Well, jam-making season is upon me again.  I have just passed the $1000 mark that I had set myself to reach - this will provide the last two roofs for two retired clergymen who have served for 25 years each without pay and need a water-tight house to live in for their retirement.  Praise God!  OK, now I need to raise $480 for the support of two evangelists for this coming year.  Come on, St Stephen's!  Buy, eat, give the jam and count the blessings!

Strawberry and Rhubarb jam is freshly on the mission table and Heather, Vanessa and I are about to make more Strawberry and more Plum Jam.  Last Strawberry Jam batch was so good that one woman who bought a jar rang me to ask if she could have four more :-) 

I have plans for a Courgette and Tomato Chutney.

Do let me know if you have any source of apricots.  Seconds are fine.  I don't make jam any more when I have to pay for the fruit.  That seems to negate the purpose of the fund-raising.  The profits are too slim to make it worthwhile.

We had a wonderful testimony about the rain in Kondoa recently.  Rain had not fallen during December, the start of the rainy season.  People were afraid for the harvest and were even getting short of drinking water.  Ian emailed Bishop Given to suggest that they command the rains to come.   Here is his reply:

"Hi Ian,
Thank you so much for your advice! You know what happened? I just finished the service and we had prayed for the rain during intersession. As I announced the choir to sing a chorus so that we can get out, an idea came to open my mobile and I decided to check my email, as I opened my email I found your email I read your email while moving outside the church to shake people's hands as usual, as I read your email the Holy Spirit came upon me in a very special way and outside the church I told the people about your email and that you wanted to command the rain and everyone started to command rain and a number of Muslims who were passing stood watching us commanding the rain to come! It was wonderful moment and you know what? The rain came the next day and it has been just wonderful and there is joy and peace! Life has come even if we are late for planting yet water has brought life for our people and our animals! You know in rural villages where they relying on rain even drinking water was difficulty, so food is difficulty but also even water!
 
We praise God for speaking with you far away from New Zealand for Tanzanian people!
 
May God richly bless you, may you continue to see new hope, peace and joy for God's people!
 
Thanks
+Given

WOW!  Go for it, church of Kondoa!

For a neat rain picture, see https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/73/01/52/730152322c8978303536425e393d1f81.jpg

 Today should have been 7 hour bus ride back to San Paulo and stay overnight, chill/get bored for a day and fly home late tomorrow night.

But God had other plans... More on this tonight after the special unexpected opportunity to help Randy Clark minister to 3,000 Brazilian pastors and leaders.

We have had the most amazing time in the past few days. One night, Randy had preached and shown a couple of video clips of testimonies from past healing ministry trips to Brazil. As soon as they were finished a woman rushed out of the room. A wee while later, she ran up on the stage and it turns out that after watching miracles on the clips, she had her own one. She suffered from kidney stones and felt she had to rush to the bathroom. Before she had time to urinate, three kidney stones dropped out into her hand. No pain, no trouble. She brought them in and showed them caught in a piece of toilet paper. They we three different sizes and we're rough and black. I got a photo of them, if you want to see... And even if you don't, I think I will post them :-). Just gob-smacking. She was understandably crying and amazed.

After that, here was a great rush of people coming forward for prayer. I had a line of people, mostly complaining of pain. Shoulder pain, back pain in four people and all healed, bang bang bang. Then just to keep me humble, a woman saying her baby had died in the womb. She had pain and bleeding. She has a specialist appointment in 4 days. The pain went and I commanded the bleeding to stop and life to return. I sure hope there is a good result. But even if it is just that the pain stopped, it is good. She gave me a looooong hug of appreciation.

Then a large woman with a ten-year history of inguinal hernia and severe pain in both legs and feet. As she asked, I started with the leg and foot pain - which all left straight away. Then I "attacked" the hernia, which grew slightly smaller, the pain went, but I couldn't get it to disappear. I was just about to start praying for the next woman but the call came for the team to go home, so I handed over the prayer engagement to my interpreter :-). They do amazingly well. One interpreter said to me at the end of the evening, "Thank you so much for your modelling of how to pray. I shall be able to do it now and I am much more confident " ( or words to that effect). I couldn't ask for more!




​

You may be wondering what this current flood of blogging has to do with jam... Well, nothing in particular  :-)

This is all about a desire to follow hard after God and about  "If you want to get wet, go stand under a waterfall."  Just the same way, Ian and I went to Toronto 21 years ago and we were touched by God there in a way that changed the course of our lives.

This morning, we went driven about 50 mins north-west to a Four Square church.  They were very hungry for the things of God.  Tom preached a message about hunger for God and then we prayed for people.  I went to the back and prayed for people who were not pressing forward.  it took a little longer for them to start showing signs of the presence of God upon them, but it happened.  I prayed for a little girl who fell over under the power of the Holy Spirit.  

Then tonight, we went back to Gravidade Zero.  what an amazing church! The had a couple of dozen translators and as we approached the church, they started greeting us.  As we passed by achieve one, they hugged and kissed us and said how welcome we were.  By the next of that, we felt really great! Really loved and welcomed.  The sermon this evening was about facing difficulties in life and how our story in our life will always have challenges in it.  Every story has conflict and resolution.  I was very touched by Charities talk and the whole church surged forward afterwards at the altar  call.  We prayed for people, many of whom needed inner healing, a girl who had been abandoned by her parents and felt u loveable, a little girl who was hyperactive after having been cursed by her grandmother, a solo mother who was suffering from depression.  All felt more peaceful and joyful after prayer.  One of the team prayed for a man who had been shot through one eye and the bullet had lodged behind the other eye.  The eye that had survived was able to see letters two inches high, but after prayer he could read a Bible!!! Praise God!

 23rd September 2016

We had a restful day today, until 4:30 – team meeting.  Received impartation prayer.

On the way to the bus, there were so many people in the team who had to go down to the foyer from the top floor (28th), that a few of us walked down the emergency exit stairs to avoid the long wait for an elevator ride.  Someone started singing in tongues. One by one, the rest joined in and the overall effect was of a medieval chant in an echoey crypt.  Beautiful.

Then had a half  hour bus journey to a local church. We felt very warmly welcomed. People were lined up waiting to welcome us.  We were given delicious food, then the meeting started.  Amazing worship music followed by Carter Wood preaching.  He gave the testimony of his conversion at age 3!  Even though so small, he had been the only one to come forward at a revival meeting altar call.  He spoke into the mic, and said “Every one should  know Jesus!” and then the whole congregation responded to the Lord and there were many conversions!  So he has been a revivalist from a very early age :-)

Tonight I prayed for for a woman who had had a painful back for 8 years.  She had had prayer before but the pain had come hack.  It felt as  if she had a heavy weight on her back.  We waited on God to find out how to pray. It seemed to her that the weight was what other people had put on her, so we prayed for it to be lifted. I suggested she put the burdens she felt at the foot of the cross. I asked her to declare aloud, “ Jesus is their saviour and I am not.”

I had felt there was some some inherited stuff that needed dealing with, some bad choice her parents had made.  She said she had a bad relationship with her father and renounced any judgements she had made of her father.  I placed the cross of Christ between her and any negative spiritual inheritance.  Then I commanded the pain to go.  It went from a level “10” to an “8”.  I commanded it to go again, and it went down to a “3” and moved to one side.  I commanded a spirit of affliction to go and all the pain went.  Praise God!

OK, this is proving very difficult to edit. I am a bit of a poor Weebly worker, so bear with, as Miranda would say. If you want to see a fabulous photo of the view from the restaurant, be sure to look on my Facebook page.

​I read somewhere recently that a Sabbath day's journey is 1.4 km, so I can walk to church if Ian gives me a lift home :-). We left Rio at 14:20. The purchase of a decaf coffee at McDonald's in Sao Paulo worked about as well as the purchase of the dinner we had last night. The girl was adamant that she understood me when I said, "Decaffinated", but what I received was Ian's cappuccino and he got my one, which turned out to be a hot chocolate :-)

Last night's dinner was a truly special one, in the restaurant overlooking Copocabana Beach etc, way up on the Sugar Loaf. Such a treat, looking out over those pretty lights. The first surprise was being given a selection of 5 or 6 interesting kinds of bread, complete with butter whipped with oil of orange, plus an olive spread. Wow! I thought. If it starts like this, with a fabulous free selection of breads, how good will the rest be?! The truth came at the end, when we were billed for it - never having ordered it! Obviously, a Brazilian cultural difference. In NZ, the bread would have been free, or we would have had to order it before it arrived on the table.

Then we both ordered duck. The receptionist came over - the non-English-speaking waiter had understood that we only wanted one main... She sorted it out. Then we ordered only one dessert and two arrived! We should have known what would happen when Ian ordered a cappuccino - an espresso arrived :-0 lol.

I am keeping my lips sealed about the other mix-up, but by now you can sympathise with me if I start to believe that God was trying to teach us something when the hot chocolate arrived today.

I suggested to Ian that it might be that Brazilians have a shame-based culture and it would have been very shameful to admit they didn't understand what we had ordered. Maybe that is what I am supposed to learn.

Since starting to travel around Tanzania and deal with people there, I have realised that basically I know nothing and that assumptions are dangerous things. A couple of years ago, I started saving money to send to Kondoa in order to make it possible for some clergy kids to get to school (perhaps paying for shoes, books etc), but later Bishop Given told me that even if there might be a school within reach, the school would not necessarily have a teacher and if it did, there might be a pupil/teacher ratio of 100:1. Not even the Government offering twice the normal rate of pay to teachers can necessarily entice teachers to come to Kondoa district. So I had to re-think the target for this money I had raised.

Thus I am a bit wary about how to relate to the Brazilians. I know nothing. The only thing I can know is "Jesus loves you and wants to heal you."

. One of the most amazing visits of my life!  Riding the cable car up to the Sugar Loaf Mountain... The view is breath-taking.  One of those times in life when it pays to have a deficient imagination - shockingly high drop to the ground if it gave way.  I wondered how they built on top of that sheer cliff.  The info place said it was courageous climbers in about 1912 who carried the first cable up, and a larger cable was attached to the end of it, so thicker cables could be pulled up later.

We also saw a super-gilded Chapel of the Third Order of Franciscan.  I thought they were supposed to be associated with poverty? 

 I am reminded of yesterday - we were in another amazing RC church.  I loved the huge angel holding up the pulpit, but was sorry for a young woman who was praying for ages, fervently crossing herself, genuflecting  etc etc and looking really sad.  I wanted to say ""Your daddy God is in a good mood and he listens when you pray", but I lacked the Portuguese words :-( 

The Municipal Theatre held a tremendous treat. It was a ballet company rehearsing "Sheherazade" Wow! I was supposed to be looking at the beautiful theatre but couldn't take my eyes off the ballet :-)

 I prayed I would see an angel in Rio, but I actually meant I wanted to see  one in Sao Paulo during the ministry trip.  During the first team meeting, it was mentioned that that was not uncommon especially during the night.  Every team member  has to sign up for on​e or two separate hours of prayer during the night.  I was not too keen, especially so because sleep is pretty scarce on the trip anyway. But when I heard that angels sometimes show up, I couldn't wait to get my name on the sign up sheet... So, Sunday week, here...

​Today the Internet is down – and it was yesterday, too! Yesterday’s highlight was looking at a large church in downtown Rio, and finding a man who had a broken shoulder. We asked if he would like prayer and he gladly received it. It was our first experience of praying for someone on the street in a foreign country. His wife spoke English (yay!) We did not see an instant miraculous healing, but we gained confidence in handling such a situation. 

Rio has many eager, accomplished graffiti artists. They do not hesitate to display their talents, even on the outside of third story buildings. I wish I had photographed two which depicted large portraits of a woman with excitedly parted lips.

Oh, and whilst waiting for half an hour for an Uber taxi (supposedly three minutes) we were thrilled to see three or four monkeys racing around the hospital grounds next door. Then two tiny monkeys (with different faces, so not their babies) skipped and darted up the power pole and onto the wall and away. 

As we walked from Santa Teresa suburb into town we passed down the Selarion Steps, a ten year long project by a local artist tiling this flight of stairs and some of the surrounding walls. 

Food seems quite expensive. I imagine the favela-dwellers mainly live on beans and pasta, but avocados seem very cheap and enormous.

I am not quite sure what happened with the photo I tried to upload...   I am sitting in the cathedral during the ordinands' retreat.  Apart from the pleasure of preparing talks to give them, here i am enjoying a wee baby - one of the ordinands is a recent father!  Ian and I were thrilled to be able to speak into the lives of one couple in particular and see God move in a spectacular way for them.  If it was only for that that we came, it would have been worth it.

What a joy it has been to return to Tanzania!  Each time we come back, we are renewing friendships and making new ones.  Yesterday we returned from Mrigo village.  We had never been there before and now we have friends there.  I was thrilled to receive my first Tanzanian name as we left - they call me Mtemi.  Apparently that means something like matriarch or chieftain's wife.  It is a name with honour attached and I was very touched and excited.  One of the British volunteers here in Kondoa has had several new names given to her and it was a complete surprise for me to receive one.  I had given a teaching on deliverance so perhaps the authority which I talked about and encouraged them to believe that they have as Christians, made them believe I had the same.

Three gifts - one hand-carved ugali spoon, one black and yellow kanga and the new name.  Plus, of course, the gift of knowing that I had been instrumental in setting three women and a girl free from demonic oppression as well as physical pain and illnesses.  My eyes filled with tears as I discussed it with Ian this morning.  We had a day off and so were able to slothfully lie in bed until 8am. 

It was overwhelming to know that one woman, who had been suffering from the heart-ache of having lost her baby when she went into labour early due to the shock of her parents separating, had been able to forgive her father and received some heart-healing for the loss of her baby.  In the process, she seemed to have recovered from the low blood pressure and racing heart that had dogged her ever since the loss of her baby.

I had been sitting in the dust next to her, trying my best to remember the steps which had brought someone to freedom last year when we visited Tarkwa.  As soon as we finished, a little girl was carried out of the church, almost unconscious but obviously being touched by God.  As we asked God to continue his work and the Holy Spirit to come close to her and comfort her, she was crying and almost writhing and was unresponsive to us.  I noticed that she had a severely crippled arm and upon enquiry, learned that it was due to her having been bitten by a snake when she was very little.  The hand had contracted back so far that it touched her wrist and indeed, the skin of her hand was welded to the skin of her wrist.  Her elbow was scarred and unable to be straightened.  As we prayed and asked the Lord to heal her heart, the sobs and tears slowed down.  I asked the Bishop, who had come out of the church, concerned, to ask her how things were for her.  No answer. Here eyes did not focus and she was mute.  So I started to address a deaf and dumb spirit (and others, speculatively).  A spirit came out and she started to be able to make sounds, but was still distressed. 

Then her mother was brought over and we were able to find out a bit more.  I ascertained that the mother needed deep inner healing too, so started that process.  In the end, they were both filled with joy and at the testimony time the next day, the mother said that she had not realised that she could ever feel so happy and so free.  She and her daughter had been so filled with joy that they had even forgotten to prepare food that night.  The child had been healed of stomach pain and back pain as well.

If I had ever doubted that it was a good thing to come to Africa, it would have been allayed that morning.  Such joy and delight to see these women finding freedom form deep heart issues that had weighed them down for years- it was so touching.  May it bear fruit like the fruit that has come in Tarkwa since we visited last year - over 350% increase in congregation size and the joy of God's healing and deliverance still being celebrated.

Hallelujah!  I have a small idea now of what the Bible means when it talks about "Joy unspeakable and full of glory."