Mozambique bro...

greetings to anyone and everyone checking into this blog. all 5 of you, haha. right now i am in Beira Mozambique, a city in the south, and we just finished attending a 5 day international super crazy church conference. It was nuts! over 20 nations attended and there was just wicked worship and teaching every day, it was stellar if not a little exhausting. The best part of the conference for me was when we did street outreach, which was awesome. we just went into this little village, with interpreters and told people about jesus, we had one fella, celino, give his life to the lord right on the spot, then he ended up attending the rest of the conference with us, but in the streets, when there is a big white thrombus there are bound to be kids, so we had like 30 kids and i got to sing some songs and do some dances and just get crazy with them, i loved it. my favorite part of the week. then we had a big crowd, we preached through our interpreter, prayed for people and then sang more songs, with a lot of hand motions, cause they really don't know what they are singing, haha! but, it took 3 days on the back of flatbead trucks to get here, man, that was exhausting and hot, but kinda forced you into community, in a good way. i have met loads of awesome people here from all over the world, the mission students are awesome, there are 20 guys or so and we are all really close, and about 70 girls, too many to handle. but, the base in pemba is awesome, there is a student compound, prayer gardens, cafeteria, orphanage, school, church, mozambican pastors school, its stellar, one day for class...which was just worship, the mozambican pastors came up and 200 of us in this tiny hut sang and dang mozambican worship songs to jesus. it was beautiful. after dinner every night, it gets dark at 5:30, the iris kids just grab a drum and in the dirt we all just dance together and get funky, its beautiful, that is definitely my favorite part of this whole experience. playing soccer or eating a meal or trying to learn Makua, the local language, and singing and dancing, and the crazier i dance, the more the kids get into it. so fun. iris has a cool village feeding every day, and thats cool to be a part of, some 200 village kids come in, we sing songs, there is a bible lesson and then they chow down on some stellar rice and beans. the kids are adorable, if not prematurely old, with having to deal with the pressures and harsh nature of life for impoverished mozambicans. anyways, there is just way too many things happening for me to write them all down, it would fill volumes, but this is a good time to soak in the Lord, he has given me a good and healthy hunger for his word, and to see the authentic gospel lived out, to learn what is God, what is hype, and what is the most effective and selfless way to live my life in such a way, so that children don't die, spiritually and physically. but, community is stellar, food is actually really good, teaching is stretching me, and God is good, and i want him so badly, i just want to search after the things of the lord, and its a good search. we spend our nights drinking coffee, sitting on each others porches, discussing the bible, philosophy of religion, ideas about creation, predestination, adam and eve, original sin, truth about the holy spirit....it is good stuff. so life is good, i'll try to blog more frequently, so its less scattered, but yeah....
"Do you love the Lord? Do you love the Lord?"
"Yes, we love the Lord!"

bandito for peace,

joe