From the Desk of James W. Goll
This week we want to begin featuring articles by our speakers for the upcomming 12th annual Women on the Frontlines Conference: Empowering Champions of Compassion. We invite you to join us for this gathering! >>Click here<< for more information or to register. We are sure that this event will sell out so register today to reserve your place and become an Empowered Champion of Compassion!
Heidi Baker is one who empowers everyone she comes in contact with to become a Champion of Compassion. Many of you have heard the amazing stories and testimonies surrounding Heidi's life, but for those who haven't, here is some of her story.
Rolland and Heidi Baker began Iris Ministries, Inc., an interdenominational mission, in 1980 and have been missionaries for the past 25 years. They were both ordained as ministers in 1985 after completing their BA and MA degrees at Southern California College in Biblical Studies and Church Leadership. Rolland is a third-generation missionary, born and raised in China and Taiwan. He was greatly influenced by his grandfather, H.A. Baker, a missionary in southwest China. His book "Visions Beyond the Veil" tells of the extended visions of heaven and hell experienced by the children in his remote orphanage.
Heidi was powerfully called to the mission field when she was sixteen and living on an Indian reservation as an American Field Service student. She was led to the Lord by a Navajo preacher. Several months later she was taken up in a vision for several hours and heard the Lord speak to her and tell her to be a minister and a missionary to Africa, Asia and England. When she returned home to Laguna Beach, California, she began ministering at every opportunity and leading short-term mission teams. Rolland and Heidi met at a small charismatic church in Southern California and married six months later after realizing they were united in their calling and desire to see revival among the poor and forgotten of the world.
Today Heidi and Rolland are the Directors of Iris Ministries. Iris Ministries has expanded to over 5,000 churches all over Mozambique and into neighboring countries. They now care for over 2,000 children at their centers, and their churches are taking in orphans as well. Jesus is revealing Himself through signs and wonders, visions and dreams as God reaps a harvest in Southern Africa. Iris Ministries trains existing and emerging pastors, and is truly a modern-day signs and wonders apostolic ministry.
Rolland and Heidi Baker do the stuff! What is read in the book of ACTS is actually seen in Mozambique: the dead rise, food multiplies, blind eyes see, deaf ears hear, the lame walk and more. The manifest presence of Heaven on earth is happening in Mozambique through Iris Ministries as they show the Love and Glory of God to people all over the world.
Please continue with us in our Special Time of Prayer – Praying through Transition - for this ministry and yours. This special prayer emphasis began on Mother’s Day and ends on Father’s Day, June 21st. We covet your prayers in this season.
Thanks for your friendship, prayers and ongoing support of the ministry of EN, CA and PrayerStorm. Remember, together in Jesus, we make a great team!
In Jesus Our Lord!
James W. Goll
Encounters Network • PrayerStorm • Compassion Acts
Compelled by LOVE
by Heidi Baker and Shara Pradhan
published by: Charisma House
isbn: 1599793512
No Backup Plan!
Since moving to Mozambique, we haw learned to depend on God for everything. If God does not show up there, we are dead. In the Western church we decorate the altar, sing another amazing song, wave another flag, turn on the colored lights and smoke machines, and sit in a very comfortable chair. Some of these things can be wonderful expressions of creativity and ingenuity. They can, however, become backup plans. What we need most is to be totally dependent on God showing up. We need His pure presence.
In our poor Mozambican mud-hut churches, we have to have God show up-and we have to have fresh food or no one will come. People wouldn't want to come to church for the carpets because, even if we had them, they would be full of dirt and bugs! People come to church to dance, to rejoice, to sing, to meet with God, and to be healed and delivered.
If God doesn't show up, no one else will either. If God does not heal, we will be dead. If God does not deliver, demons will torment the people to death. We have no fund-raising backup scheme if God does not take care of our children and provide for our needs. We can't and won't go on.
Each day we depend on Him for our daily bread to feed the multitudes. We rely on God. In Jesus we have all that we need. He died that there would be more than enough. We watch God multiply food to feed the masses, just as Jesus took a few fish and loaves of bread to feed the hungry. We watch God touch hearts to give to the needy. We try to stop for every single sick, hurting, or dying person we find in front of us. For months during the floods in Mozambique, we fed tens of thousands of people a day. And we see food multiply as the churches are filled with hungry and desperate people.
Once, we were having a graduation ceremony in Pemba, and we wanted to celebrate with a chicken feast. The pastors and international students were very excited and hungry, so they walked into the dining hall and ate up almost all of the chicken. When I arrived slightly late, which is not unusual, some of my children came to the car crying and said, "The foreigners gobbled up all the chicken, and we did not get anything to eat:" I was a bit miffed and went into the kitchen to see what was going on. I noticed the cooks were now seriously guarding two boxes of chicken for themselves. (Sometimes the poor there are not kind; they may be selfish and hoard things, as others do in the rich world.)
I told several hundred children and widows to sit down. We were out of rice, but we had some of our fresh Mozambican bread. I had the cooks pass out the bread as I thanked Jesus for what He was about to do. I grabbed the greasy chicken piece by piece and gave it to the children and widows. As i came to the last lady, I gave her the last piece of chicken. Jesus had multiplied the food for us yet again, and the children were filled with joy. Even the cooks were amazed.
Although the poor may not have faith for the miracle, God in His mercy hears their cries and satisfies their hunger. I finally am beginning to understand God's kingdom from the children and the poor. They teach us about dependence, humility, and being emptied of all else so that God can fill us. They simply have nothing else.
We know that we have no ability within ourselves. We have no PowerPoint presentations to display. We are grateful if we sometimes have electricity! There are no glossy brochures or any slick side items. What we do have are national and foreign workers giving their lives as God's instruments. And we appreciate every gift and talent they bring.
God hears the cry of the poor even when we are not all pure in heart. He opens our ears to hear the cries of the hungry children, and He softens our hearts toward them.
He is More Than Enough
Why does God break forth in Mozambique in great power? They are poor in spirit! Here we have Makua and Makonde - friends who sing and dance in each Sunday morning service-along with many other visitors from around the world. In Mark l6:15-18, Jesus set this mission statement for His church:
Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.
Why do we experience so little of the reality of this promise in the West?
Join our team and go with us to Pemba this September 9th – 23rd, 2009.
Help us build Dreamer’s Playground Park in
memory of Michal Ann Goll for the Children of Iris Ministries with Heidi Baker.
