Ministering to the orphans alongside Partners in Harvest Church has been wonderful. There has been many, many salvations and the children are learning to pray and hear from Jesus. During one meeting, the spirit of prophecy came into the room, we prophesied life into the children and they gave words. As stated in the last blog, when we ministered with juice and bread, there wasn't enough... But somehow there were two bags of bread and a lots of juice left over.

This past Saturday we returned from Kigali after picking up one of our good friends, Sam Klimmek.  Sam is a great friend with a like-hearted spirit.  He worships with us in the United States when we have worship nights.  We are happy to have him with us.  He’s a great blessing.

Sunday, all of us went to CEPAC Tumaini church, where Sam gave the message.  He spoke on love.  Love is a concept that not many understand around the world but particularly in the DR Congo.  Many don’t understand the full meaning of love in a country that has been plagued with war, hatred, greed and corruption.  The message of love is a much needed one.  (Also as a side note, the pastor from CEPAC Tumaini is the one who wrote the necessary letter of invite in order for Sam to obtain his visa and enter the country.)

Afterward, Sam gave the English lesson with Pastor Paul at the Brotherly English Center (BEC):  a place where Congolese can go to learn English and worship God.  After the English lesson, the BEC holds a church service in English.  Sam gave a message from Philippians 4.

On Monday we went and did ministry at HEAL Africa Hospital again with Pastor Euclide and those from Partners in Harvest Church.  Simply put, our goal was to be Jesus to these people.  Jesus went to the sick to pray for them, so likewise we are to be imitators of Christ.  Many people were encouraged by our presence, five people accepted Jesus into their hearts.  We believe Jesus will heal them spiritually, emotionally and physically.

Upon our completion of praying for everyone at HEAL Africa, we traveled to Partners in Harvest Church where we had a great time with the orphans.  Partners in Harvest Church is located in the biggest slum of Goma.  There are many orphaned street children.  Pastor Euclide has gotten a great revelation:  the future of the nation rests in the children.  Thus, they do much with the orphans.  We taught them the ABC’s in English and then gave a message about how they are children of promise and can do all things through Christ who strengthens them.  They have the power to lay hands on the sick, to pray for an issue and to see God move in power.

Ministry with the orphans ended with us blowing bubbles in the street and watching them jump up and down trying to catch them.  Meanwhile, the leaders were preparing bread and juice for the orphans, a great treat!  After the bubbles were finished we returned back inside where the orphans received the bread and juice.  The numbers didn’t add up, there were more kids than bread and juice, but somehow there was enough for everyone.  In God there is always enough.  Pastor Euclide told about how Andrew and Philip gathered only five loaves and two fish for Jesus’ large crowd, but after they prayed and broke the bread and the fish, there was enough for everyone.  All of the orphans left happy, and in the end, there were two baskets of bread and juice leftover!  Amen!

Yesterday, Andrew woke up EARLY in the morning and went with Pastor Euclide to the hospital to minister to the sick. A lot of people suffered major injuries as a result of the war. Andrew and the pastor went room to room sharing the love of Jesus and praying over the old and the young.

Probably, the most notable time was when Andrew went to the hospital to minister specifically to the women who have been victims of gender-based violence and rape. These women are separated from the rest of the hospital, because of the traumatic injuries they suffered. They have also, been shunned by society. The hospital puts them together in a separate building so that they can find some sense of community, since the rest of the community has stigmatized them.

Andrew found it so difficult, being a man, coming to minister to these women, but he heard from the Holy Spirit… He spoke with a large a group of the women,

“I don’t know the pain you are going through, I don’t know what it feels like to experience the things you have experienced . . . But I know someone who does…” He told them about how Jesus was also abused; he was also humiliated and cast out of his society. Andrew told them that he would pray for healing, but he also shared with them a very difficult message:

“You need to position yourself for your healing... You need to forgive…”

Andrew’s message on forgiveness was unlike most other messages they’d heard. Some ladies covered their head and looked at the ground as the Holy Spirit was dealing with them. You could see that an internal war was going on inside of them. These ladies have experienced some of the worst atrocities the world has ever seen, and they were learning to forgive and let go.

Andrew spoke lovingly, on how to forgive, why they need to forgive and the result of forgiving and putting it into the hands of the Father.  Afterward, he prayed over them.

Both, Andrew and I will be returning to these ladies next Monday to continue ministering to them… We will also be going to the rural villages where I will do special seminars with the women who have been victims of gender-based violence. Pray that we will be given the right words to say . . .

Well that is the location nearest we are staying now. We moved in to our new abode. We were praying for a safe and secure place for around $400 a month. It took some searching but all things work out for the good of those who love Him. We love Him! Praise God that we found this place. Amethyst and I are staying with two United Nations staff members. Sam is from Liberia and Frances is from Sierra Leone. Both of them come from two countries that have undoubtedly seen their fair share of violence and war.

Jambo Safari in English means “hello trip.” How true is that! A good friend of ours, Sam will be coming and joining us here to do ministry. For just over two weeks he is leaving his comforts of America and will serve along side of us ministering amongst some of the world’s most neglected. Sam leaves today, June 9, 2010 and will embark on the grueling two days of constant travel. We’ll meet him in Kigali, Rwanda on June 11 so keep him in your prayers. Pray for a safe journey and that the Lord would prepare him mentally, emotionally and spiritually for ministry!

Our schedule is full full as the Congolese would say. Here is a brief look into our upcoming schedule, at least while Sam is here! Also, this is for your information so you have a brief indication of what to pray for.

June 11-26

11 – Travel to Kigali to get Sam
12 – Return from Kigali, day of rest for Sam, running last minute errands
13 – Visit CEPAC Tumaini Church and Living Rock Ministries
 14 – Visit Partners in Harvest @ 7:00 – HEAL Africa @ 8:30 – orphans at PIH Church
15 – Visit Partners in Harvest @ 7:30 – 8:30 seminar on love, visit Birere quarter praying for sick
16 – Visit Partners in Harvest @ 7:30 – 8:30 general, 8:30-9:30 women’s meeting, 9:30-? seminar
17 – Visit CEPAC Baraka Church
18-20 – Nyangoma (Traveling out and staying in the rural villages for ministry)
21 – Bweremana (more rural ministry)
22-23 – Mugunga 3 Internally Displaced Camp ministry
24 – Day of rest
25 – Travel to Kigali
26 – Sam Leaves

In other news, we have not yet had the money to buy a 4x4 vehicle but we have found transportation. This past Saturday we purchased a dirt bike! It isn’t a Yamaha as they cost like $5,000 for only a 175cc. After looking around we decided to buy a Senke 200cc for $1,000. It isn’t something you’ll race AMA Supercross and won’t be seen as a bike that wins the Paris Dakar Rally but it will take us most every place we need to go, even up steep mountain paths. Senke is an Indian brand with cheaper parts than a Yamaha but as long as you take care of it, it’ll run well for a long time, so the locals say. Many Congolese experts are actually very impressed with its engine.

Also, you must be wondering, “How is Andrew?”

I am doing fine! I went to the doctor at HEAL Africa and he prescribed me some medication and I am doing just fine. I am finishing the last of the medication as we speak and I have made a full recovery, praise God! Thank you all for your many prayers. We appreciate it a lot.

Hang in there if we don’t put up a blog every day or even a couple days because of two things: the internet connection is slow slow, as in slower than a dial-up connection bogged down with ten users trying to download 100 songs on LimeWire and also, we’re busy doing ministry so we don’t always have the time to spend to upload a new blog post.

Bless you!

Andrew & Amethyst  

PRAYER ALERT:
As I have posted on Facebook already, Andrew has been fighting an illness for the past couple of days…  He’s been taking Nyquil, Vitamin C, drinking lots of water and of course getting a lot of rest. This is still not kicking the sickness in the butt! Today, he woke up with almost  a 102 degree fever. With that said, the pastor and I have decide to take him to the “Heal Africa” hospital in Goma.  I’m keeping this post short and simply saying. Pray for his health and wellness.

We have been getting many SMS messages from our African translators and other pastors showing their concerns. One SMS read “Peace to you! Reject far from u all doubt and fear, only trust in the Lord. He is on time to operate miracles for you as he did for me! We are together in prayer… Nice healing night!”

Of course, we know that above all, the Lord is our healer. But I find it funny that today… Heal Africa, will be healing America.

Photos taken from our first recon trip to Bweremana and Nyangoma. We met with many pastors and community leaders to plan for upcomming trips there. This village has never seen a western missionary. It has experienced hardships and instability from the war over the past two decades. . . .

Hello everyone! Amethyst has been diligently posting blogs and I’m missing out on the fun! Well, here’s my first post of the season… hopefully it reflects everything my heart feels.

Today was the first day of ministry in the bush. It was a preparation trip for June when we’ll spend three days ministering there. As the crow flies, it is just across the lake, maybe 25 miles. But by car it is over 50 miles which doesn’t sound that far until you consider the terrain and it being straight mountains and the road seemingly goat paths. The drive takes around two hours aside from dealing with the provincial officials and their many questions. 

We started off the day leaving Goma at 8:00 so that we could have enough time to make it there, dialogue and return before dark. Amethyst had purposed to make it but she wasn’t feeling well in the morning.

Nyangoma is a place very dear to our pastor, translator and key contact Pastor Paul as he was born and grew up here. On my way there Pastor Paul says, “We are going to my home town! There have never been any westerners to visit since maybe even the colonial times. I don’t think a westerner has ever visited.” (As a side note, remember when we were hit by the UN truck last year, it was when we were on our way to Nyangoma.)

While visiting, we inquired of the current situation in the region both spiritually and physically. There are so many needs. One elder spoke, “We have many people who are backsliding, even leaders. Many are hungry and have no means to get food. So they travel from far away and if people are hungry, how can they concentrate on the word of God.”

Another one commented, “The banana trees have a kind of disease that kills the bananas. The cassava plants are infected with a disease that kills those crops. We are having a difficult time.”

Others gave more physical problems that need to be addressed. Then they started to talk about some of the spiritual needs and possible seminars. The elders expressed a need for a meeting with the whole church talking about revival, addressing unity and encouragement. Also, they suggested four types of sessions: youth, couples, women and leaders.

Everyone was very happy to receive us. It felt like a homecoming as it was Pastor Paul’s home village. What blessed me the most though was to see the house that Pastor Paul grew up in, the house he built as a young man and sharing traditional Congolese food with the pastors.

Word’s can’t describe how blessed I was to minister to these desperate people and how excited I am to return but the next time with Amethyst and Samuel (our good friend and great man of God who will join us for the most part of June.)

By the world’s standards, it was just another westerner traveling to a remote area of a war torn country to a place that doesn’t even receive any non-government organizations or aid. But spiritually, it was the laying of a long-term foundation that could’ve never been accomplished without the Holy Spirit working.

I left the main leaders meeting with a statement, “Man is not your provider, it doesn’t matter if they’re Congolese or western, it doesn’t matter! But God is your provider and I will believe with you for God to do a marvelous work!”

Everyone smiled and nodded. I hope today that God smiled and nodded. Not for my own benefit but for the benefit of the Congolese.  Please join us together in believing for God to something mighty! I know God wants to release His spirit and meet the physical but more importantly the spiritual needs.

Thoughts from Andrew Roth . . .

Well Amethyst and I have arrived to the Congo with relative ease despite having flown on five different flights, driven in four different vehicles spanning over three days (if you count how the world spins.) Last year we left a post entitled, “The Congo is Different.” May we, for lack of creativity, borrow an old title for a new post.

We have found many things the same just as we have left them… the city has not much changed other than the pot holes have grown wider and deeper. Otherwise, the internet is still slow; the buildings are much the same; many of the organizations have remained. Life continues on. Our friends have been eager to see us. Many have fasted and prayed for our journey back to the Congo and for the ministry while we are here.

But, many things are different. One small point is that Weebly, our web host has been blocked in the DR Congo. For a country with so many issues and a developing government, why block a simple web host? That means we have to figure out a plan to get a different web host and also figure out how to make a new blog site with dismal internet connections at best. Pray that this issue gets resolved.

The Congo is also different mainly if you travel just five kilometers outside of the city. What once were acres of internally displaced people (IDP) camps are now nothing more than rubbish. Where was this in the international news? Just a few weeks ago the Congolese government shut down 95% of all the IDP camps within the North-East in an effort to show that peace is returning to the Congo. This means over 100,000 IDPs now called returnees were forced to return to their home villages. The war is still going on and the lives of the IDPs have gotten worse as they are living in conditions worse than in the IDP camps. Now, they’re living in shelters similar to the IDP camps but in an active hot zone without the support of the United Nations or any other aid organization.

Furthermore, the way that they were forced to leave is an outcry. As sources of ours have said, they stopped giving the IDPs any food, water or assistance for many weeks and then the Congolese government went in and said that they must leave the camp as it will be deconstructed. They were instructed that they must return to their villages! Most of these IPDs left their villages because the rebels burned their village and have now occupied that territory. More on this to come.

This gave us a major curve ball! We have searched every major news agency for articles about the Congo but none have told of this major development. As we continue to make ministry arrangements for the upcoming weeks and months please join us in prayer for direction and guidance for what to do.

We are settling down and getting acclimated to Congo. Our bodies are slowly adjusting to the new time zone. Strength is returning after a tiresome itinerary. As we go forward, we are still in the process of arranging accommodations for our long-term stay. Pray that the Lord works out all of these logistics. Also, pray that the remaining funds for a vehicle come in! Glory to God!

We know that Jesus is with us despite not having our long-term accommodations, logistics and detailed ministry plan all finalized. These next couple of days are where the real work begins in finalizing these details which could not otherwise have been done besides getting here on the ground.

So here is your cue to hit the floor and start praying open the heavens!

·         Pray for Amethyst as she is taking two online courses and that she will get nothing lower than a B+ in both of the classes. Her scholarship depends on it! The internet is sometimes unreliable. Pray for a stable and reliable internet connection and grace from the teachers should there be internet failure.

·         Pray for the Lord’s guidance as our accommodations, logistics, ministry plans and everything else is finalized. We need the Lord’s wisdom, knowledge and revelation to be effective and strategic.

·         Pray for both God’s favor and protection upon us as we go and minister bringing the word of God, praying for the sick and that they would be healed both spiritually and physically. Pray that we will display Jesus to everyone we encounter.

·         Pray for the Congolese that have returned to their villages, which most have been reduced to nothing. Our hope is that we might be able to visit them but security is always top priority. Pray for peace and safety to spread throughout the region.

For me (Amethyst), the past week has been rough spiritually/ emotionally. I was thinking last night…. “I need to tell our supporters to pray for courage, because I feel like I’m afraid of my own shadow,” I spent a lot of time thinking about the negative (worst case scenarios) that could happen and at night, having trouble sleeping and even more trouble finding a passion for receiving God’s word ministering it alongside of Andrew.

I expressed it to Andrew and also to one other Congolese lady (I have become very good friends with overtime) and the only answer they had for me was prayer, getting into the face of God.

Last night, Andrew and I began praying intensely for my breakthrough and for breakthrough here in the North-Kivu, DRC. We immediately began to cry, because God was speaking to us. . . I was shown how I have been trying to defend myself from the evils of the DRC. My fear was not allowing me to fully love Jesus.

 The Lord brought Matthew 25 to my mind “what you did for the least of these you did unto me,” He reminded me the He (meaning the Lord) was in the very thing I was trying to protect myself from. He is in the churches who cry out night and day for peace in a war torn area, He is in the street children who beg and steal and cry because their bellies are hungry, He is in the women who are brutally raped and mistreated, He is in to the jobless husband who cannot provide for His family, He is even in the soldiers that have forgotten what love is and have given themselves over to some of the most evil atrocities humanity has ever seen, He is in the bandits who once thought it was wrong but can no longer differentiate what’s right from wrong, He is in the people of North Kivu. How can I love Jesus?  By loving the these people . . .

Immediately when I got this revelation, I asked “how”… The Lord immediately gave me a song. It was a song that I’ve heard a few times in the USA. “With arms wide open, a heart exposed, with arms wide open, bleeding, sometimes bleeding…” …”You shall love me, you shall love me…”

If I am to love Jesus as he loved me, then I must love the Congolese as Jesus did… With my arms wide open, my heart exposed, bleeding, even if I’m bleeding.

I died all over again to my safety, my security, even to my future and Andrew’s future…

After the marvelous God encounter, Andrew and I talked… Andrew said, “If we love with our arms wide open and our hearts exposed and they take advantage of us, rob us even if they kill us… They are killing Jesus and they are bringing judgment upon themselves.” We were moved to pray for the Congo and for them to know Jesus when they see him. Suddenly, the sadness of what a nation that kills Jesus would bring upon them began to override the importance of our own life. We were filled with compassion and love for “the least of these” the people of North-Kivu, DRC.

 

 

“What does love look like, is the question, I’ve been pondering

“What does love look like is the question that I’m asking…

“With arms wide open, a heart exposed

With arms wide open, bleeding, sometimes bleeding

You shall love me, you shall love me, and you shall love me

….You’ll come alive; you’ll come alive, when you learn to die…”

-Arms Wide Open by Misty Edwards