Life at Pemba...

Holy Cow.

I am here. And safe. The travels were all fantastic. Praise the Lord. We met up with a lot of Iris students in Jo-burg and traveled with them into Pemba, which was fun. We all keep talking about how we feel like we have been here forever, even though its only been 2 or 3 days.

What to say... so so much has gone on. Sunday afternoon we got here and all settled in. My roommate is Bec, she is amazing. She is 18, fresh out of high school from Australia. I struggle not to pick up her accent every time we talk. We live with a couple other girls in the house who are also a lot of fun. Every morning I wake up, looking into my mosquito net reminded that I am still here, in Africa, and I get so excited!!

Monday (yesterday) was Children's day at Iris, which is basically like Christmas for them. It is one of the biggest days of the year. We fed about 2,500 kids, Iris kids and local village kids. It was fantastic. All of the Iris kids got bags of gifts. They were so excited! It was so fun to share in the work of that day. At the end of the day we did a Fire Tunnel, which I had never heard of, but we all lined up making a tunnel and were asked to pray over and pour out blessings over all the kids as they went through leaving. It was an incredible experience. I think I was more blessed that any of the kids. I was moved to tears, which really isn't surprising. But by the end I was just weeping. Everyone was so overcome by the Holy Spirit. The people here are SO different from what I am used to back home. People were all "drunk off the Holy Spirit" and falling over laughing and crying and then just resting in the spirit. Chelsey and I both were really overwhelmed by it all. I had never been exposed to anything like it. So we were talking to some of the men at the missions school about it all and praying and it was a really sweet time... which led to more weeping and being met by the Holy Spirit. So yesterday was pretty intense. But very good.

Then today was our first day of class. We had 2 speakers, Randy... something, he apparently is really famous for his work as an evangelist. He talked to us about prophecies, which again was something new to learn about. But it was very good. Everything here is so spiritual, and being from the Episcopal and then Presbyterian church, it is very different. The next speaker was Heidi Baker, the founder of the school. She was fantastic. as expected. She spoke on the passage of the Good Samaritan, reminding and urging us everyday to "stop for the one" to be compelled by love. It was a great lecture, followed by an absolutely incredible time of prayer, where I again left weeping and struck my the Holy Spirit. This was for sure the most intense movement of the Spirit I have ever felt. I just lost control of myself and was weeping and shaking in a friend's arms. I felt the electricity of God in my hands. It's impossible to explain. Afterwards I was weak and shaky. Wow. I am sure there are going to be a lot more experiences like that this summer, which I am both excited for... and scared of. I am learning about releasing. I do not like to be out of control. But to be led by God I must completely offer control to Him. Control of my life and words and body.

The past few days have been like a rollercoaster. I've had moments of incredible fear, anxiety, joy, confusion, peace, excitement...and anything else you can probably name. But it has been good. I really do beg for your prayers. Everything here is exhausting, from trying to communicate in Portuguese to getting wrecked in times of worship. But I am so thankful for this time to share it with you. I wish I had more time and energy to share all that has happened, but I think this is it for now.

Please continue to pray for my ability to communicate with the locals here (I'm learning my spanish is very helpful) and for my willingness to hand over control to the Lord and however else the Lord leads you to pray. I am so thankful for every one of your prayers. I love you I love you I love you!

peace,

kelly