The last few days Judah and I (Heath) have been playing a lot of dodge ball, a lot. Though it has brought a lot of laughs and excerise it has left my arm aching. We are using a soft foam ball so when I throw it at neck breaking speed it doesn't knock him unconscience. As a result of throwing a light ball fast my wrist has started to hurt after three straight days of playing. One night it finally got so bad I could not apply any kind of pressure to it without whining like a baby. I do have a low pain tolerance but this was over the top.
I was lying in bed with Judah and the crazy thought came to me to have him pray for it. So I did. He calmly wrapped his hands around my wrist and said very softly, "In Jesus name I command this pain to leave now!"
My wrist was instantly healed and I have not had a problem or pain from then on. I actually completely forgot until yesterday when I realized I needed to tell others.
Praise the Lord.
SIDE NOTE: If Judah's prayer raises any theological red flags, I would love to discuss them with you. Please email me your thoughts. Before you write though meditate on the Atonement of Christ (what he did) and see what Jesus' will really is concerning healing, the passage when the lame man is lowered through the roof (mk 2:1-12) and Jesus proves it is easier to heal than to forgive, and let's throw Galatians 3 in there, "does God do miracles among you because you believe or becuase you obey?"
Blessings and the more you pray for healing the more healings you will see (just a hint)!
Heath
Friday, October 26, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Prayer Meetings in Pemba (read at own risk)
So much happens in life that I rarely get a moment to reflect on all that God is doing. I guess this is why he says in the Old Testament to remember and actually they were to set up standing stones as a visual reminder to his works. We all could write about what God is doing, has done or will do (prophetic promises over our lives). There are many people we have had the opportunity to minister with and to during our time in Pemba. Here is but a few.
This is the stuff Emie and I live for. Between all the emails, airport pick-ups, town runs, broken toilets or answering all the questions, we try to have a prayer meeting with visitors. We actually trick them in coming over by serving Emie’s Famous Pemba Chocolate Cake and then we move into some prayer. After an hour of visiting, the Lord usually lays someone on our hearts and we ask if we can pray for them. Then the ball is rolling, very fast!
What has happened the last three times is that the Lord lays a man on my heart and starts speaking to me about where they are or what they are wrestling with (not sexual). As we pray I am able to teach on scriptural truths and renewing the mind. Two men have been under so many religious spirits that we were able to rip them off and see an immediate difference. As we were praying over one gentleman the Holy Spirit was giving Emie and I so much for him that he sat down in shock and said you (Emie specifically) read my mail. Everything we had shared with him was exactly what he had told a teammate the night before. He sat there with his face in his hands the rest of the evening, in awe of God.
One evening we had a High School Senior in the group. As we were praying for him the Lord began to show where he was going to go to college and how the Lord was going to use him. I could see that he would end up in a very prominent position of leadership (I believe it was student body president) and that his campus would be changed by his life.
I could see him walking around his campus and receiving high respect by his peers. So I asked him where he wanted to go. He stood there and sheepishly said, “Ssst”. He wouldn’t say it, I believe out of embarrassment. He never ended up saying where he wanted to go (in public) but with what he was about to say I could tell it was the same place the Lord laid on my heart.
Afterwards he came up to me and asked what school I had got, I said, “Stanford.” He about flipped over and said, “I have always wanted to go there. Wow, that’s where I want to go!” I can’t wait to see Stanford changed. The best part about it is they don’t even know it’s coming, but God does and a few “nobodies” who prayed one night in Africa.
“Lord when I get to Africa would you have some one tell me what you want me to do with my life? Also can you have them tell me without me saying a word to them?” These were the prayers of a young university student from Ireland who wanted to know the next step for his life. I shared with him (and the others) that I don’t believe a women should hold a pastoral position at a “church”, this is because I don’t believe a man should hold a pastoral position at a church either. Biblically speaking a pastor is not a position, it’s a gifting. So a farmer, teacher, engineer, carpenter, janitor, mother, salesman, CEO, cook, builder or anyone else could be a pastor. We have institutionalized the gifts of God and told everyone who has a pastoral gifting they must go to Bible College and find a “church” to hire them. If we would release those who are in a profession and have the pastoral gifting to pastor people, wow, the Body of Christ would be better equipped and quicker. I said, “Will you become a pastor because you got a building and put a sign on it making you an official pastor?”
“You’re a pastor, you have the gifting of God on your life to be a pastor. You need to Shepard people. Do it, go for it and you don’t need a “church” to be a pastor,” this is what I told the young Irishman. “But what do you want to do? You are a pastor but what do you want to do,” I kept asking him over and over and over but he would not tell me. Finally I said, “I see you as a Pediatrician! Do what your heart’s desire for the Lord is. You can be a Pediatrician and pastor people! They don’t conflict, they fit together beautifully!”
Later that night he filled in all the details. He thought he should be a pastor (because he knew he had a gifting in it but thought the “right” way to be a pastor is the traditional way). But really he wanted to be a Doctor who could pastor people. The religious conflict he was feeling left him desperate to have the Lord tell him through a stranger. Only the Holy Spirit and the use of prophetic gifts and words of knowledge could answer his prayer from Ireland by a guy in Africa. What a great God.
In the middle of a prayer meeting we had a beautiful time when a gentleman fell to his knees and confessed his stuff. It was awesome to see the body gather around him and speak truth, life and love. It reminds me of 1 Corinthians 14: 24, “But if all of you are prophesying, and unbelievers or people who don’t understand these things come into your meeting, they will be convicted of sin and they will be condemned by what you say. As they listen, their secret thoughts will be laid bare, and they will fall down on their knees and worship God, declaring, ‘God is really here among you.’” What a sad place we are in when we discredit or throw out the supernatural gifts because they have been abused. When this is done we quickly become weak and have to try harder to do “ministry.”
We had a former missionary come visit that longed to be on the mission field again. I loved watching the Holy Spirit pour into her and out of her for that matter. The Lord asked me to share this story with her.
I was in a conversation with an older gentleman one day, who wanted to be in ministry as a young man and even went to Bible College. He never went “into ministry as an occupation” and I asked him why. He said, “Because it doesn’t pay very much.” “Well, that all depends on when you want to get paid” I replied.
Diane was rich, very rich! She has an investment package that is bursting at the seams. It was very clear she would not run out of resources when she finally retired to Eternity. This is why it is so important to store treasures up in Heaven, because we will be there for a very long time and we want to have enough to last.
The Lord keeps giving us stuff for those who come to visit in Pemba and it is always a delight ministering with them. After every night of prayer Emie and I lie in bed laugh with crazy excitement at how much fun it is. We are in awe of how easy it is and we are never tired. The comment that we always come back to is, “Why would/did we ever do it differently?”
There are so many amazing, wonderful God stories. Like the time I told a girl she had a weight in her stomach and it made her want to throw up. I pulled it out in Jesus’ name and it left. Or the time I told a guy he had a weight on his shoulder and prayed it off. He later came and shared what the weight was and how the Holy Spirit was dead on.
The most fun we had was when I was praying for this guy and I noticed a young girl (college) sitting on the ground with her face in her hands. “She has the gift of prophecy, but she is trying too hard,” is what the Holy Spirit told me. I asked her to stand up and told her exactly what the Holy Spirit told me. All she needed was to be released and then it happened, the Holy Spirit was so strong on her we could barely stand up. The room was spinning so fast and we had to go with it or it was going to be a mess. So we went with it and boy was it awesome. As we were spinning, I kept telling her it was her fault!
Nights like these give Emie and I the courage to keep going when it gets really hard (and it does, just like anywhere). The best compliment we have ever received was from two different groups, “this trip was worth it even if it was only for you and Emie to pray for us. Thanks!”
No, thank you Lord, we all had a great time!
Until the next prayer meeting!
Blessings
Heath
This is the stuff Emie and I live for. Between all the emails, airport pick-ups, town runs, broken toilets or answering all the questions, we try to have a prayer meeting with visitors. We actually trick them in coming over by serving Emie’s Famous Pemba Chocolate Cake and then we move into some prayer. After an hour of visiting, the Lord usually lays someone on our hearts and we ask if we can pray for them. Then the ball is rolling, very fast!
What has happened the last three times is that the Lord lays a man on my heart and starts speaking to me about where they are or what they are wrestling with (not sexual). As we pray I am able to teach on scriptural truths and renewing the mind. Two men have been under so many religious spirits that we were able to rip them off and see an immediate difference. As we were praying over one gentleman the Holy Spirit was giving Emie and I so much for him that he sat down in shock and said you (Emie specifically) read my mail. Everything we had shared with him was exactly what he had told a teammate the night before. He sat there with his face in his hands the rest of the evening, in awe of God.
One evening we had a High School Senior in the group. As we were praying for him the Lord began to show where he was going to go to college and how the Lord was going to use him. I could see that he would end up in a very prominent position of leadership (I believe it was student body president) and that his campus would be changed by his life.
I could see him walking around his campus and receiving high respect by his peers. So I asked him where he wanted to go. He stood there and sheepishly said, “Ssst”. He wouldn’t say it, I believe out of embarrassment. He never ended up saying where he wanted to go (in public) but with what he was about to say I could tell it was the same place the Lord laid on my heart.
Afterwards he came up to me and asked what school I had got, I said, “Stanford.” He about flipped over and said, “I have always wanted to go there. Wow, that’s where I want to go!” I can’t wait to see Stanford changed. The best part about it is they don’t even know it’s coming, but God does and a few “nobodies” who prayed one night in Africa.
“Lord when I get to Africa would you have some one tell me what you want me to do with my life? Also can you have them tell me without me saying a word to them?” These were the prayers of a young university student from Ireland who wanted to know the next step for his life. I shared with him (and the others) that I don’t believe a women should hold a pastoral position at a “church”, this is because I don’t believe a man should hold a pastoral position at a church either. Biblically speaking a pastor is not a position, it’s a gifting. So a farmer, teacher, engineer, carpenter, janitor, mother, salesman, CEO, cook, builder or anyone else could be a pastor. We have institutionalized the gifts of God and told everyone who has a pastoral gifting they must go to Bible College and find a “church” to hire them. If we would release those who are in a profession and have the pastoral gifting to pastor people, wow, the Body of Christ would be better equipped and quicker. I said, “Will you become a pastor because you got a building and put a sign on it making you an official pastor?”
“You’re a pastor, you have the gifting of God on your life to be a pastor. You need to Shepard people. Do it, go for it and you don’t need a “church” to be a pastor,” this is what I told the young Irishman. “But what do you want to do? You are a pastor but what do you want to do,” I kept asking him over and over and over but he would not tell me. Finally I said, “I see you as a Pediatrician! Do what your heart’s desire for the Lord is. You can be a Pediatrician and pastor people! They don’t conflict, they fit together beautifully!”
Later that night he filled in all the details. He thought he should be a pastor (because he knew he had a gifting in it but thought the “right” way to be a pastor is the traditional way). But really he wanted to be a Doctor who could pastor people. The religious conflict he was feeling left him desperate to have the Lord tell him through a stranger. Only the Holy Spirit and the use of prophetic gifts and words of knowledge could answer his prayer from Ireland by a guy in Africa. What a great God.
In the middle of a prayer meeting we had a beautiful time when a gentleman fell to his knees and confessed his stuff. It was awesome to see the body gather around him and speak truth, life and love. It reminds me of 1 Corinthians 14: 24, “But if all of you are prophesying, and unbelievers or people who don’t understand these things come into your meeting, they will be convicted of sin and they will be condemned by what you say. As they listen, their secret thoughts will be laid bare, and they will fall down on their knees and worship God, declaring, ‘God is really here among you.’” What a sad place we are in when we discredit or throw out the supernatural gifts because they have been abused. When this is done we quickly become weak and have to try harder to do “ministry.”
We had a former missionary come visit that longed to be on the mission field again. I loved watching the Holy Spirit pour into her and out of her for that matter. The Lord asked me to share this story with her.
I was in a conversation with an older gentleman one day, who wanted to be in ministry as a young man and even went to Bible College. He never went “into ministry as an occupation” and I asked him why. He said, “Because it doesn’t pay very much.” “Well, that all depends on when you want to get paid” I replied.
Diane was rich, very rich! She has an investment package that is bursting at the seams. It was very clear she would not run out of resources when she finally retired to Eternity. This is why it is so important to store treasures up in Heaven, because we will be there for a very long time and we want to have enough to last.
The Lord keeps giving us stuff for those who come to visit in Pemba and it is always a delight ministering with them. After every night of prayer Emie and I lie in bed laugh with crazy excitement at how much fun it is. We are in awe of how easy it is and we are never tired. The comment that we always come back to is, “Why would/did we ever do it differently?”
There are so many amazing, wonderful God stories. Like the time I told a girl she had a weight in her stomach and it made her want to throw up. I pulled it out in Jesus’ name and it left. Or the time I told a guy he had a weight on his shoulder and prayed it off. He later came and shared what the weight was and how the Holy Spirit was dead on.
The most fun we had was when I was praying for this guy and I noticed a young girl (college) sitting on the ground with her face in her hands. “She has the gift of prophecy, but she is trying too hard,” is what the Holy Spirit told me. I asked her to stand up and told her exactly what the Holy Spirit told me. All she needed was to be released and then it happened, the Holy Spirit was so strong on her we could barely stand up. The room was spinning so fast and we had to go with it or it was going to be a mess. So we went with it and boy was it awesome. As we were spinning, I kept telling her it was her fault!
Nights like these give Emie and I the courage to keep going when it gets really hard (and it does, just like anywhere). The best compliment we have ever received was from two different groups, “this trip was worth it even if it was only for you and Emie to pray for us. Thanks!”
No, thank you Lord, we all had a great time!
Until the next prayer meeting!
Blessings
Heath
Where are they now?
Do all of you know the "Where's Waldo?" children's books? If you
don't, you should! It will provide hours of entertainment or
frustration. The famous Waldo is hiding in tricky places through the
whole book on his travels around the world. It actually causes me
great frustration but my kids love the anticipation of where they will
find him!
I don't exactly know how this will connect with where in the world
the Locke family is, aside from the fact that these last few weeks
have caused me great tension/frustration in wondering where we are and
where we are going to end up! And I guess if you've been searching
for us in the last 7 weeks, we have been a bit in hiding!!
THE LAST YOU HEARD:
Heath was headed to the States to try and resolve our visa problems.
That was September 11th.
WHAT TRANSPIRED:
Heath RETURNED to South Africa on October 4th about 3 weeks later:
. . .with lots of trying and yet we were still stuck with the same
visas: ones that required our entire family to fly out of the country
every 30 days. We just couldn't do that due to a baby coming in a
little over a month and the great expense it would be for a family of
5 to fly out of Mozambique that frequently!
HOW TO RESPOND??!!
Do we FIGHT to get back to Pemba NO MATTER WHAT because that's what
we said we were going to do? Or do we look at other options and see
if there are doors opening that we would've never been able to walk
through in any other circumstance?
At first we thought maybe it was the enemy hindering our return to
Pemba. We were in FIGHT TO GET BACK MODE. But after several
unconnected confirmations, Jesus began to show us that He was
orchestrating a NEW LOCKE ADVENTURE . . . AGAIN!!
WAS THIS AN EASY DECISION TO EMBRACE?
NOT AT ALL (at least not for me!). About 3 months ago, Heath began
to sense that maybe we wouldn't be in Pemba for 2 years. At that
point, I was adamant that we were going to stay, because that's what
we said we were going to do! But 2 weeks before we left for VACATION,
I was praying about our time in Pemba and began sensing the same
thing: maybe this wasn't for 2 years.
Though the Lord did BEGIN to prepare us, I could've never been
prepared for what has transpired in the last 7 weeks. I have wrestled
through pride (I want to fulfill the thing I set out to do), fear of
man (wondering how our teammates at Iris would perceive this drastic
change and not wanting to let people down even though we feel that we
are obeying God), and fear of failure/people pleasing (not wanting to
look like we've failed and struggling with people's opinions of our
situation.)
I don't know if I would've truly been able to embrace our change of
direction had the visas not been such a decisive issue in the matter.
SO WHAT'S THE DECISION?
After release and blessing from our leadership at Iris and our
teammate in hospitality, I felt we were able to walk through the other
door that opened up to us while Heath was in the States. The house we
lived at for our 2 week "vacation" and then for my 3 week South
African stranding, is a ministry of hospitality, though much smaller
scale than what we were doing in Pemba. It is a guest house for
missionaries and 3 months out of the year it is used for a small
school of ministry. Kent and Shay, the directors of the house, had
planned to leave for 3 months to rest, renew visas and be with family
in the States. People were lined up to care for the property and run
the ministry. . . . until the week we had to decide what direction to
go with our time in Pemba!! That same week, both of their people fell
through! So, they approached me with the idea of Heath and I staying
to care for the ministry and property until they return in January or
February!
Remember, I'm 8 months pregnant and desperate to figure out where we
are going to have this baby! When the option to stay in South Africa
opened, at the very home we were already used to, doing the very
ministry we were just doing, with housing, a car, and utilities
provided for, I was ready to jump for anything as long as I could
start nesting!! But I knew Heath had to be on the same page or he'd
go way too stir crazy being on this property for three or four months.
But he had peace about it too.
Sooooo, that's the decision, not made in a vacuum or without loads of
prayer and counsel, tears and stress. We are living in Nelspruit,
South Africa for the next few months, having a baby, being a family,
TRANSITIONING AGAIN, and caring for tired and transient missionaries!
Heath flew to Pemba on the 9th of October to say goodbye, bring a bit
of closure to the Pemba chapter of our lives, kiss his dog goodbye (he
really does love me!!!), and pack as much of our things in 3 big bags
that he could! It feels so strange to me that I will not have the
opportunity to physically say goodbye to our home and people in our
lives for the past 6 months! I never dreamed, when I was packing for
a 2 week vacation that we would not be returning.
Heath was back in South Africa on Sunday, the 14th. Kent and Shay
left on Monday, the 15th, and our family moved into the main house on
the property that day.
I have found a midwife/doctor team that will come to our house to do a
homebirth. That is the plan as of now and it feels good to finally
have something set for Elianna Charis' birth. Her name means, "My God
has answered me" with "Grace." We are certainly in need of His
ANSWERS and His GRACE.
I have so many emotions and thoughts about the whole thing but I am
not going to overload you all now. Heath has different emotions and
a very different experience in coming to this place so I'm sure he
will write His perspective at some point. We will also be updating
what life in South Africa is like for us and our kids.
There are many details I could not include. Please feel free to ask
questions! You know I'm never short on words!! We love you all and
look forward to hearing from you now that you know where in the world
we are and what in the world we are doing!!
Blessings to you,
Emie
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