THANK YOU!!

[JimT]

Wow! Twyla and I are just blown away by everyone who has taken part in the auction! Words cannot adequately describe what we are feeling. You all have become part of God's Hand, reaching out and helping the poor and needy.

Our prayer is that His blessing come back into your lives - as we know it will - in all the different ways that you have need.

I know many are having financial struggles right now and wanted to do something but couldn't. Please note that we consider your prayers more valuable than money! We ask that everyone pray for us- always.

I am posting below a short article about some of the kids who have been rescued. Those of you who are interested in such, read the story of Constancia. Maybe you will get a glimpse of our heart - and God's heart - in it.

Either way, THANK YOU - THANK YOU - THANK YOU.

Jim & Twyla
***
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Matt 5:4 NIV


CONSTANCIA

Most of my heroes are from third world nations. I remember the day when a four or five-year-old child who had been badly raped was left abandoned on the stairs of our bakery. I was not doing some crusade or apostolic, history-making thing. I simply looked down on this emaciated child and thought, “God, this is what I am created for. I am created to stop for this one.” This is where I was to give comfort.

All sweet Constancia did was cry. She was unable to speak, so all she could do was weep. I wondered, “What does it look like to be Jesus to this person, to a people group, or to this nation?”

Matthew 5:4 says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

I gave comfort. I took Constancia in as if she were my own. This little girl was the epitome of mourning. I had never seen such sadness and tragedy in just one little fragile vessel!

Now Constancia taught me how much blessedness comes from comforting those who mourn. Blessedness – happiness, pleasure, contentment, or good fortune – does come from those who are mourning. But every time I looked at this little girl, it still felt as if my heart broke. I watched her and all she did was cry.

So how does one comfort those who mourn? I just held her in my arms and rocked her back and forth.

During that time our staff was small in numbers. We had only two aunties and a volunteer from the United Kingdom. But I would spend my days holding the crying children. One child after another I would hold, rock, and wipe away their tears.

Here was this beautiful, abandoned child who had seen such pain that she could not talk. Constancia had experienced too much agony to talk. Silent tears just continually streamed down her face. She didn’t know about revival, and I had no clue what revival even looked like. I did not yet realize that the Sermon on the Mount is God’s formula for revival. The Beatitudes are His recipe for His kingdom to come and His will to be done on the earth as it is in heaven.

What should comfort look like to Constancia and others like her? I asked God, “Why is there so much pain and agony? And what does comfort mean?”

But I did not hear any answer back. Instead, I just held this little girl through her silent tears. But God did answer my prayers, and He sent Constancia a special friend named Beatrice.

BEATRICE

Beatrice was found dying under a tree when she was around eight or nine years old. She had bright red eyes, a bloated belly, scabies, and lice. She was an abused little girl. And all she could do was weep.

We took Beatrice to the hospital. When the doctors spoke to our team they told us, “This little girl is going to die.” I remember looking at her face. I remember seeing her eyes through the many flies that were stuck around and inside them. Her face was totally deformed from the scabies and she had open sores.

I remember looking into her eyes and staring. I remember she looked back at me – and I saw Jesus!

I held Beatrice in my arms, and I loved her. Jesus looked back at me through that little girl. He said, “Whatever you do for this little one, you do for Me.” Some of you may think ministry is a grand adventure. Ministry, however, is simply about loving the person in front of you. It’s about stopping for the one and being the very fragrance of Jesus to a lost and dying world.

This is why I do what I do. I am just a baby beginner. God always tells me, “Heidi, your job is to love. Whatsoever you do for the least of these, you do for Me.”

When I held Beatrice I caught scabies and lice. But it didn’t matter. My only goal was to love more.

Ministry is simply you loving like Jesus. It is the Beatitudes manifest through your life. Missions are when you have the love of God so that He can demonstrate His very life and nature through you. Missions are intended to be the Sermon on the Mount played out on Earth.

When my daughter Crystalyn first saw Beatrice she ran to me. Christy saw Jesus in her eyes too and said, “Mommy, Beatrice is so beautiful. I want to give her my best dress.” (And Christy only had three dresses!) But my children are rich because they know what it means to share. They know what is to love.

If you can find someone who is sick, help bring them healing. If you find someone who is hungry, feed them. If you find someone who is thirsty, give them water to drink. If you find someone naked, clothe them. If you can find someone who is broken, weak, or weary, love them to wholeness. And if you find someone who is mourning give them comfort.
When the doctors told us Beatrice was going to die, I spoke to them and simply said, “Beatrice will live and will not die.” You see, I know my Jesus. I believe the Book. And with great delight I watched Beatrice get well. She never wanted to take off the dress that Christy had given her. She couldn’t believe it belonged to her. She wore it until one day it shredded in my hand.

Through this little girl Beatrice, God taught me about the Beatitudes. Beatrice had love. She was my teacher for love. Beatrice personified a comforter to someone who was deeply suffering and mourning. Because Beatrice understood suffering, she was able to understand our beautiful, tiny, mute girl, Constancia.

It was not complicated. I saw Beatrice stop for Constancia. After she had only been out of the hospital for a few weeks, I remember watching the first time as Beatrice picked up Constancia. I watched day after day she simply loved on that tiny girl.

She does not have a poster, a book, an itinerant circle, or a speaking schedule. But she has a ministry that brings the very heart of God to the heart of man on Earth. She traded her sorrow for His joy. She exchanged her ashes for His beauty. She learned to Love.

DYING TO THIS WORLD; LIVING FOR ANOTHER

The day Beatrice and Constancia were to be baptized, we didn’t have any clean, clear water. In the heat of the Mozambican day, we had only a dirty laundry tank of green water. As people stepped into it, one by one, it got dirtier because no one had clean water to bathe in. In spite of these circumstances the queue to be baptized was hundreds long.

Suddenly I saw Constancia. I looked down at her and began questioning theologically. “Am I allowed to baptize this little girl? She can’t talk. She can’t speak.”

I spoke to her and I asked in her language, “Do you know what it means to die?” I said, “That’s what baptism is. You have to die in the water and come up as a new creation. Your old life is going to die under water and you will come up a new creation.”

I saw her then, as usual, with tears streaming down her face. Using no words, she just nodded yes to me. She had no parents. She had no birth certificate. No one knew her age. And since being beaten and abused so many times she still would not talk. I took this one little child into my arms, and in the name of the Father, His Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, I put her tiny frail body under the dirty green water. She came up beaming!

It was one of the greatest days of my life. Then Constancia turned to me and spoke the very first words I ever heard her say, “Mama Aida, I want to lead the children’s choir.”

To me, that is ministry. I have watched countless times as the blind gain their sight. I am a witness nearly every week of my life as the deaf are able to hear. I have seen people whose limbs were once crippled walk again in complete wholeness. I see thousands run to Jesus. But one of my greatest joys was to hear Constancia speak for the first time! The simplicity of love healing a broken heart is what causes me to keep going.

- Heidi Baker -
From the book “COMPELLED BY LOVE” by Heidi Baker
Excerpted from Chapter Two

[CowboyTutt]

Really hard to read. The monitor was getting really blurry on me. Must be a technical glitch.

Thanks Jim.

-Andy Tuttle (Mic's friend)

[JReed]

Prayers will continue for success on your mission.

[41bear]

No sir, Thank you. To love is to give, may God bless your every step, the prayers will continue.

[Lawyer Daggit]

I agree with Cowboy Tutt- technical glich in Canberra Australia as well.

[Lawyer Daggit]

I agree with Cowboy Tutt- technical glich in Canberra Australia as well.

[WyrTwister]

God bless
Wyr

[hillclimber]

Returning from a long absence and this is the first post I read.. Same blurry glitch here in So. Oregon.. God bless these people, and their ministry.

[JohnB]

Got the same "blurry glitch" here at work....try explaining that to your boss!

Jim,

Words cannot express the sense of gratitude I feel for the difference you are making. It is staggering to consider the challenge you have taken on as your ministry.

I do have a question for you, if you don't mind.

Being the father of two beautiful little girls, I can fully embrace the righteous anger and rage I feel when I read about your "children" and what they have been subjected to. How is it possible for you to maintain composure? How do you come to terms with our "humanity" without losing your direction and/or your faith?

I am also a man of faith, but I am afraid I could not bear the weight of what you have witnessed and shared with us...

God be with you on your journeys!