thursday at 3.

By: Shaila on 12:22 AM

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-As you know, or don’t know, we were in Mozambique last week. We were doing a survey trip alongside the missionary family to look for places that they will be able to potentially move in a little over a year. The place we live now is in a village in Malawi, but the places where we were surveying was in the bush, the remote villages, of Mozambique. It was very interesting, long, and eye-opening. We slept each night in tents in Pebane, and from there each morning would drive 8 or so hours on incredibly bumpy roads. The thing that stuck out to me more than anything was that the people we were waving at and locking eyes with were people that many people don’t even know they exist, and for those that know people might be living there, haven’t ever seen them. Sometimes we would wave and wouldn’t get a smile or a wave, and other times there would be an immediate reaction. The ones that touched my heart the most were the ones that you made waved at, then they would make eye contact with you, and then decide to wave back. For that split second, our eyes would meet, and I felt as though our souls connected. In that split second if I could tell them one thing it would be this:

“The Lord has not forgotten about you. He knows the number of hairs on your head and He loves you so much.”

We weren’t able to talk to these people much though. There was a Portuguese and Lomwe language barrier. But pray for these people. Pray that the will see the love of our Almighty Father. The love that is so great that He sent His one and only sinless Son to die on the cross for us, and to raise from the dead, giving us the opportunity of a relationship and eternal life with Him. Also, pray for those who may be called to this area either now or in the future and for their obedience.

-For the past couple of weeks, I have had the privilege of watching the Lord begin an amazing thing. It all began at the prayer retreat we had at the beginning of March at Lake Malawi, the Lord placed Scripture and an idea in my head. The Scriptures that were used were:

MARK 10:13-16: Let the children come to me.

And

Luke 11:5-13: The story of the persistent knocker and how the door would be open not because they were friends, but because he was persistent. Our kids that knock on the door are definitely persistent.

The village kids that have been coming to our door should not be turned away or ignored. Yes, we should continue to sew torn clothes, but there is more that could be done. That is when the idea of doing a backyard bible study “Malawian”-style came to mind. And then I thought to myself, wait, I don’t speak Chichewa. Then the Lord spoke again and Thoko- the girl mentioned in the past blog- came to mind. She is a girl that I have been wanting to initiate a discipleship relationship with and she is from Thyolo which means she speaks fluent Chichewa and she will be here long after we head back to America.

From this time on, I began to pray over this idea, and for Thoko, and even things that I’m not sure to pray about for the bible study. The week after we got back, Thoko and I were able to sit down and just have some precious, precious time together. I was able to share my testimony of how I came to the Lord with her and then was able to hear about how she came to faith in Christ Jesus. She also shared with me that both her father and brother are Muslim and how she prays for them all the time, and I told her that I would pray for them alongside her. We set the goal before ourselves to memorize 5 verses while I was away in Mozambique. The verses were:

John 15:5
Romans 6:23
1 Timothy 4:12
2 Timothy 1:7
Matthew 28:19-20

I also presented the idea of the backyard bible study to her and she said she would love to be a part of it. She said she thought it was very wise to begin to teach children about the Lord at a young age, so they will grow up in faith. She said that she would love to translate and help however she can.

When we made it back from Mozambique, we met up again. We recited our verses together. She was able to recite all of them except the one in Matthew. I asked for this next week if we should just work on the same ones again, or if we should begin 3 more or 5 more or what? She told me that she wanted to begin 5 more. The new ones we are working on are:

Psalm 51:7
Psalm 92:1
Luke 10:27
Romans 8:31
Romans 10:9

We are still going to continuing working on the others as well. I also asked her if after a couple of weeks of translating for us if she would want to lead the bible study herself. And she said she that on the 3rd one that she would do it. She also tried to teach me how to tell the kids “come on Thursday at 3 for a Bible story”. We ended our time together sharing prayer requests and praying together.

I have been continually praying that the Lord would cover this bible study, and that it would not be of our own doing, but His alone. I have been praying that kids would show up at the house this week, so that we may tell them.

Today, they did just that. They showed up. I had the opportunity to sew three little girls’ dresses. I even tried to say my “come on Thursday” line, but I didn’t think it went over well, so I had Thoko come to the house to tell them herself. She told them, and she told me that she even told them “bring your friends with you.” Our God is faithful, and has a plan way bigger than we will probably ever now.

PRAYER REQUESTS:
-Thoko: Pray that she will be made into a deep disciple of the Lord.

Colossians 2:7
“Let you roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.”

-Backyard Bible Club type thing: Pray that kids will show up. That translating will be effective. That this will be completely God’s thing and not our own. The bible study is Thursday at 3, which means for those in the central time zone, it will be Thursday at 8 am.

Mark 10:14-16
“He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ And He took the children in his arms, and put his hands on them, and blessed them.”

-For myself, this is the verse I am clinging to today and praying for myself:

Philippians 4:6-9
“Don’t worry about anything; instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing: Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me- everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.”

-Thank you so much for your support. Thanks to those of you who have poured into my life, in order that I may be able to pour into others. Thanks for the words of encouragement. Thanks for the emails, phone calls, facebook messages, letters, and packages. Thanks for the prayers. And thanks for showing the love of Christ in your lives. May you be blessed beyond all measure.