News from Mozambique
Written
by Lorena Wood
Sometimes living is Mozambique is sobering. Life is fragile in a country where malaria
is rampant and medicine is nonexistent or scarce. In the last two weeks, our center hosted over 100 pastors
and their wives for conferences in the city. They came from far distances, villages with no electricity,
running water, or medical care.
While they were here, ten of them were diagnosed with malaria. They contracted it before arriving, as
malaria has an incubation period of 10 to 24 days. The fortunate part is that we have two missionary doctors from
Argentina and a nurse from Uruguay as part of our medical team! If they had not come to the
conferences, some of them would probably not be alive today!
Our medical team from left
to right, Dr Roberto from Argentina, Katarina who is a nurse
from Uruguay, and Dr Roberto’s wife – Dr. Laura
Two of these ten were babies. One had a severe case of cerebral malaria and would have
died in one day, had we not put her on an IV immediately. All of them are on medication and
recovering now. We are deeply
grateful to Tanya Smith and her team, who came in July with donations to supply
us with medicine, a microscope for doing accurate malaria tests, and hundreds
of mosquito nets for our area.
(Tanya is Cali’s mom, who was our missionary co-worker here in Dondo
that died of malaria last January.)
One of the babies recovering
from Malaria
Our first conference was about deliverance. Zito, after attending the seminar,
says, “I have never felt so free or had so much hunger for the Word of
God! Before I felt so bound by
legalism and oppression from my past generations of ancestor worship. Now I feel so different!” In a culture of extensive witchcraft,
ancestor worship, and excessive legalism, this conference helped so many
pastors and their wives. They are
now carrying what they learned back to their districts, eager to teach their
many churches. Our desire is to
see every pastor equipped to deal with the enemy and his many strongholds. Everyone was so happy they
came. We are looking forward to
reports of good fruit from our churches!
During this conference, I stayed behind and discipled the
ladies who brought babies with them.
They weren’t supposed to come with children, as the conference was held
in a rented theater in the city.
But it turned out to be such a blessing. Only two out of the ten ladies could read. God gave me new ideas of how to teach
them – unexpected, but exciting!
We made up songs, dances, and skits about the main points and key
verses! At night, when everyone
else returned from the conference, they performed for the large group. Their husbands were especially
delighted to see their wives learning so much. After teaching them the importance of reading the Bible
regularly, they complained how they can’t read and don’t even own a Bible. So I gave them all a solar powered
audio Bible after they promised to use it at least once a week with a group of
their own. Of course when the
other ladies came back from the conference, they all wanted one too!
Pictured above, pastors’
wives receiving their solar powered audio Bibles
I was happy to give them out, as these ladies are key
pastors’ wives from our province’s 13 districts. Up till now, women’s ministries have not existed here. Most of the women haven’t gone to Bible
school and most do not read. But
they are eager to learn. We’re
looking forward to seeing what God does with these ladies’ listening groups now
that they have audio Bibles in their heart language and a recorded Bible school
with 215 lessons from Genesis to Revelations on them!
Thank you for your remembering us in your prayers. We so appreciate them. “Not by might, nor by power, but by My
Spirit, says the Lord (Zech 4:6).”
Lorena reaching out to a
classroom full of kids
Blessings,
The Wood Family
Support Address: Calvary Chapel
Foothill Ranch, 26882 Vista Terrace, Lake Forest, CA 92630 (949)
768-4190. Please make checks out to the church with a note in the
memo of the check, “The Wood Family”.
