Guadalajara, Mexico

Monday we rested most of the day which was so unbelievably needed. Catching up on admin etc. And sleep. It's very seldom that I sleep through the night so I'm a bit tired! Plus the fact that I've been sick for like a week now. So annoying. But okay. In the evening we went down town to another poor area to do some street ministry. In the beginning I was just hanging out guarding the box of bread while the majority of the team invited people to come get bread, plus they prayed for people and told them about God. It was so fun giving the bread away, although it was a bit of a near stampede trying to get the people to line up... We prayed over the bread that there would be enough and there was. Everyone got a piece. Praise God. Quite a few people were healed, like I prayed for a girl with pain in her foot and she was healed - it's so rewarding seeing the smile on her face as she says gracias and runs off and plays!

Today we went to a lake nearby and hung out in a tourist town. It was cool. A highlight was as a couple of us were walking down the street Ben says that he feels like there's someone with a sore right arm we should pray for, and Taylor says he has pain in his left hand and sees in his mind a man in a blue shirt. About 15min later after we've walked to the end of the promenade and back, on the way back to the cars we see this man with a cast over his right arm and a bandage on his left thumb in a blue shirt just standing there. So we shared the love of Jesus with him and prayed for him. Now we trust Jesus to continue doing His work in Him.

Rose and Caitlyn, two of my closest friends on the team

In the evening we went to minister at the church's bible students supernatural meeting. This was wild. Before the meeting started it started pouring and hailing, right after one of our team members had prayed for God's rain. In was insane - the church meets in a warehouse time thing with a tin roof and tarpaulins on the side so it's pretty open and falling apart a bit so it was wet and so loud. Many guys from the team shared encouraging words from God and prophesies with the church which totally blessed them. The church then prayed for us as a team which blessed me unbelievably. Two people had words from God for me which were so accurate and encouraging. What a night of power and glory in God.

We got a message from the first church where we ministered to say that since we were there they've had more people coming to church plus more new people coming, so now the church is very busy! Yay, fruit has come from our labour and lives have been changed :)

Now this is awesome. For the last week or so, every night we see a big cloud near us and lightning, everywhere we go, from town to town. Lightning often represents fire in God. This is showing that everywhere we go we have the fire of God with us, and it's this fire that we are taking with us and sharing with all those people we come into contact with, both existing missionaries and churches and the unreached indigenous tribes.

Guadalajara, Mexico

Saturday (24th Sep) was an 8 hour drive to Guadalajara. We got pulled over by a cop on a  motorbike as one of our cars turned on a reaps light, or something like that. Anyway, not only did the cop change his mind and not give us a ticket (would've been $80), he kindly directed us so we could follow him through Guatalajara to help us find where we were staying. Such favour. We've the last 3days staying with a missionary family at their house. It's been a little crowded as there are 21 of us, his family of 5 plus another missionary family of 6 who've been staying with them for 3 weeks. Lucky the house is quite big, although the water went off on Sunday and has been on and off since then which has not been amazing, deja vu of Mozambique... :) Saturday nights' dinner was awesome - we walked down the road for tacos at a tent on the side of the road. I'm loving Mexican food!!

Sunday we ministered at a street church in a more dodgy end of town. Before the service we walked the streets inviting people to come to church. It was a great morning although soooo hot, especially as we were sitting outside in the sun. Afterwards we ate lunch, more rice and beef and tacos. I'm becoming a big fan of salsa (hot sauce). I need to watch myself though as it can be very hot!!



Sunday evening we ministered at the church which the family we're staying with pastor, Fuego Mexico (Fire Mexico). Now this was a crazy Spirit filled night of note. Powerful testimonies were shared and then we had a fire tunnel to bless the church. We prayed for people and more healings took place. Like we prayed for this girl who needs a new kidney and God gave her one. Unbelievable.

Zoe praying for someone

Confradia

Tuesday we drove to Confradia where we stayed the night at a missionary base at the bottom of the mountain - flipping bugs, crawling over me while I (tried to) sleep with sooooo many bites, what a bad night of not much sleep. Wednesday was a 7 hour drive through the mountains for our first mountain outreach to the Cora people, the last indigenous people who were conquered by the Spanish. They're descendants of the Aztec people. They live high up in the mountains as that's where they fled to escape the Spanish in the 15th century. They speak Cora and live with their own traditions, only a few of the men speak Spanish. We stayed with a local man, Magdalena, and his family. They were so welcoming and kind to us. We slept in kindof stable like rooms which was cool. We enjoyed some local food - fajitas with the saltiest cheese I've ever had (like a mixture between feta and parmesan), beans, lemon grass tea, cheese soup. Pretty good.

Christian, Maria and Tanya making tortillas under supervision...

We went up with a group of Mexican men from a local church we're connected with. They were hilarious, seriously great senses of humour.. I met my very first Mexican ex-drug dealer Aurelio, who was part of the Mexican team of guys. He used to be a drug dealer in the US before he was saved and became a Christian. It was while he was in prison (for selling drugs) in the US that he became a Christian. He wants to go back to the US to share about Jesus in prisons but he has a 20 year probation until he can go back to the US. Anyway, he has had a CD made of him singing worship songs - after our devotions at the waterfall on Thursday he sang one of his songs for us, which was great but so funny - before we knew it he'd whipped out his suit and sombrero and there he was, performing for us on top of the mountain at 5000ft. So entertaining.

Thursday we had a beautiful time of devotions at a waterfall before our group split with some going to minister among the local houses, and the rest of us going on an insane hike down a canyon to swim in a river.

Ministering among the houses involved praying for people, telling them about Jesus and inviting them to come watch the Jesus film that night. Only  we would go for a 3 hour hike over midday in Mexico. Flipping hot with a spot of dehydration for some of the team... It was so beautiful though, totally worth it, and great to do some exercise (we don't do a lot of exercise driving so much), although I was stiff for 2 days!! In the evening we tried showing the Jesus film in Cora to the locals but the DVD really wouldn't play so eventually we had our Mexican friend Aurelio sing which was hilarious and then we prayed for people. That was awesome, I prayed a blessing over a family and they gave me a cucumber to say thank you. Totally organic and grown by them. It totally touched me heart. Many people came to the Lord this evening. Beautiful.

Cora ladies in traditional dress

Friday we drove back to Confradia where we stayed another night at the missionary base. A highlight was showering (we didn't shower up the mountain), a definite lowlight was the intense humidity, to the point that showering made no difference, I was as sticky when I came out the shower as when I went in. Gross. And still more bugs and bites and another poor nights sleep. Needless to say I was pretty happy about getting in the car on Saturday even if we had an 8 hour drive ahead of us as we have AC in the car :)

The Sanctuary

So last week was an interesting week. Sunday and Monday we stayed at a vegetarian Seventh Day Adventist Retreat by the beach near Mazatland. Highlights include a team meeting in the pool (very much appreciated after a long hot day of driving) plus having our laundry done. The food was interesting...  read not great, and I enjoyed my first run in 8 months along the beach, even if I did get totally lost and came back like an hour late. Monday evening we visited a migrant labour camp. That was so precious, interesting for me to compare it to our squatter camps in South Africa. I was surprised at how safe it was for us, even though we were there after dark. We played with the children, hung out with some of the men, did a bible story with the kids and shared the gospel with the guys. It was so awesome, the children are so beautiful, I fell in love with a little girl (Monsa, 5), and her brother. Big downer was the bugs and bites... I even accidentally brought a few bugs home with me which grossed me out later.

Team meeting in the pool!!

Sunday we lead church. Apart from us all being exhausted, it was one of the best churches I've been to. If I lived here I'd join it in a heartbeat - they have the same heart and beliefs around God, going to the nations, the missions field, and more, as we do. Highlights include singing my first worship songs in Spanish (a great way to increase my vocab and improve my spelling and grammar), us showing a video clip of work some of our team have done in Tanzania (made me a little homesick and reminded me of my trip to Tanzania last year), people from our team sharing a word of knowledge plus testimonies for the church, us ministering to the congregation - a highlight was I prayed for a ladies heart and a girl's throat to be healed and they were. Funny story is at the beginning of the service when the pastor introduced our team and the locals around us welcomed us, after a few polite sentences with the lady next to me she asked if I'd learned (basic!) Spanish in Spain. Err, yes. Mexican Spanish really is that different to Spain Spanish. I'm sure my gringo accent isn't helping either ;)
After the service she told me that she felt God had a word for her and her husband so would I pray and prophesy over her. Err, no pressure. In Spanish?!! This I thought was a good time to call a team member who could translate for me. Oh and I did have quite a bit to prophesy over them - God is very faithful when we step out in faith, He honours us with giving us a word for the person we're praying for. That was cool, so rewarding to be able to encourage and bless the local church. 
They totally blessed us by putting us up in a hotel Saturday night (even had a hot shower), and cooked us a great lunch of tacos after church.
We're staying by the beach (yay, I miss the sea) for 2 nights with Monday being a much needed rest day. Read doing laundry before we head off into the mountains for our first bush bush outreach later this week.

Saturday felt like the longest day ever. Up at 5:30am to leave at 6:45am for a 12 hour drive. Which was actually a 15 hour drive with only 3 short gas stops, 40 degrees heat plus humid in a camper van with poor aircon at best. Yuck. To brake up the monotony of a long dull day (although the countryside is beautiful, it's just really hot and humid) as we were pulling out of a gas station in the afternoon one of our cars was pulled over by a policeman for driving the wrong way down a small street behind the gas station, where there was no sign indicating this. He wanted to take Maria (who was driving) to the police station to sort out the paper work or give her a fine on the spot... This is what they do, you can pay the (often bogus) fine or go to the station, which most people wouldn't want to do so they pay the fine instead. We didn't want to do either, so after about 20min of discussion (one miracle was that Maria, the only Mexican in our group was driving the car, rather than one of us foreigners), with the rest of us praying, the policeman just changed his mind and off we went. 
Our 12 hour day turned into a 16 hour day when we got lost through being given not great directions. Driving around Mexican cities with police in balaclavas and guns driving past was also quite an experience. Well I think for others more - being from Africa I'm possibly more used to these sorts of things :) The confusion continued with us finally making it to the pastors house at about 11pm, only to be told they were waiting for us at the church, 20min away back where we'd come from. Long story short we finally got to bed about 2am - driving and parking 5 cars (1 motor home, 1 camper van, 2 4x4s pulling wide trailers and a station wagon) is seriously challenging and testing for all our patience levels). 

Pesqueira, Mexico

Mexico is hot. Very hot. All the time. And humid. This I discovered during our five and a half hours at the border last Wednesday. Sorry about no entries for the last 10 days or so. Not so much Internet access, so I'll be posting a bunch of entries together... Anyway, back to the border. 12:00-17:30. Pretty painful. Especially as we'd been up since 4:30am as someone in the room didn't move her clock forward when she set the alarm. So Wednesday was a pretty long day as we only arrived at the church where we stayed after 9pm. Was great arriving to a traditional Mexican meal of Tacos though. Man these guys know how to braai a steak!

We spent 3 nights sleeping at the church in a town called Pesqueira. Both Thursday and Friday days we went round the village inviting people to come to a revival meeting at the church that night. We couldn't believe so many people came. Thursday about 45 people gave their life to Jesus and many healings occurred - like one boy had some weird stuff going on in his eyes in the afternoon when we met him in the village, and when he came to the church his eyes were healed. Awesome.

Breck and some of the boys

Mexican sunrises and sunsets are stunning. A deep red like in Africa.
No surprise that I'm handling some of the budget. Let's just say that cooking for 20 people in a foreign country is quite a challenge. It's a challenge to budget and work out food quantities, but I'm sure we'll get better at it.
The people here are so beautiful. Similar in a way to Africans, yet different at the same time. My Spanish is improving as I sit in the dirt learning from the children. A couple of children have won my heart. Today (Friday) we spent some time hanging out with a family in their garden. One the kids asked me to come play tomorrow. She was so disappointed when I said I couldn't as I'd be leaving to go to another town tomorrow. We settled on a beautiful hug goodbye.

A little boy about ten or twelve years old asked if I was married. When I said no, one of the guys in my team asked if he would like to marry me. He said no!

A highlight in Fridays' ministry was when I prayed for one of the girls in the youth. Firstly I was massively surprised and super happy when I understood (we were speaking Spanish) what she needed prayer for, but more importantly she was healed. She had pain in her leg which she wanted to be healed of, but then her whole body was healed as well. That was the moment I knew that moments like that make what we do worthwhile. There were many other healings to - a man had had pain in his foot for 4 days and had barely been able to walk into Church was healed, another man had such pain in his back he couldn't walk, he was healed to, and more.

Worshipping God

Ben and Maria preaching with the local pastor

Zoe loves the mic! 

Tuscon, Arizona

Monday was a long day of driving. 13 hours from LA to Tuscon Arizona, via Phoenix to pick up more members of the team. Possibly the most entertaining thing that happened was me driving. Nothing like waking up in the car to find out you're driving the next bit: swapped drivers on the side of the freeway. Good time to mention I've driven on the right side of the road once, also only driven an automatic once, never driven a 4x4 pulling a trailer, and I don't know American road rules. All went well till we hit Phoenix. Let's just say 6 lanes during rush hour traffic definitely freaked me out, especially changing lanes with the trailer, and I couldn't see out the mirrors as I couldn't adjust them. Eish. Lucky for me I had great team members in the car helping me.

We're staying 2 nights in Tuscon with a couple who visited the Iris base in Mozambique in August. Someone we know knows them and they're kindly hosting us. Nothing like arriving to a home cooked meal after 13 hours of driving. Travelling 85km an hour is painful to say the least. Funny story, I just realized I met them when they sat next to me in one of my last church services in Mozambique - they asked what I was doing after the school and when I told them about this trip they were a little blown away to say the least. And now they're hosting us and so they're part of what we're doing! They have a massive beautiful home which is such a blessing as we're using the day for final prep before heading into Mexico tomorrow - we need to fix the vehicles and get a few things. So manana we'll be leaving the comfort of the states as we head into Central America...

Bethel Church - Redding California

Friday was an 8 hour drive from Portland through Oregon down to Redding California. Oregon was a lot prettier than California! The road trip was fun, with me being amused that America and American people really are like what you see in the movies... Highway patrol cars, state troopers, everything really is super big...

Friday night was a revival meeting at Bethel Church in Redding. Heidi Baker was there visiting and she called our team up to pray, bless and commission our group to go forth on this journey. Wow what a time. After worship people came up with words if knowledge for specific healings and then we prayed, people were healed and they came up gave testimonies right then and there. Afterwards it was so great meeting up with some friends who'd been with us in Mozambique.

We stayed the night with some friends of the team way up in the woods - I've discovered not many people have yards big enough to host us: a motorhome, camper van and 2 4x4s pulling huge pop up trailers. These ladies totally blessed us with their hospitality. We set off early Sat morning on a 12 hour journey to Los Angeles. We travel very slowly to avoid the cars overheating; this is going to be a great opportunity to practise patience! We stayed the night with more friends of the team, again who has a home big enough to host us? Yes, very helpful that he is a producer in LA... This was our first night of using our pop up trailers (they pop up to be like a caravan with beds and a kitchenette inside. It's a tight fit. I never thought I'd say this but I think we had more space in Mozambique sharing a room with 8 people...

Sunday was church. At Expression 58 Church which meets in a theatre in Hollywood. I had no idea I'd be coming to Hollywood!! The church is awesome. Such a great message was preached and their hearts are so in the right place. I need to start getting used to being called up in churches - they called our team up early in the service to, to pray for us. After the service we had our first ministering opportunity. Such a priviledge praying and prophesying over these beautiful people. Even if some of them asked me to repeat myself because of my accent... :)

Lunch was at In 'n Out, the all American burger fast food joint, plus an afternoon filled with sightseeing. Yes, all around Hollywood, we even went up to Griffith Observatory so we could look out over the whole city. Incredible.

After dinner Brock came over to lead worship and we had our first healing within our team - one of the girls rolled her ankle before worship and during worship she got up and started walking around. Nice. Especially as just yesterday I'd thought how much I'm looking forward not only to all the miracles etc we'll be experiencing as we go out, but also as miracles take place within our team.

Tomorrow we head off early to pick up some more members of the team before driving to Tuscon. And Tuesday morning the plan is to cross the border into Mexico.

Portland

After about 37 hours of travelling I finally made it to Portland on Wednesday night and was picked up by Nadia. It was so great to see her - after sharing a room with someone for 10 weeks you kinda miss them when you're apart for a whole month :) I'm staying with her family and they're just amazing. A home cooked meal when I arrived home with a couple of hours of catching up with Nadia over green tea and Hershey's kisses (chocolates) and I was so beyond ready for bed...

Thursday Nadia blessed me with an amazing day out checking out the sights of Portland. Even if for the longest time I thought "she's going to kill me with her driving!" No, her driving is perfect, it's just that we're driving on the wrong side of the road to what I'm used to - I spend a lot of the time thinking we're going to drive straight in a car! Ha ha, Nadia thinks I'm amusing.

Portland is a beautiful city. We started with a leisurely breakfast at home with her parents and then headed off to town with first stop being Lush (a soap store) to stock me up with skin products - so in a few days/weeks I may in the dirt in the jungle but at least I'm going to have great skin and smell good! Let's hope I'll have enough water to enjoy these soaps... :) Lunch was on the 30th floor of a building at a great restaurant where we looked out over the city, followed my dessert at Urban Farmers, a great hotel in town. So we really did live it up enjoying the luxury of city life before I head out... oh and what would a trip to America be without stopping at Starbucks for a vanilla latter :)

Danike, another friend from Harvest School in Mozambique, came over for a braai (barbeque) in the evening along with Breck Boyd, and Jesse, Tanya and Zoe Gellatly (also from Harvest School). It was the beginning of meeting up with the team going South America. I met 3 other girls who will also be joining us. Nadia's parents cooked up an amazing feast for us, we all enjoyed it knowing that it's better than the rice and beans we have to look forward to in South America. Zoe (21 months old) had different ideas when her opening line at dinner was "where's rice and beans? I want rice and beans." You can tell she's grown up in Mozambique!! It was so great seeing other Harvest School friends again, we're pretty amped to get going!

Today we head down to Redding California where we'll be attending a revival meeting at Bethel Church. Yay. Also exciting is that I just found out Heidi Baker will be there. Awesome. I miss her. She'll be preaching at Bethel on Sunday but we will be leaving on Saturday so that's sad we'll miss out, but I'm sure we'll have a lot of fun wherever we are by then.

I wasn't ready to say to goodbye to Nadia (I've had too many emotional goodbyes saying goodbye to friends and family this week!) so I suggested she come to Redding for the weekend, so she is! With Danike and another of her friends Roman. This was decided over dinner last night so we'll be roadtripping to Redding today, and tomorrow I'll say goodbye before I'll leave with the SA team.

So far I'm loving America and am ready and excited to be headed out on the trip. I can confirm however that jetlag sucks. 4am this morning and wide awake. Considering I was falling asleep at the dinner table at 8pm last night, and only got to bed about 11pm, this is not looking good. This could be a long day ahead as Redding is about 8 hours away apparently. Hmm. Lucky I'm not driving! The good thing is that it's giving me time to write this blog before I have to get packed!

The journey has begun! After a somewhat emotional goodbye to family and friends yesterday I have successfully arrived in America. First miracle was getting through passport control and customs eezy peezy - for anyone who's ever travelled with me, border control seriously freaks me out! And no I'm not traveling illegally, I'm just a little paranoid at times :) I'm now sitting at Washingtion airport enjoying the free wifi as I wait for my connecting flight to Portland where I'll start meeting up with some of the team. I'm looking forward to staying with my friend Nadia who was one of my room mates in Mozambique - that's one of the advantages of having 7 room mates, I now have quite a few places to stay!!