Dreams Becoming Reality! Rolland & Heidi Baker

What a great time it is to be alive! Testimonies of the goodness of God flood our conversations and the experience of His goodness fills our lives! God is moving through the lives of a beautiful team. The following includes some of our stories. Enjoy!

A dream come true- After five years of prayer and planning, November 4th marked the date of a beautiful dedication ceremony. The first cornerstones were laid on the grounds of Arco-Iris's first hospital! Annelie Basson, director of our Pemba medical staff and visionary behind this project, gathered with hundreds to worship, pray and declare prophetic promises from the Lord over these grounds.

Phase one of the hospital will open by June as an outpatient consultation unit. This will consist of eight rooms, including consultation rooms for adults and children, a lab, a dentistry, a pharmacy and a children's health, pre-natal and general treatment facilities. Coming in the future will be phase two that will include a maternity wing and an inpatient unit. We feel God has shown us that this hospital will also be a place of supernatural healing and deliverance. It will be a place where patients and their families are treated with dignity and can encounter God and His love. Prophetically we claim this to be a place where HIV is healed and people are set free!


Barraca Ministry- One year ago God gave one of our missionaries, Ruth Alexander, a vision to work beside the prostitutes in the Pemba area. Since then she has been going out on the street talking to and befriending these precious women. Many of them sell their bodies for just 10 mts a night (under 50 cents), and many are forced by others to place themselves in dangerous situations night after night. Ruth and the team have now opened a barraca (a bamboo hut where sodas and food are sold) in hopes of creating a safe place for these women to congregate. Anyone can go there for an evening to be with caring and safe people who are only there to show the love of Jesus. On Friday nights two ministry teams go out from the barraca and share with the women who work on the street. Night after night Iris is seeing miracles and salvations, and we know there are many more to come!


Vocational Training School- Three weeks ago our new vocational training school opened its doors! It is a training facility for our young adults fourteen years and older. The students come to learn various jobs skills such as health care, business, character development, hospitality and English. The founders and administrators of this school are Steve and Cassandra Soars, and Grace Davis. It is their desire for these young leaders to receive the training and skills they need to be successful adults in their community and nation. The ultimate goal is to create social businesses in the community where we can equip students to run similar businesses on their own. The vision is that these young men and women will become successful business leaders in Mozambique who are sold out for Jesus and who desire for to see their nation changed and transformed by the power of God.


OFFERINGS OF LOVE


Baby House-ages one to six- This past month the baby house missionaries and leaders did a ten-day prayer fast for the baby house. At the end of the ten days they prayed together with their tias (Mozambican aunties) and the children. The presence of God showed up strongly and all, even the children, were obviously being touched. No crying or hitting?just peace and joy among them. During this time Ana (our Brazilian missionary who heads the baby house) explained to the children about the lack of funds for this Christmas. She told them that they may not receive presents this year, but if they wanted, they could give a gift themselves to someone else less fortunate. The children who were old enough to understand immediately went to their rooms and selected their best clothing to give! Most of them chose to give either their newest or their most favorite clothing item. All of the children gave at least one thing without any reluctance.


Widows Offering - Each week over three hundred widows and abandoned women from the community come to Iris Pemba for discipleship and fellowship. This past week at church Mama Heidi shared about generosity. She shared about Elisha coming to the widow and asking for her bread and oil. At their next discipleship meeting their leaders, Nathalia, Albertina and Gheti, informed the women that this year we may not be able to give them each a Christmas gift. Many of these women have very little. They are the poorest of the poor here in Pemba. Their leaders knew that sharing the possibility of no presents might make them very sad. However at this week's meeting, the widows each came with their own offering. A piece of cloth was laid out on the church platform and one-by-one the women came up and gave. They gave capalanas (traditional African skirts), coins, fruit, head scarfs, baby clothes, jewelry and one even gave a spoon. A spoon to them is an item of luxury. It was a beautiful act of faith. The women and their leaders prayed over their offering, giving it to God and trusting him. Mama Heidi always shares that generosity will open heavens. That day the heavens were opened.


HIS BELOVED CHILDREN


Outreach to Nanjua- God has been doing many great things in the bush village of Nanjua. We first visited there three months ago. Since then there are no more deaf people there to pray for because they are all healed. Also, the chief of the village got saved and we are currently completing the building of their church. Isn't God good! During a recent outreach there we saw miracles and many salvations. We met a blind man named Samuel. He came to us saying that he had heard us praying and that God had told him to come to where we were. He became completely blind in 2010. After praying for him he could see colors, faces and shapes. Mama Heidi took him to a mango tree and he counted the number of mangos on the branch - something he could not do before. He spoke with much excitement, “Now I can walk home by myself with no one to assist me!” Later that same day, along with many others, he was baptized in the river.

Manuel is a part of our Mercy Ministries and Partners in Harvest-Iris church. He makes day beds and weaves baskets in exchange for beans and rice. When a bed or basket is sold, part of the proceeds goes directly to Manuel. The rest gets poured back into Mercy Ministries so that other disabled and needy people in the community can receive aid. He is disabled and is currently sleeping on the roadside. Mercy Ministries is building him a house so that he can be safe and off the streets soon.

A long time ago, while walking from her home in Macomia to Pemba, Fatima stepped on a land mine. It blew off her leg. She currently walks around with a man's prosthetic leg that is too big for her. She is a part of our PIH-Iris church and Monday discipleship program. She has a huge heart and lots of joy. One of the things which moves us most is her praying for other women's legs to grow out and be healed.

We want to thank you for your extreme love, prayers and generosity. We bless you for remembering the poor and believing for the lost sons and daughters to come home to the Father. We love you and bless you.


In Jesus' huge heart,
Heidi, Rolland and your Iris family

Snapshots of Pemba, July 1st 2011 - Serena H

Thought I would share... :) Church: at least 1000 people made up of local mozambicans, mozambican bible students, international students and visitors. We sit on wooden benches or grass mats on the floor... energetic, sweaty praise and then time spent saturated in God's glorious presence... Picture beautiful mozambican children lost in the presence of God, just wanting more of Him and so thankful for all He is and has done in their lives. Picture international students from many different nations including the states, Brazil, Australia, Nepal, Madagascar, Holland, the UK, Germany and many others just pressing into all God has for them as many of them have given up everything just to see what He has for them here... Picture mozambican bible students, both young and old some of whom have walked days just to get here for 3 months and have left their families behind for the sweet privilege of learning the bible, learning to read the bible and growing in the ways of God...

We had a guest speaker from Texas a couple weeks ago, she was talking about Love. About the incomprehensible love of God. So she did an altar call at the end for everyone who wanted more of God and who needed his LOVE and his STRENGTH.

So I was up there, on my knees and my face was just like blergh, wet. I opened my eyes and there was a little moz girl (about 6 or 7) in front of me holding a little moz boy (under 2 years) and they were both staring at me like they were concerned. Then this little boy starts trying to gently take my glasses off my face. I didn't want to lose my glasses because I only just got them in Malaysia, to replace the frames that broke in Nepal. So I put my face on the floor instead. Then I feel a little hand just gently patting my shoulder... ohhhh Jesus loves me! After a while I had to sit up a bit because my nose was trying to empty just like my eyes and I didn't want it to. So I sat up, opened my eyes and there are these two boys (around 7 yrs old) on their faces before God. hehe one had his pants falling down so I could see his obama undies, and the other one had this rip in his pants right in the middle (not too big so you could see anything)... soo cute. Only in africa...

Village outreach. I spent a few days in the bush bush with a team of Mozambican students and mission school students. We visited the village of the Mozambican pastor in charge of our team. He had lived there as a boy. God also organised it so that I was on outreach with another Australian girl who is here to help out, and 2 other people from my school last year! One of them was on staff at my school and now she works long term here with Iris. The other was a student on my school and is now staffing. It was so great to hang out with them and catch up! The Mozambican bible students on our team were also a lot of fun and we all got along great :) It was the most peaceful outreach I had ever been on. It seriously felt like a holiday. It's like that - the dirt feels better than a nice comfortable home with everything I could need and a lot of stuff I actually don't! Not that I don't appreciate those things too, but there's always something about going out to a village that I love.

The first night, I stayed with the tents to help keep an eye on our stuff (we didn't stay in a yard this time, we stayed out in the open but I felt safer than on previous outreaches). There were around 1000 people at the Jesus film that night. We were told that because we only arrived after it was dark, most people didn't know it was on and so to expect a lot more people from surround areas later. The second night, I spent mostly just loving on this one teenage village girl while the Jesus film was showing. Her friends came around as well and braided each others hair. We were also joined at different points by some more friends who smelled strongly of alcohol and kept asking the girls to go with them. Eventually the girl's friends left, but she stayed and ended up accepting Jesus that night! She also came to find me the next morning, just to hang out and be loved on some more :)

We went house to house praying for people during the day. There was one lady with a racing heart who was 6 months pregnant and her husband and whole family of another religion came to Jesus. Her heart rate also went back to normal. We prayed for a lady with a migraine who got better. We also took part in a church inauguration (made of mud bricks, wooden posts and mecuti roof with dirt floor) where all of us - pastors, students, villagers - got to walk around the church anointing the outside with oil and praying over it - we got a joy party on! That is something so great about this particular village - during our whole outreach they would randomly get the drums out and start going all out - voices raised, dust rising as feet pounded in the dirt in energetic praise to our king! There were a few hundred people hanging around us and our tents constantly. We bought a pig for lunch and shared it with the people.

We walked 1/2 hour to the river on our last morning there, meeting many women on the way with water pots on their heads. We walked through stalks of corn at least twice my height, with thick morning mist all around us. This river is where the villagers get all their water. One of the guys said he prayed for someone who had gotten bitten by a crocodile and that was why he needed prayer! We sat on the bank and just rested in the peace of God...

My time in Pemba so far has felt like a gift that God gave me, where I'm getting to process a lot of things and just be saturated in his presence... This place is just such a place of his Love and His presence... I think I've mentioned that word "presence" a lot already in this email but it's just so true. The night before outreach we had a complete lunar eclipse where the moon turned red... the ocean is just, there. All the time and so blue and sparkling and it feels like you could just lose yourself in it and in God. I keep catching myself thinking, how did I get here? and thinking how much of a privilege it is to be here!

On Saturday we had a wedding! We had it at the beach about 20 minutes by cameon away from the base. Anyone who wanted to could come! So we had over a thousand people - Iris kids, Iris workers, Iris missionaries, Mission school students, bible students, visitors, villagers who wanted to come, village kids from the area around the beach, the groom's family from the states and the bride's family from down in southern Mozambique. It was an absolutely GORGEOUS wedding with the waves rolling in from the ocean being the backdrop. God's presence rained down as we prayed for Him to come. His Love was so there!

The database went well - there is so much more that I could do with it than I originally thought! I think I got more done that what I thought I would, but not as much done as what I wanted to and what the base would have liked me to. I ran out of time, basically. If I had made Pemba completely about the database and nothing else, I may have gotten more done... but the Lord had other things for me there as well. Connections with people, friends old and new, a lot of heart surgery and processing... Pemba was truly a gift!

This visit has been so peaceful. I am staying in the visitors centre and so many groups and people have come through while I've been here. There was a team from Holland, a team from Scotland, a team from Virginia, a couple from England and a family from South Africa on sabbatical from their ministry :) Now there is a team from Prince Edward Island (Anne of Green Gables!!) and a team from Texas, as well as a brother and sister from texas - one of whom is a missionary in Burkina Faso and a few people from Australia - so if you notice me coming out with any Aussie-isms its because my roommate was from Queensland!

Just another story to share and then I'll end this "newsletter". Our outreach team went out for lunch after outreach, to "Frango Assada" for chicken and fries. As we were waiting for our food to come, I noticed a young girl probably in her teens come in with an older man. He could have been her dad but she didn't look like she was having much fun. He sat her down in the corner on a crate and bought her some food, then went and started playing pool. She looked unhappy and I felt to go over to her. Me and another girl who spoke spanish (close to portugese) talked to her for a bit. She told us her name and said she was okay, but then the man came back. So we introduced ourselves to him as well, then our team had to leave... I asked one of the Moz pastors about it and if there was a chance it was a bad situation. He said yes it probably is. A lot of girls here have not many prospects or ability to provide for themselves so a man who wants her can just come and take her. I asked if he would marry her or just use her and he said he would just use her... Please pray for people of Mozambique! If God wanted me to stay in Pemba, I would do it in a heartbeat. My heart is so there and so for the kids there and the people there. I feel like I have some great friends there who are long-termers... This time has been both a gift and also a re-surrendering and re-laying down of everything. It sounds adventurous and fun to travel the world for Jesus and that is so exactly what it is! But it is also not without it's sacrifices. I want my life to be a continual "yes" to God no matter what he asks me to do, or when or where he wants me to go. He is my constant, my only one who is always with me :) He is everything I need and more!

http://adventureswjc.blogspot.com for more news and photos

Back to Mozambique! - Serena H

In just less than 2 weeks time, I will be heading back to Mozambique! This time will not be as a student at the mission school, although the next school will be in session. This time I have the privilege of helping out the children's centre director with setting up a new database, to store all of the children's records. There are at least 170 children currently living on the base. They are all either full orphans (both parents gone) or half orphans, or it is just not feasible that they live at home.

Last year during my time at the Iris Harvest Missions School each dorm had the opportunity to really get to know a specific dorm of children, and my house was paired with a dorm of 8-11 year old boys. There were 10 precious boys in the dorm, all with their individual, precious personalities! About 3 weeks before the end of school we invited the boys over for a movie night (or rather one of the more outgoing boys begged to be invited). As they all trooped into the house we noticed a new boy who hadn't been there before. We questioned the boys and they insisted he was new, he had just arrived the day before. So we had them all in, put on A Muppet Christmas Carol (one of the few movies we were able to scrounge from what was available!) and most of them promptly fell asleep within 1/2 hour! (we were happy about that later because a scary part came in the movie). We ended up carrying some of the boys back to bed... a very precious Mozambique memory! We found out later that the guards had found this new boy sleeping in the latrines, so Iris investigated his background and took him in.

I am so excited to have the privilege of going back to Mozambique, to serve there for a few weeks, possibly go on outreach to the bush bush and to love on the boys again! I am going in faith expecting the Lord to provide, expecting to see miracles as He loves on the least of these in the dirt, pouring out the best He has for the forgotten of the world. He is a good Daddy :)

Kids in church on a Sunday

JOY!

Beautiful village children

Some of "our" boys

Family, in Jesus!

Please pray for more of Jesus - like seriously crazy Holy Spirit filled precious times with Jesus!
That I would walk in the presence of Jesus all day long (and sleep in his presence all night long, visitations!)
Provision - that the Lord would stir the hearts of those who are to partner with what he is doing,and just crazy testimonies of provision!
That I would not hold back from loving people fully - especially as I know that I am always to leave people soon after meeting them. I do not want this to stop me from loving and giving of myself fully!
That he would move in the hearts and lives of my family here in Malaysia - I have 3 weeks left
Connections with the right people and divine appointments!
Restful sleep!! No interruptions unless it is the Lord!
Jesus' words
Jesus' HEART
Jesus' thoughts
JOY!
Hunger always for more!

If you would like to recieve my newsletters, please email me at serena xh@gmail.com (remove the space between serena and xh) or by clicking here

Latin America - September 2011!
Things are also gearing up for Latin America! We as an Iris Ministries Missions Team (Rolland and Heidi Baker) to the Latin Americas will be leaving in September from California, bringing revival fire to the nations of Mexico, Central America, South America and the Carribean! This is a trip expected to take around a year but may change depending on the Holy Spirit! We are focussing on the unreached people groups and will go wherever He sends us, however He sends us, no matter how hard to get to or how trecherous the way. The initial costs are to buy motorhomes and RVs, as we will be 4WDing it through the nations! The main costs throughout the trip will be just gas/fuel. We are excited as we were originally given the vision for this during the last missions school in Mozambique (Oct 2010) and we have been preparing since then. Learning Spanish, researching the people and the lands we are going to, praying and meeting together, speaking words over the trip as the Lord has been guiding us. The team is coming together from all over the world, from The United States, the Americas, Australia, Africa and others! Lord use us to bring revival fire to the Nations!! We are laying down everything and giving up everything that the world would know His LOVE!

Always remember that we are all each one of us missionaries in our own sphere of life. Wherever you are, whatever you do. Stop for the One. Go lower still. Let Him Love on you! Love on the one... and... Love LOOKS like something. What does it look like for the ones He has laid on YOUR heart? It looks like smiling at that stranger, it looks like wiping away tears. It looks like praying for the sick. It looks like sitting in the dirt or on the sidewalk with the one. Having them over for dinner. Visiting them in their houses or front yards. What does Love look like? Lets be Jesus' hands and feet in the nations! Lets be Jesus' hands and feet in our own backyard! The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few - so pray that the Lord would send Labourers! Who will go? Will you?

Love, blessings, Joy, and MORE of Him!! I pray Papa's love over you!

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.Therefore GO and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

As you GO, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give. Matthew 10:7-8

Week 1 of Mission School, Mozambique - Serena H

Ministry time after one of the sessions:

Sunday 10^th 10^th 2010! My first Sunday in Pemba.

⁶ “The LORD kills and makes alive;
He brings down to the grave and brings up.

⁷ The LORD makes poor and makes rich;
He brings low and lifts up.

⁸ He raises the poor from the dust
And lifts the beggar from the ash heap,

To set them among princes
And make them inherit the throne of glory.

For the pillars of the earth are the LORD’s,
And He has set the world upon them.

⁹ He will guard the feet of His saints,
But the wicked shall be silent in darkness.

For by strength no man shall prevail."

“I love that God is an upside down God! I’ve been seeing all my visions since August from underneath or upside down, and it’s been driving me crazy!

I think God is going to rearrange everything upside down here in the way I think and the way I SEE.”

Journal excerpt from 10.10.10 (again)

Visit my main blog for more: http://adventureswjc.blogspot.com

This year past, and 2011! - Serena H

by Serena Hockey - meet Serena and follow her adventures through her blogs in this site.

"Every year of our lives God intends for us to be an absolutely incredible year with Him - loving and being loved by Him, building relationships, stepping out in faith, going deeper into His heart and growing in everything He has for us! 2010 for me felt significantly like it was going to be just a year of deeper intimacy with the Lord than I had ever known and more freedom than I had ever known.

Well 2010 definitely turned out like that!

I had started reading about revival and renewal in 2004, during my break times in the college library. It was there that I first read about Rodney Howard-Browne, Toronto and Rolland and Heidi Baker. I remember being so hungry and really wanting more of the Holy Spirit, and also thinking about visiting Mozambique one day.

In Malaysia, January 2010 while visiting my parents, God spoke to me that I was His lily. I googled lilies and one thing that stood out to me was that some lilies take up to 5 or 6 years underground before they start to show. God reminded me of that time in 2004 when I had really started to hunger for my life to be more of a representation of heaven on earth, and more intimacy with Him.

I got back to Australia and found out that Rodney Howard-Browne was coming to speak at my church that March! That was incredible and on the Tuesday night after he spoke I was at a creative team discipleship for my church, and one of the things Jesus showed me was himself in a Tarzan-ish costume. It was so funny! I'm asked him what he was doing looking like that?! (by the way he's fun with me. I work with children so he often shows me stuff in cartoon or related to kids or in a way that only a kid's mind could understand or would find funny). So he says to me that my life with Him is just going to be this whole huge adventure. He said "this is the life I want you to live. A pioneering, adventurous life with Me!" Because my Jesus is NEVER BORING! It will always be FUN, and FUNNY! It will be a journey into the unknown at times, scary at times, definitely mind-blowing, beyond and far exceedingly over and above all my highest hopes, dreams and expectations. But most of all it will be fun. And it's all for love! The most amazing, powerful, abundant, undoing, overcoming force in the world! His love.

I then saw Him as a caped man on a white horse and he held me against His chest, which was a white bright chest. And we kept stopping and ministering to/healing the ones, and then swinging them up on the horse with us. More and more precious ones joining in the adventure!
The day after this vision I flew up to Queensland to a conference with Rolland and Heidi Baker. They had an Iris stand set up which I avoided the whole time. I knew God would get me to Go if I looked at it. Well God got me anyway. I ended up going to the Iris Harvest School of Missions from October to December 2010 where God took hold of me and wrecked me for the nations. He wrecked me for the least of these. There was one significant session where I laid down every dream He had ever given me or I had desired myself and I saw them float away. I had the sense that there was no past, no future, only NOW and it was the NOW that mattered. “My future is a blank canvas ready for You to paint on”.

It was after this during the launch of our 24/7 prayer week, as laid-down Mozambican pastors were praying for all of us international students that He gave me the Abraham call to GO, complete with a picture of a green pedestrian light, except the little man was running instead of walking.

Throughout the rest of the school God revealed to me personally more and more exactly what that meant. He also confirmed the call to the nations through different people, most of which knew nothing of what God had been speaking to me. Further to that, I visited a church on Christmas Day in Australia which I had never been to before, filled with people I had never met, and one of the ladies confirmed this from the front by pointing me out and saying I had a call to nations - just another expression of love from my Father - when I didn't need it but He knew it would bless me :)

It was during my time in Mozambique that I also met Jesse, Tanya and baby Zoe – long-term missionaries with Iris who I first met as leaders of my team’s weekend outreach into the bush. (You can see their blog at kingsquestministries.blogspot.com )

2011
I feel like Jesus has asked me to go with this family to reach the lost and love on the least of these in a few different Asian nations. This will take place in the months of March to May. We will be visiting existing people already there, serving with them, ministering to the local poor and broken, and also reaching out to unreached villages, loving on them and sharing Christ Jesus. We will also be visiting Australia to work with people there and reach out to the local indigenous people. This trip will be under the covering of Iris.

In September I will be again travelling with this family as part of a group of other people who have felt the Lord speak to their hearts about South America. We have felt His heart for the most down and out, lost, forgotten people and it is to see them transformed by the LOVE and FIRE of God. His heart is to see them gathered in from the darkness and brought into the light of His kingdom! We will be leaving from California in the first couple weeks of September, travelling all the way through Central America and down into South America - going through as many of the countries as we can and targeting especially those unreached tribes and people groups who have never heard the name of Jesus before. We will also be connecting with local YWAM bases and other churches and believers who are based in these countries permanently - they will be the ones who will disciple and train long term. We will also be ministering to the poor and broken in the larger cities that we travel through. We estimate this trip to take as long as or around a year. We will be travelling by 4x4 and RVs and some people will be involved for parts of the trip, some for the whole trip. This trip will be documented as much as we can on an online blog which will be updated regularly, and will be found on the Iris Ministries website: www.irismin.com

We hope that through this others can join with us in praying and interceding for the whole of Central and South America to saturated with God's love and power, seeing lives changed, restored and set free!

I love you all and would really appreciate your prayers as I step out in following where He leads! It is all about His heart :)

Pray for more intimacy with the Lord - we always need more of Him! Pray for all of those involved in the trip that we would hear clearly from God about where and when He wants us to go, and how He wants us to prepare. HIS wisdom, strategies and strength :) Pray for provision and favour for the journey. More love, more joy, more peace!!"

See photos - meet Serena Hockey
http://adventureswjc.blogspot.com/