Believe.

There Is Always Hope

“Hope is life to the soul.” -Ania Noster

In December of 2011 I walked through the hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia where I witnessed indescribable suffering among the people - the results of war, famine, poverty and disease. But the human being is resilient. She can survive even those things. As a lead doctor gave me a tour through the hospital he turned and said “there are people who come here in time to receive treatment to survive and live. We give them what their bodies need, but they don’t live, they die.” As I heard his words, thoughts ran through my mind, “But it doesn’t make sense”, I thought. “They should live. They are getting treatment. They are receiving what they need.” 

A moment passed as I contemplated these thoughts then I asked, “Why?” 

The doctor hesitated briefly then, with a deep sorrow in his eyes, responded, “they die because they have lost hope.” 

They die because they have lost hope.

War, famine, poverty and disease. These a person can survive. A loss of hope, no one can survive. People need hope to live. I think Ania was right… hope is life to the soul.

So today I bring good news. 

There is always hope. 

Whatever the circumstance in life, no matter what it is, that circumstance can only be seen accurately when seen in the context of knowing that it can get better. That it can be restored. Knowing that it can be redeemed. And that is what hope is - to actively and confidently expect everything to become better.

Everything must be viewed through the lens of hope. Your family. Your health. Your finances. Your city. Your nation. Take a few seconds right now and slow down. Fix your thoughts on the close and personal Holy Spirit who loves and accepts you above and beyond your wildest imagination.  …and breathe in the hope of heaven coming to earth.

There is no place too dark. There is no place too dangerous. 

There is hope for every person, every situation, every nation. 

Myself and my dear friend, Ania, have had the opportunity to see hope being restored to a nation. We have seen the very beginning of what hope restored to a people group looks like. 

And it is beautiful.

The first time we visited Mogadishu, Somalia, was in mid August 2011. We had heard of the despair from famine and war that was mercilessly gripping the land. So we went there. We didn’t have anything. We didn’t have any money. We didn’t have any contacts. We didn’t have any plan. Neither of us had been to Somalia before and we had close to zero knowledge of the land or the culture.

But we did have compassion for the people that were suffering, a discontent in our hearts for the injustice taking place. And above all, we had a belief in the power of the Gospel.

So we went. 

When we arrived, the city resembled a chilling, bombed out, war-zone, ghost town under a blanket of death, hopelessness and fear more than an actual city. Because of famine, hundreds of thousands of starving Somalis, who had nothing but the air in their lungs and the tattered clothing on their backs, were risking their lives to venture into the city, seeking help. Try to see that and you may begin to get a small picture of what it was like.

So we began to pray and spread the word. And many of you began to pray. And the Holy Spirit began to move over the land. (You can read more about our first visit to Mogadishu in a previous blog that I posted)

Shortly after our departure we began to make plans to return to Mogadishu. Our hearts had been deeply moved from our first visit and we wanted to help the people in any way that we could. So we organized another visit to the city and this time we would bring food for those dying from famine and anything else we could bring that would save lives and help those in need.

Before I go on I must say, I have been highly inspired and encouraged by everyone of you who, through your prayers and generous giving, made this most recent effort in Somalia a reality. You are the hope of the world. Thank you.

Upon our arrival to the city, we were surprised to see how dramatically it had improved since our previous visit. Among the first things we recognized was a very noticeable change in the attitudes of the people and in the over all spiritual atmosphere. There had been a marked shift. The amount of violence and war clashes in the streets had decreased. The people were less paranoid and fearful. There were many more smiles :) More shops and markets were doing business and the level of activity in the streets had increased. 

A city had begun to be transformed. Hope had begun to dawn within the hearts of the people. 

During our time in Mogadishu we airlifted, from Nairobi Kenya, nearly a ton of high quality RUTF (Ready to Use Therapeutic Food) specifically designed for the treatment of severely malnourished children. We distributed the food at an IDP (Internally Displaced People) camp that was receiving no other aid from anyone. We gave bubbles to the people as well. Seeing hope arise in their hearts, smiles break forth on their faces and laughter bubble up from their bellies as Ania taught them how to blow bubbles was a sweet and unforgettable moment in my life :) 

The people’s homes are nothing more than a construction of twigs and tattered rags. This does not provide any shelter for them from the rain and having to live in the rain is an extreme health hazard in which all sorts of diseases bring much suffering and death. So we provided large rain-proof tarps for nearly all of the homes at this particular IDP camp. My heart still breaks for those homes that we weren’t able to provide one for. 

We also brought RUTF to a small emergency clinic. Upon arriving, a man’s nub was being bandaged. His hand had been amputated only moments before. A boy, probably about 15 years old, called me over and showed my a bullet wound in his shoulder and informed me that his whole arm would have to be amputated that day. And these are the fortunate ones that get medical treatment.

In this small clinic was also a mother and her two tiny, malnourished babies. We gave all the food we had left to her to care for her babies and nurse them back to health. It was enough food to last them for roughly 4 months. When this beautiful Somali mother realized that her babies were going to live she lit up like a light bulb. She went from being quiet and somber to energetic and enthusiastic. Fresh life surged through her being. Hope had been restored to her heart.

On a couple occasions we also visited the main city hospital where we brought a small amount of much needed medical supplies to the doctors. There the leaders of the hospital presented us with a description of some of the needs of the hospital which, honestly, are staggering. They are in need on literally every level and in every way you can imagine. There are whole wards of malnourished children on the brink of death, surgery wards where the stench of urine and disease is nearly suffocating, not to mention the amputation ward where the groaning and screaming of patients can be heard echoing throughout the hallways. 

We asked what the most common condition is that they treat, other than malnourishment in which an average of 150 to 250 children were coming to the hospital every day seeking help, and were told that broken bones resulting from explosions and bullets were probably the most common. Only two weeks before our arrival a bomb exploded in a children’s ward, a few people were killed, including a little girl outside of the hospital who wasn’t even impacted physically by the explosion but was so frightened by observing it that she died. 

One of the problems they are facing, that was mentioned only in passing, is children dying from hypothermia. So we purchased as many blankets as we could, two hundred, and delivered them to the hospital so that these little guys could get warm. 

There in the hospital we met a muslim man who was a doctor. This doctor had been born there in that very hospital, but had moved away and had been educated in Europe and Russia where he was also living and practicing medicine. But three months prior to our visit he moved from his place of safety and comfort in Russia to Mogadishu and began working at the hospital where he now risks his life everyday to ease the pain of others. Once, when talking about the dangers of living in Mogadishu he said “I’ll die someday. Everybody dies. I might as well do what I can to help people while I’m here.”  

This man is an unsung hero. This man is my hero.

We are exuberantly happy and grateful that we were able to accomplish the goals for this trip that we set out to accomplish. It has been a success! Now new goals are being sparked within us. These goals are for the purpose of seeing the vision become reality in Somalia. And the vision is to see the entire nation come to Jesus. And what better nation to come to Jesus is there than the one that has been renowned as the worst and internationally referred to as “the failed state”.

Everything can be redeemed.

The heart of our Father burns with a desire for hope to be restored to those without hope. He hates poverty, suffering and injustice. Let’s never stop bandaging the broken, healing the wounded, giving to the poor, reaching out to those less fortunate than us. In so doing we become wealthy. We experience the riches of life. We live in intimate fellowship with God and we come to know with our hearts the wisdom of the universe - agape love. 

I hear a lot of talk about God bringing us, believers, before kings and queens to proclaim His word. I believe that. He will bring all of us before kings and queens. The kings and queens in the garbage dumps. On the street corners. In the hospitals. In the prisons. The kings and queens in the IDP camps. 

We are all destined to stand before royalty. Sometimes they may just need to be reminded of who they are.

All of the nations of the earth will bow to Jesus in worship because of hearts overflowing with love and gratitude for who He is and what He has done for us. Every person-past, present and future-will, with praise and adoration flowing from their lips, confess that He is the great servant king over all creation. 

They all will do this because they have come to know Him - the living hope. Through us, His body. Through us, His hands and His feet. 

I bless you. And I echo over you the life-giving prayer of the great apostle Paul found in Romans 15:13

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” 

Amen.

Look Her In The Eyes

Look her in the eyes. See her. 

In her eyes you see a child of God.

A precious child of God who has known nothing but war. Her few years of life have been marked with pain and suffering. Her father is dead. Pointlessly killed by a pointless war. Her mother tries to care for her but she, herself, is clinging to life, struggling for her own survival.

Look into her eyes and see. See a child of God who has known little else but pain. See a child of God who has known little else but fear. Look and see a beautiful little girl who now grasps to hold on to a life that has given her only heartache and sorrow. Hold her malnourished, skeleton frame in your arms and look her in the eyes. There, as you gaze into the window of her soul, you think you see a glimmer of hope, but it quickly turns to pain as she writhes underneath the agony of disease and starvation. 

As you look into her eyes you think, “I would give my very life to save her, I would do anything to save this infinitely valuable, beautiful little life.” Then you realize that by the time you organize help for her, she will already be dead, another victim of an evil war and a demonic famine.  

As you look into her eyes you see her looking back. And there it is again… hope. She looks back at you… and hope sparkles in her eyes. 

A hope that asks, “Can you help me? Are you able to do something that I might live?”

Somalia. A nation that has produced countless stories like the one above. A nation devastated by civil war. A nation currently under the merciless grip of famine and draught. A nation where the devil has had nearly free reign. 

But the time of evil triumphing in Somalia is coming to an end. A new day is dawning for Somalia. A day that will never end. A day when the entire nation will experience first hand, the furious love and the redemptive power of Jesus Christ. And no devil in hell can stop it. Because Jesus bought this nation with His blood. And His Church is rising up to get what He paid for.

Two of us from Iris relief spent four days in Mogadishu - the capital of Somalia. We went there to love the people and to pray for the land. Neither of us were prepared for what we experienced. 

The city of Mogadishu is a city ravaged by war. A city governed by anarchy. A city where demons go unchallenged as they control men and women through fear and intimidation. Nearly all of the buildings are marked by bullet holes from a civil war that has lasted nearly 20 years. The majority of the buildings have either been reduced to piles of rubble or empty shells due to explosions. The streets are ruled by rival militia gangs, feuding warlords and al-shabaab militants (“al-shabaab” is arabic for “the youth” because they target young people for recruitment into radical jihadist islam). To even get from point A to point B in the city we had to be accompanied by a small entourage of heavily armed militia. And even then, we were still at a high risk of being killed or kidnapped. 

This is where Christians belong.

Due to utter desperation and the imminent threat of starvation it is estimated that 350,000 internally displaced people or “IDP’s” have flooded into Mogadishu from all over Somalia. But because of a total lack of infrastructure, there is really no telling how many have come seeking help. 

The reality is, they have no idea how many people are starving, how many children have been orphaned or even how many refugee camps there are. At the time of our visit there was an estimated 17 main camps, but there are so many smaller camps that continuously spring up that no one can even keep count. Basically, the people congregate on roadsides and anywhere they can put up their little rugged structures.

The people within the camps have no public services, sanitation or infrastructure whatsoever. The make shift shelters that they construct are nothing more than a pile of sticks, rags and sometimes, tarps. Their access to food and water is extremely limited. In one of the camps we visited, the people ate only once a week. 

According to the mayor, Mogadishu is now a heaving home to a third of the population of Somalia. After experiencing the living conditions within the refugee camps, it makes me wonder what hell of a life they must have left behind to traipse on foot all that way, some having to leave their children to die along the road, to come to a city that offers them almost nothing. 

Selah.

In the midst of all of the darkness and chaos, God is on the move! Though the reality of the situation is dire, there is a greater reality. The reality of what the Holy Spirit is doing in the unseen realm to bring about restoration to the nation. Hope truly is glistening in Somalia. Peace is on her horizon. And her streets will be filled with smiling faces as the goodness and faithfulness of our Father in heaven shines forth.

But we must pray. And we must be moved to action. For, as the Church, this is our greatest hour. And when Somalia, along with all of the nations of the earth, are redeemed and filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, we may raise our hands in victory over the all of the works of the devil and exalt the name of Jesus for all of creation to see.

During our time in Mogadishu we were able, as ambassadors of heaven, to take authority over the land and declare an end to the draught. Shortly afterwards it began to rain! We were also given the opportunity to meet with the mayor as well as other cabinet officials and impart hope to them. We were able to visit four of the camps and observe the condition of the people living there. We were able to stand as children of God and release His kingdom through unleashing radical love, surpassing peace, irrational joy, prayer and prophetic declaration.  

But this is only the very beginning. The people of Somalia need our help. Every one of us can do something. The actions of just one person can shift the course of history for an entire nation. Pray, provide money to purchase food or medicine, go there to bring hands on support to the relief effort. Whatever it is, now is the time. As the Body of Christ, it’s time to role up our sleeves and bring the love of God in practical ways to the people of Somalia. It’s time to show Somalia who Jesus really is. 

It’s time to look her in the eyes.

Mogadishu, Somalia

It’s late and 4 am is coming quickly. I have to get up early. I have a plane to catch.

I have spent the last 3 months in Mozambique Africa. My life will never be the same again. But i will write more about my experiences there at a later time.

Now I am in Kenya. I came here as a member of the Iris Ministries Relief Team. We came here to help with the relief effort that is taking place in response to the famine in Somalia and parts of northern Kenya. There are 9 of us.

Recently I have been feeling the passion of the Lord for His children to go to the places in the world where there are crisis and to take authority over the land and bring the peace of heaven. I believe His heart is to raise up kids who know that they have been given power over all of the works of the devil. He’s passionate about us taking this planet back.

“All of creation groans eagerly awaiting the revealing of the sons of God…”

In recent days I have been feeling the leading of Holy Spirit to go to the governmental epicenter of Somalia, the Capital - Mogadishu. The spirit of fear has prevented Christians from going there. And because of the lack of “salt” the land has become one of the most dangerous, war ravaged, demonically oppressed places on the planet. That’s not okay. It’s time for all of the nations of the earth to come into the family of our Father in heaven. It’s time for all of the nations of the earth to come home.

I read an article today about Mogadishu. The article was written at this time last year. In the article the writer describes the conditions of Mogadishu and refers to the city as “the land God forgot”.

I disagree. God has not forgotten Mogadishu. God has not forgotten Somalia. God has not forgotten the Islamic militants. His heart of fiery love burns for them. No, God has not forgotten.

I believe that in the near future we are going to see many who burn to see the nations of the earth come to Jesus regardless of the cost. I believe that we will see men and women who go straight into the camps of Islamic Jihadists and look them in the eyes. Straight in. Look them in the eyes.

And love.

“And they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they did not love their lives even unto death.” Revelation 1:9

I have lived my life in the place of prayer. I have thought about this at length. I am fully aware of the risks involved for an American Christian travelling to Mogadishu.

I am also fully aware that I don’t “fight against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” And I am aware that they have no power or authority over me.

Myself and one other from the Iris Relief Team are flying into Mogadishu in the morning. The rest of the team will be bringing the love, joy and power of Jesus to the Somalis at the refugee camps in Kenya.

Jesus really loves the Somali people. They have to know. It’s that simple.

I’m going to try to get some sleep now. 4am is coming quickly. And I have a plane to catch.

I have arrived in Mozambique

After 4 flights, two of which were 11 hour red-eye flights, I´ve arrived in Maputo, Mozambique. I got a hotel here yesterday when I arrived so that I could recuperate from all of the airplanes, security checks and running around that it takes to get to the opposite side of the globe.

Now I am getting ready to catch a flight to Pemba, a province on the coast, where I will be for the next 3 months. My first official post about my Mozambique experiences will be posted as soon as I have access to the internet again.

But for now, know that I have arrived. Holy Spirit is orchestrating everything. And we are both really, really happy to be here :)

A Poor Description of an Infinite Love

“I am my Beloved’s. And His desire is for me.” (The Song 7:10)

I imagine myself at sea. I’m on a boat and the sea is as smooth as glass. I listen to the gulls flying over head singing their song (more like squawking). I stand there on the deck of the boat and feel the gentle whisper of a breeze brush over my skin. My little boat bobs gently with the slight motions of the water. I rest in the serenity that surrounds me.

Suddenly dark clouds form in the sky all around me, blocking out the sunlight. The winds begin to blow with incredible intensity as the clouds pour down rain and hail. The rain stings my eyes. I can hardly see my hand in front of my face with the ferocious wind blowing salty mist from the ocean. Thunder and lightning crashing all around. Twenty foot swells causing the boat to nearly topple while waves come crashing over the deck. I hold on to the rusty, metal railing for dear life as this majestic fury of nature is unleashed.

So is His love for me.

This love that I talk about is a fierce fury of raging emotion. God is wild. And He is wildly in love.

I imagine the billions of galaxies throughout our universe. Suns burning, stars exploding, comets crashing… the intense energy of it all. Then I imagine the energy of Him who holds it all in His hands. Such a fierce, violent energy. And it’s all focused on me. In love. It’s white water rapids of intense emotion that drove the God of creation to step down from heaven to a dusty little speck of earth. It’s love, furious love that drove Him to empty Himself for me on a tree as I spit in His face and nailed him to that piece of rugged, splintered wood. It is incomprehensible, determined desire for relationship with me. And I have done nothing to deserve it. Absolutely nothing.

His love for me is relentless. It is constant. It is eternal. And it is never, ever, ever based on my performance. He loves because He loves. And that is just the way it is.

This love that defines me. This love that gives me life. What else matters? Discipling nations? Changing the world? Making history? Flying to the moon? Nothing. Without love it is all utterly empty.

A guy wrote in a letter to some friends a long time ago, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father in heaven from whom every family on earth derives it’s name. And I ask that He would grant you to be able to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up with all the fullness of God.”

That love that surpasses knowledge is like a storm. A perfect storm. And my prayer is that I, and you, may begin to comprehend it.

Take every bit of stale religion you’ve ever seen or heard and throw it out the window. Open your soul to be consumed with this furious, raging, ravishing love. You were made for it. Once you begin to experience Him you, like me, will be simply undone.

“When then, eternal Father, did you create this creature of yours? You show me that you made us for one reason only: in your light you saw yourself compelled by the fire of your love to give us being in spite of the evil we would commit against you, eternal Father. It was fire, then, that compelled you. Oh, unutterable love, even though you saw all the evils your creatures would commit against your infinite goodness, you acted as if you did not see and set your eye on the beauty of your creature, with whom you had fallen in love like one drunk and crazy with love…You are the fire, nothing but a fire of love, crazy over what you have made.” -The Prayers of Catherine of Siena