Happy New Year!!

May 2011 be a year overflowing with many wonderful surprises from Papa God! I pray that you would be filled with joy unspeakable and that your faith would increase as you receive and bask in more of His amazing LOVE!

Love & blessings,

Tanya

Helena's House

Some photos of a house that we were able to help purchase through Mercy Ministry for a widow named Helena. Her husband died and she was left alone in Pemba with her 3 children and no nearby relatives. They were homeless and living on a neighbors porch before we were able to help.


the house


the family in their new house...Helena is on the right with her 3 daughters and one little neighbor boy

roof "trusses"

bedroom door

Planting Time!

As the harvest season comes to an end in the northern hemisphere, here in Mozambique we are just finishing field preparations and praying for the Lord of the harvest to bring the first rains of the year so we can begin planting. He is so faithful to give us all that we need!

I had a wonderful time in Lesotho in September at the Farming God’s Way in-field mentoring. There were about sixty of us from many different countries, all with hearts to see poverty broken off the lives of the African people. The amazing truths from God’s Word, along with the agricultural techniques and management principles that I saw demonstrated are like keys in the hands of God’s servants to unlock the yokes of poverty and oppression in Mozambique and surrounding nations.

In October I began teaching FGW to the workers at our new farm in Metuge, where we hope to raise much food to feed the poor and orphans. I was also able to visit and teach those in our church in Mieze who have small farms of their own, and am currently teaching FGW at our Bible school here in Pemba to the 3rd and 4th year students. Every one is excited to implement the FGW practices on their own farms this year and to have the Lord bring them out of poverty and into his abundance. They are learning how to trust him and him alone for all they need and we look forward to hearing many testimonies of God’s miraculous provision!

Thank you for continuing to remember us in your prayers and through your generous support. Please pray for the Lord’s blessings to rest on us in all we do and for his continued provision for the least of these. Pray that the Lord will continue to add to our number those who have a heart to minister to the beautiful people of Mozambique. He is good and we trust him in all things!

Pics from my Lesotho trip...

Breaking Free from Poverty

What a busy, fast track season it has been since I returned to Pemba end of May. As soon as I returned, I resumed responsibility of overseeing projects and food distribution for 240 people in our Mercy programs. In two months we have been able to get a few more thatch roofs recovered and new homes built thanks to the generous donations of visitors and mission school students. Thank you Lord for always providing for your children!

My roommates and I took on a new laundry lady in June, and she had quite the story. Beatrice is one of the ladies I had gotten to know in the Mercy program. She is a young widow with 6 children, and had no job and no way of providing for her kids, except the 5 kilos of rice and 5 kilos of beans that she received from us every 2 weeks. One day I asked her how she lived before meeting us at IRIS and coming to be part of the food program. The house they lived in before we helped them buy a new one last year had big holes in its roof and sides. It looked as if it may fall in on top of the family. They had no beds, so Beatrice would go to the town dump to find old discarded coal sacks for her and the children to sleep on at night. When the rains came they couldn’t sleep because rivers of water would come pouring through the sides of the house and when it was dry snakes came in to sleep with them. Beatrice says that the neighbors just laughed at them. The children cried to her in hunger almost every day, and the older boys would go to the dump to look for old bread and rotten food that might still be good enough for Beatrice to cook up for them to eat. Now she has income and is even able to choose foods that she wants to buy for her children in the market. Praise you, Lord, for your amazing love and provision!

Later I cried, as I thought about the reality of a lot of the poor here. They literally have nothing, and Jesus has brought us here to share his good news with them but also to help them break free from the cycle of poverty. One way that I feel the Lord wants me to help people be released from generations of poverty is through Farming God’s Way. This is a way of farming that teaches very basic and simple farming practices that produce much food. It also teaches about wisely stewarding the land that God has given us; including blessing the land and breaking off curses. I am so excited for the opportunity to go to Lesotho in September for a week long ‘In-field Mentoring’ program with the leaders of FGW and others who have a heart to see poverty broken off the lives of God’s precious people in Africa!

From Our "Village of Joy" Family to Yours

1. Discipleship group of some of the ladies who care for our children

2. Mercy program- making grass purses

3. Mercy program- making bead necklaces

4. Mercy program- helping in the garden

5. Two of our beautiful girls

Greetings from Lichinga!

Two weeks ago I arrived in Lichinga and am slowly adjusting to life here. Sometimes it seems as if I’m living in the late 1800’s. I like the laid back pace of life, but it requires a little more energy for doing everyday tasks. We have no running water or electricity, so we draw water from our hand dug well for everything from drinking to bathing to washing laundry and cleaning. We use kerosene lamps for light when the sun goes down and have a solar panel and battery for charging things like cell phones, computers and rechargeable batteries. The solar panel also supplies just enough power to run a sewing machine, so I have already been busy sewing capulanas for the girl’s beds and laundry bags for them as well. We are hoping to hire a tractor sometime this week to plow up two acres of land for planting potatoes. How exciting it will be in 3 months when the girls are here and we can dig up our first harvest together!


We have picked up some of the forms for the orphan girls that were distributed in surrounding villages and will soon take them to social services to verify each family situation. Then we will be able to choose an initial twelve girls between 5 and 10 years of age who will come to live in “ Village of Joy ”. Hopefully we will be welcoming them home by sometime in March if all goes well. Eventually this first house will be full with twenty four little “treasures” joyfully running around and enjoying their new home.

Thank you for all who have been praying and supporting me financially. I am trying to get together a more concrete team of intercessors to pray for me as well as for things that are happening in the bigger IRIS Lichinga family. If you would like to pray for us on a regular basis and receive more frequent prayer requests and updates please email me in response to this email and I will put you on the list. Otherwise I will just keep you on the regular update list about what the Lord is doing in and through us here. That one should be about every two months or so, depending on internet availability.

Blessings to you all and have an amazing day filled with the presence of the Lord and joy!!!!
Love,
Tanya

Back Alive From Lichinga!

Our outreach team to Lichinga arrived back in Pemba very early Monday morning after two long days of travel. As some of you heard, I had gotten very sick on the second and third day of our three-day journey to get there. I was running from both ends, so to speak, and had to ask our driver to stop every hour or so to let everything come spilling out. We think it may have been food poisoning, as we had eaten chicken the day before in a local restaurant. Thankfully the family that oversees the IRIS center in Lichinga had already planned for me to stay in their home, so I was able to rest comfortably and get my strength back during the first few days there. Jesus really held me in his hands on this journey, and I learned a great lesson through it all… Never eat chicken on a long trip in Mozambique! ☺

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to participate in most of the events that the team did, except for the feast we had Christmas day for the lame, blind, deaf, etc. We took the scripture literal where Jesus says when you have a feast to invite those who cannot repay you. It was beautiful! Some of the local village children also came and we had enough food to feed them as well. Many of the crippled gave their hearts to Jesus and were so touched. They said that no one had ever done anything for them like that. We serve such an awesome, loving God!!

The team was also able to share the Jesus film with two local communities and in the local prison, and many of those who heard the Good News also received Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Another day they hosted a fun day for the kids of the community where the local IRIS church is located. Many seeds were sown in the hearts of the people of Lichinga through all that the Lord had us do there.

As for my seeing what the Lord might have for me longer term in Lichinga…. I feel that it is a wonderful place to walk out some of the dreams and visions that Jesus has put on my heart. The IRIS Lichinga team also has a vision to see local communities learn to take care of their orphans by being self-sufficient through agriculture. The first step is to get the children’s center to be somewhat self-sufficient by planting food and raising goats for meat and milk and chickens for meat and eggs. I am excited to help with all of these things when I return to Lichinga at the end of January.

Another amazing venture that I will be part of will be the process of taking in orphan girls. We plan to go on a ten-day journey to the villages where the team has already given out registration forms to register the girls who are full orphans between the ages of five and ten. We will collect and give the forms to Social Services so that they can verify each case. Then we will prayerfully choose 24 girls from about 140+ that have been registered and go out again to bring them “home”. I am so excited that the lord is allowing me to be involved in this process. It has been about 16 years since Jesus first spoke to me about taking in children that need loving homes and families, and finally I will be able to be a part of that reality for 24 precious treasures. Yeah, God!!

Thank you so much to those of you who have been praying for me (especially during the trip to Lichinga), and supporting me financially. Without you I would not be able to walk out the “beautiful hope and future” that the Lord has for me and also help bring it about for the people of Mozambique. Thank you for praying for the Mieze farm project divisions, which we accomplished in time for the families to plant before the rains came, and for praying for the preparation of Christmas gifts for the kids here in Pemba. The children were elated to receive their gift bags overflowing with amazing provisions of clothes, toys and other goodies, and it only took about 6 hours to give them all out. Hee! Hee!

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas celebrating with friends and family, and I pray that this New Year will be filled with the abundance of the Lord’s riches in your life and many ‘kisses’ from heaven!

New Beginnings!

"The Lord is good to me and so I thank the Lord!!!"

As many of you may know, I will be going back to Mozambique in October to once again partner with IRIS Ministries in bringing the love and hope of Jesus to orphans, widows, and the poor. I have had such an amazing time the past seven months reconnecting with friends & family and resting. One day I just cried as I realized how good the Lord has been to me. He has restored my natural family to me during this time and also my church family. I was able to spend 5 weeks with my church and friends in Maine and was so blessed by the renewal of relationships and support from my "family" there.

After returning to the States in March, I started praying about my next step in ministry, and every time I prayed I would see Mozambican faces. I didn't know if this was the Lord or just me, as I still had such a great love for these people. As time progressed I began to realize that the Lord was giving me more of His heart for the people of Mozambique. He reminded me of ideas that He had put in my heart to help the people become more self-sustaining in order to be able to care for the orphans in their own communities. One thing that I believe the Lord wil have me be involved in is agriculture, such as starting vegetable gardens, and raising chickens, and goats. I love gardening and have been researching ideas for ways of growing veggies in the mostly hot, dry climate of the area we live in. I see myself sitting with the people in the villages and learning what already works for them in growing different foods, and then giving advice on the ideas I have found that may help increase their crops.

The Lord has renewed my vision during the past months, and He says it's time now to step out. Yeah!! Initially I will be staying in Pemba in order to renew my resident document and link up with a team of people from IRIS to go out and start a new children's center. I don't know any details yet of who will be on the team or what village we might be going to, but I am so excited for the next step of this great adventure with my Jesus. As a friend recently said, I will be "living on the edge" and allowing the Lord to guide my steps. What an amazing opportunity to have my faith built! :)

Please be praying for me as I get ready to go home and reunite with my Mozambican family. I leave Maryland on Sunday, Oct. 12th and arrive in Pemba on Tuesday, the 14th. Thank you to all of you who have given clothing for the children and finances for my trip back to Mozambique. I am so blessed by your generosity and love. May the Lord coninue to pour out His abundance of love and mercy on you as you remember His Mozambican treasures!! .....Galatians 2:10

Garden Veggies

Here are a few pics of my mom and I working in the garden this summer and some of the fruits of our labor. Sam and Christina enjoyed helping us with some of the harvest, too!

Mom was able to can about 40 quarts of tomatoes, 100 quarts of dill pickles, 25 quarts of sauerkraut, 15 quarts of spaghetti sauce, 7 pints of bread & butter squash, 29 pints of red beets, and 45 quarts of green beans. She also froze carrots, corn, broccoli, and squash. Whew!!! I helped a litlle when I was around, but she definitely did most of the work. Cudos, Mom!!

Farquar Park

Sliding with Haley
Hmmm...this is a tight squeeze
Hello Mr. Duck!
Walkin' with Haley & Toni (my younger sister)