For this year’s humanitarian aid project, Global Awakening wanted to meet a need for our good friends over at Iris Ministries in Mozambique. Early this month I traveled with Will Hart and a team to Pemba to begin the construction of a church and the drilling of a well. The project took place in a village about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Iris base.
Through Iris outreach, this village that was once completely muslim has had almost all of its residents converted to Christianity within the last year. The transition has happened so quickly that they constructed a temporary church building out of mud and bamboo so they could have a place to meet.
Working with Iris’ construction team, we started construction on the church the day after we arrived. The first thing we did was start work on the foundation of the 30′ × 100′ building. Dump truck after dump truck arrived in this remote village to drop off red sand, boulders, cement mix, and cement blocks.
For the next 6 days we built up the church. It was amazing to see the community’s reaction to not only the church building, but the well that had been drilled prior to our arrival. The gratitude poured out of every person that came up to greet us as they told us that the project was impacting their lives in a profound way: women who had been walking up to 20 miles a day to get clean water for their families now had clean water in their own village. From morning until evening, the hand-pumped well did not stop. People came from not only the village to get water, but from miles away.
One morning on our way to the building site, we stopped to get bread to feed every person in the village (about 400 people). When I asked how much it would cost to get enough bread to feed everyone, I was shocked to hear that it would only take $20 USD. Twenty dollars to feed every person in that village.
While we walked from hut to hut with the pastor handing out bread, we asked who was in need of prayer. Almost every person had an ailment of some kind. Many were healed as we layed our hands on them and prayed. One of the most notable healings was that of a woman who was suffering from vision loss in her right eye. After praying for a short time, her vision was restored!
As we finished up our work on the church building, I found it hard to leave the people of the village. We had in just a few days developed such a friendship despite the language barrier. It’s hard not to be changed when you see how grateful people are for the things we take for granted every day. They were so thankful for having a place worship Jesus, and having clean water and food.
Many people have come up to me and told me how they wished they could have an opportunity to do things like this. My response is always the same: you can. James 1:27 says “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress…” There are people who are hungry, homeless, orphaned, and widowed right in your home town.
This project would not have been possible without the continued support of Global Awakening Partners. Although you may not be able to see the impact on the ground, you share in the reward! It’s only because of people like you that we’re able to continue to tend to the widows and orphans around the globe.
We shot a video while we were there of Will and Heidi Baker talking about the project. Click below to watch.
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If you are interested in more information or how to donate to Global Awakening’s Humanitarian Aid Projects, you can email us at goglobal@globalawakening.com.