Iris Ministries, Inc.

Testimony from Beira Outreach by Jan Wigley, Australia

Our time at the Beira conference was like jumping into the colorful illustrations of the New Testament in a children's bible. Jesus touched the deaf, the blind, the lame and a sick woman.

One afternoon when I arrived at the conference, some Harvest School students came excitedly and said, "there are some deaf people here. We told them to wait until you came". I am a teacher of the deaf and can sign. I met with a group of young boys who were deaf and began to communicate using sign language, writing in the dirt, and with pen and paper. They used Mozambican sign and I used Australian.

After sharing about myself, I asked if I could pray for them. Our prayers were fervent, but there was no apparent change in their hearing. I invited them into the conference of the night meeting that had commenced. There was a row of empty seats in the second row, just perfect so they could lip read, see the screen, and for me to interpret the message. I explained the gospel in sign language with the help of the Holy Spirit to represent the key information spatially. Five boys and two girls accepted Jesus for the first time. Pastor Mario from the Peniel Church called them to come out front. Four more men who were deaf came also. I checked with each one to see if they believed. As they came out, the song "You Come" was being played - "chains be broken, lives be healed, eyes be opened, Christ is revealed".

I have always sung the words as "ears be opened" as I have passionately sought to see deaf ears be healed since I was a young girl. Tonight was the night! God blessed them. There was improvement in their hearing. The next day the blind came. I prayed for a man who was lame and a sick woman who miraculously recovered after 38 days on her bed.

A few days later, I met a boy with only one hearing aid and not two. I asked why. He replied, "Don't you remember? You prayed for me." Praise Jesus!

Testimony by Kevin Bubna

Let me tell the story of something that recently happened to me. I was lying on the floor during worship (a typical thing to do here) just enjoying the Lord's presence when I had what some might call a vision or prompting from the Lord. It so overwhelmed me I that I was weeping for quite a while. It was simple but profound and life changing. I saw myself exchanging my clothes for that of a poor Mozambican man. The clothes were tattered and smelly and I knew the Lord was asking me to do this. It was my team's turn to go on outreach to the bush the next weekend so I knew that was going to be my opportunity for the exchange. During my vision I also saw myself preaching to the villagers. That next Friday, 28 of us packed into the back of a flatbed truck they call camios here. It was very uncomfortable and I was quite agitated that they would take so many people at once, especially for a 7 hour drive, half of which was on dirt roads, even dirt trails not even 4 feet wide! Oh how the Lord Jesus continues to stretch me!

We arrived in the village at night and the next day split up into teams to go pray for the sick. I remember one old lady said she could barely see so we prayed like Jesus said to pray: "Your Kingdom come, your will be done!" Well, it worked! A little bit of heaven came down and the dear old saint was excited because she could see a key hanging from one of our team member's neck! It wasn't all the way done so we prayed some more. Then she started seeing things far away. We tested it to be sure with a bottle cap! Praise God ! Wow! Jesus still heals. The poor folk here have so much faith. They just believe Jesus and receive so readily. Many of them don't get very excited about it because they just know it will happen and it does. I have seen a man deaf from birth totally healed. The whole village knew him!

Oh, there is so much to praise Jesus about but let me get back to my "exchange" story. We arrived in the village. I looked for a man to exchange clothes with. There he was, a bit shorter than me, but the clothes he was wearing were too big for him, and I thought they would work well. I approached him and pointing at his clothes, tried to tell him what I wanted to do. He just looked at me funny. There were dozens of people around and they were probably all wondering what this crazy "acunia", i.e. white man, was trying to say. Just then I ran to the truck to get my best shirt and shorts to show the man I wanted to exchange them for his. He still looked at me funny, but a guy standing beside him figured it out and helped him understand. Then he looked at me with a big smile and ran to a clump of trees to change. He brought back his rags for me and I ran to the clump to change as well. When I came back the truck driver pointed out that I had the pants on backward (they were weird pants) and we started laughing and laughing. Everyone was laughing at me! By that point I had lost all dignity and just dropped my new trousers and turned them around (yes I had underwear on).

After all that ,one of our interpreters came over and I began to tell this dear old man and those all around why I had done this crazy thing. Jesus had left the splendor and glory of heaven to become a man that we might have relationship with God. He became poor that we may become rich. My exchange was a simple prophetic act to show them what Jesus had done (I said something like that). As I shared I was overwhelmed and tried as best I could to hold it back. We hugged two or three times and I invited them all to come to the Jesus movie that night.

Just before the Jesus film I was asked to preach to the village that night. I wore my new clothes and related to them again what Jesus had done for us. Many gave their lives to Jesus and many were healed of various diseases. All glory to He who became poor that we might become rich (2 Cor 8:9)