Heidi Baker copes with floods in Mozambique

Bible Reading: Isaiah 61
Faith in Action
MOZAMBIQUE – Floods in Mozambique (eight years ago in 2000)
2/7/00 Rolland and Heidi Baker write:
TO OUR FRIENDS IN JESUS:
The rain has been pounding on our tin and asbestos roofs for days.
Thunder has been booming all night. Torrents of running water have carved deep gullies in our property. Rooms are flooded, leaks are everywhere, the power is out.
Then this morning we got a call from our Machava property a half-hour away where almost 200 of our older children stay. Our land there is completely flooded and everyone had to evacuate. Jesse and Racquel, our Brazilian directors there, led the children out on foot down the dirt roads now roaring with flood waters, mud and debris, often descending waist and shoulder deep through the currents.
They hiked for several hours as we struggled to meet them with our available trucks and pick up as many as possible. The main roads were cut off. Concrete was torn away and turned into raging rapids. For awhile it looked like we could not reach them at all. But finally with local guides we found alternate routes over side roads, got our 4WD trucks in as deep as we dared, and met up with a soaked band of children, bringing nothing but the clothes on their backs.
So yet again we are in complete crisis. We have almost no extra beds, mattresses or clothes. Yet we have two containers on the dock at the port of Maputo filled with needed supplies that the government has not been willing to release to us for several months.
Meanwhile, on all sides of us local people have seen their huts swept away. They wade down the highway wherever they can, carrying bags, chairs, whatever they can save, not knowing where to go. There are no emergency services, no sound of choppers overhead, no police in sight, no help on the way that we know of. And we stare into the face of defenseless poverty.
May we, the Body of Christ, be led by our King through this and every tribulation that we face until our priorities are His, and until He has His way with us to the uttermost. May we be given a strategy for reaching the poor of the world in the 21st century that makes all the difference, starting with the young, weak, destitute and discarded wherever we find them. They are His treasures, and they will reveal His glory…
Much love in Jesus,
Rolland and Heidi
Matthew 16:24-25 “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”
Matthew 9:38 “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
1 Chronicles 12:18 “Then the Spirit came upon Amasai, chief of the Thirty, and he said, ‘We are yours, O David! We are with you, O son of Jesse! Success, success to you, and success to those who help you, for your God will help you.'”
Jesus poses the same question to each one of us: “Will you join me and build my Kingdom?” And the only proper response is that of Amasai, with the same Holy Spirit by which he answered. “We are yours! We are with you!”
Jesus, being an activist, is not content to merely survey the world’s pain and take an inventory of it. Jesus didn’t simply wait around on earth until age 33 when He could be crucified for our salvation. God put Jesus to work building His Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10).
The same love that drove Him to die for sinners also drove Him to take on the powers of darkness in the land of the living. He showed us the love of God. When Jesus preached the good news of abundant, hope-filled life, he backed it up with a healing touch.
So what does this mean for us? We have a clear choice: We can either pantomime a lifestyle that mimics Jesus enough to pass for the real thing – while missing the real thing – or we can live the life that Jesus lived. We can choose to admire Jesus at a distance, but He calls us to more: He wants us to follow Him. Do we look out at the people around us every day with compassion? Do we preach the good news to the poor? Do we set prisoners free? Do we heal the blind and release the oppressed? That was Jesus’ agenda, and it is the agenda of every true disciple of His. “Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did” (1 John 2:6).
This is a global war. It is not some small skirmish that can be won by a few stalwart soldiers here and there. We need to choose to walk along Jesus’ radical path, and then we need to multiply. The long-term answer to the world’s hopelessness is the strategy of multiplication. Even a battalion is not enough; we must recruit an army for this cause! This mobilization is the mission that consumed the early church as it preached the good news in the streets. It animated the apostle Paul as he planted churches all over the ancient world. It drives Rolland and Heidi Baker and countless other missionaries in a life that many Christians find difficult to understand.
Our orders are simple, requiring both word and deed. Share the message that God is shaking things up, taking things back. Then put the word into action. The deeds that back that revolutionary message defy the second law of thermodynamics. The sick are to be healed! The dead are to be raised! The natural entropy that drains us of hope is to be reversed. These were the orders that Jesus gave to His disciples. They were the plan of attack that He modeled, and over two thousand years later the orders remain the same.
The bottom line is that, we must do what Jesus told us to do. Jesus received His orders and He gave them to us. We can choose whether to rationalize our way out of them, picking and choosing what we’ll obey, or we can move out in whole-hearted obedience as His disciples did. Obedience means a lifestyle of love and a willingness to multiply ourselves, expressing the gospel in word and deed.
Questions
- When do you find it most difficult to respond with compassion to people?
- Which kinds of people did Jesus target for ministry that I find difficulties to minister to?
- Why would Jesus ask His disciples to pray for mobilization before mobilizing them?
- What was the disciples’ preparation prior to being sent out?
- How do you suppose the disciples felt when they heard Jesus tell them they were going to heal the sick, raise the dead, and drive out demons? The disciples practiced word and deed ministry. What would it look like for you to practice it?
- To ultimately fulfill the Great Commission, how important is it to mobilize more laborers? Why? How can you live out the Great Commission in your community?
Application
Ask: “Father, I can see your compassion towards people in Jesus. I want to be like Him. Please show me my heart. Am I more concerned with my own problems or with the helpless right in my own community?”
“What should my response be towards them today?”
“Would you please send out more labors into the harvest field?”
“Lord, what difference can I make?”
Listen: Write down what you perceive Him to be saying.
Obey: What will you do?
Evaluate: What happens as a result?
To start the study from the beginning, click here.
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nice posting. very good work. thank you. 🙂
herf”http://www.bathmateus.com”>bathmate
hello
I remember those floods. I was there. While women gave birth in treetops, government and aid agencies debated who would pay for the fuel for rescue helicopters since they knew a poor country like Mozambique could not repay.
I remember hearing of one guy who was stuck on his roof for days while the waters raged around him. He watched vehicles, dead bodies, snakes and all manner of debris float by. One evening, in the dark, he heard and felt an animal joining him on the roof. Though he had been alone, abandoned and isolated for quite a while, ‘crocodile company’ was not the rescue party he had imagined.
I’ve never forgotten these people. I’m taking a team back there this summer. Why? So they can have an adventure? So they can make a memory? No, so they can have their whole being/worldview transformed. So they can feel long-term life-changing effects into the depths of their souls. So when their car breaks down or they don’t have enough money for pizza, they don’t count it a hardship. So they meet people who lose everything, yet worship rather than whine.
Thanks for reminding me of the glimpses of God I saw in the midst of this tragedy. You know, the Baker’s used to have just a vehicle or two for their hundreds of kids. Kids got malaria as there was no money for mosquito nets. Children had worms coming out of their feet cause they had no shoes. After the floods though, Mozambique ‘got on the map’ and global Christians started getting more involved in being the hands, feet and heart of Jesus there. Suddenly we had Land Rovers, flatbed trucks, medicine, donations, visitors galore.
Prior to the floods, I used to speak in America about my work in Mozambique, and no one knew the people I was working with. Now, when I tell people I’m going to Mozambique, their first question is, ‘Do you know the Baker’s?’ If their reasons for asking are free from ‘Christian celebrity worship’, then I’ll answer them in the affirmative so I can get to the point: painting the picture of how God can use tragedies to bring food to the hungry, healing to the sick, and salvation to the perishing.