Masi Outreach, Week 2

We had our second week of community outreaches this week. As I wrote before, Juli and I are in Masi so that location should be assumed throughout this note. A lot happened in my group (I walk around with our coach, named Munya who is from Zimbabwe and Lucas who is actually from Masi) so I’ll break it down into days.

Thursday

Thursday was our second official day in the community (our first being last Friday). Our goal was to meet some new people in our quest to find people of peace (a concept I’ll develop more on this blog soon) as well as follow up with those we met last week. Munya put me in charge of our time, and charged me with leading the way, so I first had the three of us stop at the playground at the library in Masi to pray and seek guidance about who Jesus wanted us to find that day (basically treasure hunting for those familiar with the concept). Not 30 seconds into praying Munya yells at a guy and ran after him. I followed and on the way he said that he saw a picture of the guy where the brown shirt that was passing. We flagged the guys down (there were two of them) and started talking to them and they immediately asked if we would sit with them and explain more (a good sign). They were actually so excited that they wanted to do a Bible study then and there, in the park. So I facilitated and taught them how to facilitate as well (the steps for praying and reading the Bible which I’ll get into more in a separate post soon). It took about an hour and they were just really excited and promised to gather their friends and family for another Bible study on Sunday. When we left they actually turned around and walked back they way they came — it was almost as if they were just prompted out of their homes to meet us.

We next went to find another Zimbabwean we had met last week. We went to the place we thought we were supposed to meet and he wasn’t there so Munya called him. He explained that he had gathered people at his home at 1 and that he was waiting for us there. This was a good and bad thing to hear. It was awesome to hear that he had gathered and was really taking the initiative to learn about Jesus but bad because it was 3pm, which is the time we’d set for the meeting, and not 1 and most of the people had gone home for the day. He met us back at the fruit stand though and took us to his home, which opened into a big courtyard. There where several people there and they all informed us how excited they were that we were there to share and how they couldn’t wait for us to come back but that it would have to be earlier (1ish) so that the women would have time to cook. So, next week on Thursday we are going to do our best to get there between 1 and 1:30. Pray for this gathering as there is a distinct hunger in the people we met and they are apparently bringing many more.

Before we left the courtyard, we had the opportunity to pray for one of the woman who was having foot problems (named Christine). She seemed touched by the prayers and told us that she could walk better afterwards but we’ll find out more in regards to this next week when we see her again. Pray for full healing!

After all of this, it was time to head back for our ride. But we were encouraged. It was definitely a fruitful day, I must say.

Friday

Yesterday was a pretty incredible time in Masi — it rivaled our other times, I must say. We started off treasure hunting again but I was the only one to get clues: a serious leg issue that required crutches or a cane and a shorter, stocky palm tree. So we started off with those in mind looking for folks to share with, pray with and start churches with. The first guy we encountered was a younger man (probably younger than me) who seemed really excited; he says he is gathering a group for Sunday, so we’ll see.

We left his house and immediately found the short, stocky palm tree and there was a woman doing laundry underneath it. So, we went up and engaged her in conversation. Once we told her what we were doing she stopped what she was doing, took us to her house, and welcomed us in to sit with her. She also immediately invited her sister in as well. We shared and explained more and she is inviting friends and family, hopefully for Sunday afternoon.

We left there and immediately found the leg problem. There was a man with crutches across the street and a foot in a cast and bandages. We ran across to him and explained what we were doing and that we thought Jesus wanted him to know His love today and asked if we could pray for his leg. He said yes and immediately sat down. We laid hands and prayed and when we finished he pointed at his leg and drew barriers (pretty much where the bandages were) and said “Here it felt very very strange as you prayed. It felt like everything was moving around and changing inside me. And now it isn’t really hurting.” He then got up saying “Thank you Jesus! King of kings and Lord of lords!”. He gave us his name and number and wants to connect again to learn about what we are doing. Pray for this encounter to — it sounds like he’s not going to have bandages and such the next time we see him but more importantly we are hoping his heart stays fixed on Jesus and that he will be a catalyst for change in his community. It feels like a lot to ask but completely within the realm of God’s possibility.

From their we met a lady we had met last week that felt peaceful (she was one that was super touched when we prayed). Unfortunately she right now seems caught up in the old ways and not just Jesus and isn’t super interested in focusing on Him above. Pray that this would change as we’ll likely see her again.

We went from her house to another contact that Munya had. He is a Zimbabwean that currently attends another house church but is interested in gather people in his own area of Masi. This will definitely be exciting if it happens (and involved no work of our own; we just get to come along for the ride, and a good chunk of discipleship).

Lastly, we had a guy run into the street and up to us intrigued about who we were and what we were doing. We told him. He immediately said he wanted to be a part of that and gave us his number. He then said that he’d gather people together for next week. He found us and it all happened in about 10 minutes time.

So yeah — outreach is definitely going well. It’s crazy to walk in the experiences that we are all walking in. All the groups have stories similar (and some can be even more fascinating than the ones from my group, for example the fundamentalist muslims interested in meeting and sharing that one group found). The harvest is definitely plentiful and ripe for the picking. Keep praying for (local!) workers to work it — we foreigners long to be simple catalysts that see a locally lead and driven movement toward Christ.

Masi Outreach, Day 1

Yesterday (Friday) was our first outreach day. I’ll back up a minute — during CPx, every week we have two day of lectures and 3 of outreach where we go into the communities and practice what we have learned. Masiphumelele (Masi for short) is the community that Juli and I will be working in. We are definitely excited about working here for several reasons — for one, it is where we have worked in the past so there is some sense of it that kind of feels like home and for two, it is the type of community we envision ourselves working in long term. This isn’t to say that Masi is the community we will forever work in (for various reasons, we aren’t expecting this) but it is the atmosphere and type of community that tugs at our hearts.

Anyways, yesterday was our first day of getting into the community for outreach and the our first opportunity to practice all that we had learned. We’ve been broken up into d-groups of 6 or 7 for these outreaches, and further divided into 2s and 3s and 4s for the purpose of ministering (a group of 7 is rather intimidating to people — we aren’t wanting to gang up on them!). For this and future trips, we are really focused on planting simple churches and so we were looking for peaceful people — people that would open a community or network of people to the Gospel as well as finding people that would intentionally gather their friends and families for little “Bible Studies.”

This last part is key (and in many ways paradigm shifting). When we’ve been here in the past, we’ve focused pretty heavily on finding as many people as possible and grouping them together. Often the people aren’t in any way relationally connected which makes the groups dependent on the outsider for gathering and providing the special sauce that makes the people stick together. This time though we are intentionally not doing that but rather getting locals to gather their people. For more about this, keep following my blog.

Back to the story of outreach numero uno. I went with two other guys — our coach Munya (who is from Zimbabwe) and Lucas (who is actually from Masi). We went out and pretty immediately found 3 different guys who told us that they (a) were interested in studying the Bible and (b) were interested in gathering their friends and families. And they were interested enough to give us their phone numbers so that we could SMS them to remind them. The last man in particular (Richard) we felt particularly good about. He not only seemed interested but also excited.

As we were leaving Richard’s place, we passed a house where a woman called out to us. She had heard about us (or people like us) and had some questions about faith and wanted prayer. We shared with her about Jesus and answered her questions and told her testimonies of His love in Masi. We then prayed for her and it seemed incredibly impactful — she was in tears when we got done and immediately asked us to come back to study the Bible with her (and that she wanted to do the same as the guys: gather friends and family). So we were quite encouraged by this point. I wasn’t expecting quite this response. I knew Masi as a spiritually hungry place, but expected a bit more resistance to the gathering concept. And we may run into it — we’ll find out next week if anyone is “gathered” but I have a lot of hope.

I know I would have probably been thrilled if this was the end of the story for the day but it wasn’t. Our next encounter was with a man named Eddy. He was also from Zimbabwe and was just passing through Masi. We still got an opportunity to share with and pray for him though. And he was another person left changed by the love and presence of God. He’d been struggling with pretty serious neck pain for several months. When we first met him he actually couldn’t move it at all. But we prayed! And Jesus healed! And the pain went away and he could move it again!

And this isn’t even the end of the story — we had two more significant encounters with people! They both revolve around a Zimbabwean house church that meets in another part of Masi. Susan, a woman in it (but who lives elsewhere in Masi) took us to her home and had us pray for her pregnancy. I felt like the Lord was asking me to pray Isaiah 40:31 for her (which I did) and she was really touched. She is even wanting to try and gather her neighbors to start a Bible study (which we were all surprised and excited about since she is already a part of the other). After this, we got to teach the Zimbabwean house church how to facilitate meetings and pray times without us which is significant — prior to this they had been reliant on us outsiders for meeting times and facilitation.

Anyways all that said and done — we were really excited about our first trip into Masi and can’t wait to see what else God does with our time there.