs of authentic revival that have caused my expectations to rise for Tierra Nueva and other ministries to the poor and excluded.
Gracie and I have a lot to learn from Heidi and Rolland and others at Iris Ministries and see it as a vanguard ministry, at the forefront of what God is doing in the world. We want to support them through ongoing partnership and pass on what we learn from them wherever we go. Read more about my recent trip in the following newsletter.
I have been feeling financially pinched these days, both personally and in our ministry here at New Earth-Tierra Nueva. Rising gas prices, growing children with ever-changing clothes and shoe sizes, credit card payments… Many people coming to the Family Support Center with needs for help to meet real and urgent needs. It is easy to find reasons to not give. We need to pay our own bills first, don’t we? Our staff at TN need their salaries to support our families. You can’t help everyone, or can you? I have been challenged lately to not let the economic pressures of this world dictate but to step into the freedom and abundance of God’s economy. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount penetrates.
Seeking first God’s Kingdom requires risky faith. In May my 13-year-old son Luke and I traveled to Mozambique and South Africa for three weeks of ministry. I had been asked by Heidi Baker of Iris Ministries to teach in their pastor’s training school in Pemba. Luke and I stayed for two weeks, teaching and participating in outreaches to surrounding villages in this impoverished but awesomely beautiful land. The 120 pastors or so who I was teaching had left their villages for three-months of training. Many did not have a pair of shoes or a bible. Teaching took place under a big tent in front of one of Iris’ orphanages where several hundred kids were housed. As Luke and I walked along the beaches orphaned children not yet adopted by Iris tried to sell us carvings, artwork, musical instruments, bartering for shirts, shampoo. Many told us they were trying to make enough money to buy a pair of shoes so they could attend school. Luke wanted to adopt some kids, give away his clothes, buy whatever we could to help these entrepreneurial street kids. One night I had a conversation with Shara, a woman in her mid twenties who serves as Heidi’s personal assistant. Shara told me how inspired she was working with Heidi and Rolland Baker, who had worked as missionaries for over 25 years without making formal fundraising appeals. They practiced literally Philippians 4:6 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made know to God.” God has consistently supplied their needs and caused their ministry to grow into some 24 countries. God also supplies the needs of their thousands of village pastors, who receive no salary but depend on subsistence farming and God’s provision. Shara told me a number of stories about how she herself has been living by faith, making her needs known only to God, and how God has been taking care of her in miraculous ways. As she talked I felt so inspired, and called back to this way Gracie and I had lived for many years since before we were married. As Shara told her stories and my heart burned, I felt God nudging me to give her every dollar that I had in my possession. Now where we were in Mozambique ATM machines are non-existent and credit cards often unusable. We had been told to bring US dollars, which we could always exchange for meticais. So, giving away all my dollars would leave me with nothing but a few meticais. I was somewhat reluctant to give all, but finally could not resist. I gladly gave up my $201.00 over to Shara, who looked shocked, and felt a great freedom and excitement. The next day Luke and I flew down to Maputo, where we were picked up and driven out to Xai Xai, where I was to participate in a regional conference for Mozambican pastors and leaders. The conference started with an outreach in a nearby village, where the Jesus film was to be shown followed by preaching and prayer for healing. We putted along a dirt road behind Heidi and Rolland and other Iris leaders trying to find the outreach. When we arrived we discovered that our baggage had been stolen from the back of the canopied truck somewhere along that road. So there we were without money and without clothes. That night for some reason men like I work with in the jail were attracted to me as I stood in a crowd of African villagers. One by one they began asking me how they could get free from addictions, and from troubles with the police. I offered to pray for them and soon had a seven or eight men around me. Heidi came over and we prayed together for these men. That night she had to return to Pemba and came to say goodbye to Luke and I. She handed me an envelope, and hugged us goodbye. Later that night at our campground beside the Indian Ocean I opened the thank you card to find four, crisp hundred-dollar bills and a million meticais (around $80). God had more than doubled my $201.00 within 24 hours! The next day the Mozambican leaders Jose and Sopresa took us clothes shopping in the poverty-stricken center of Xai Xai, insisting on buying our clothes! This humbling experience has energized me and turned me around, hopefully towards of life of greater faith and expectation. Right now at New Earth-Tierra Nueva we are being blessed by a growing number of young men and women who are feeling called to join us in ministry to inmates, ex-offenders, immigrants and the homeless. None of them are getting a salary. Elizabeth, Nick, Troy, Lolito, Chris, Jeremiah and Beatriz have been living in our building. Our latest intern from Cincinnati, Shaina and her husband Douglas and 18-month-old baby Amos are moving in tomorrow until we can find a house for the growing New Earth-Tierra Nueva community. People are working odd jobs to survive and pouring out their lives in service, seeking first the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness. God is blessing our English and Spanish worship services & entire ministry. Roger, co-director of the Family Support Center with Rocio, talks with me on a near daily basis about who to help and how. There are constant demands. We usually say yes to people’s requests—unless we know that helping people in the way they want might actually hurt them. We choose to believe that Jesus came so that we might have abundant life—all of us. We choose over and over to live in God’s economy of grace and abundance, rather than with a theology of scarcity. We have given away thousands of dollars beyond what is budgeted under “pastoral discretionary fund” in the form of gas money, motel rooms, legal expenses, money to quash warrants, rent deposits. We are seeing this as our ministry’s tithe of the first fruits, and investment in God’s Kingdom. Many of our staff and volunteers help people out of their own wallets. We are choosing to believe that investing in the Kingdom of God gives far better returns than traditional investments. We appreciate your prayers and partnership with us. Pray that God would give us more faith, breakthroughs in our advocacy, jail ministry and teaching and continual blessings so that we can continue to be a channel of blessing to others. May God rich blessings continue to draw you further and deeper into God’s economy of Grace. Bob Ekblad |
