God is Moving in Mozambique!!!

Dear Friends and Family,
We hope you are all doing amazingly well! We apologize for getting this out so late. We’ve been excited to share with you about our trip to Mozambique, but our crazy schedule since being back has made it hard to take the time to write an update that would really communicate our hearts. We recently graduated from our 2nd year of School of Ministry and now have a little more time. Well, to start we are excited to say that God is alive and well in Mozambique!!! We had an incredible time and crammed a lot into a short period of time. The overall consensus of our team was that it was one of the most solid missions trips many of us have ever been part of. We know that what we did there will produce lasting fruit!!! Some highlights were:



Putting on a conference for pastors in Gondola -
Tracy organized a “by invitation only” conference for about 150 pastors and then turned it over to us. We all got a chance to teach/preach/share testimonies, etc. These pastors are the real deal!!! They have endured incredible hardships, yet are full of joy! They have healed the sick, led many to the Lord, raised the dead… and yes, we had the honor of teaching THEM! We taught on Godly leadership, power of words, goodness of God, healing, joy, identity… etc. These guys were so hungry for more of God they sat on hard benches for 4 sessions a day (sometimes 3-4 hours a session) for 3 and a half days!!! It was an incredible time. Tracy has already done a lot of follow up with these pastors since the conference and told us that they were incredibly encouraged. She said they will take the things we have taught and re-teach them to their congregations almost word for word!


Men’s Prison (or should we say Bible School???)
Tracy and her team have been ministering in the local prison for a bit over a year. When they started Tracy said she was going to turn the prison into a Bible School and she has!!! Out of the 100-150 men, only a handful of them are not yet saved. They visit the prison almost daily, going through the entire Bible as well as the Alpha Course. It was a powerful experience to spend a couple of hours worshipping with these men, teaching, releasing them to pray for each other (63 of them were healed of one thing or another!!!) and then finishing up with a baptism where we baptized about 30 inmates and one guard who had been watching us and decided he wanted in on it!!! We formed a prayer tunnel that the newly baptized inmates walked through as we prayed for them. Some of the leaders of the prison (inmates who are more mature in their faith) joined us and were praying as well. It was really powerful! They all share a small room and only eat if their families bring them food. But, they have found JESUS- and their faces are full of joy- in spite of their circumstances. Many of them return to the prison to finish up their Bible classes even after they have been released!




The Farm
So, what do these prisoners-turned-Christians do when they are released? Many of them are hired by Tracy and her team to work on one of the 2 farms that they have purchased. They mostly grow beans and corn that are then used to feed orphans!!! We spent a day working side by side with these men picking and husking corn. Aaron even got lowered down into a 30 feet deep well to help dig it. He was a muddy mess after that for sure! These farms provide not only jobs but an opportunity to continue to disciple these men once they are out of prison.

Tiki Tiki (A bush Church)
We spent a day at one of the churches that Tracy planted years ago. It was a joyful and fun celebration. Several years ago, Tracy provided seed for their crops… this village had very little at the time. Today their crops are thriving and things are looking a lot brighter. The people of the community brought an “offering” and laid it at our feet… sugar cane, corn, fruit… the procession went on for what seemed like forever as they sang in their native language, “We love to give, we love to give”. I don’t think there was a dry eye on our team as we witnessed this radical generosity. We were able to use the offering to feed the poor in the community.

Baby Clinic
We were able to visit a clinic for babies who have been born to women with AIDS. Two nurses that live with Tracy work at this clinic, providing milk and medical care for these babies who either cannot drink their mother’s infected milk or whose mothers have died and they have been adopted by another family member or person in their community.

Is it a Fit?
Most of you know one of the big reasons we journeyed so far for such a short time was to check out what God was doing in this particular part of Mozambique and see if we felt like it was a “fit” for us. We definitely feel like it is a strong option and desire to partner with Tracy before we head out there or even if we don’t go back long term. We worked really well with Tracy and her team. It felt like home from day one! While there, I (Crystal) talked to Tracy about teaching women different handicrafts and then finding outlets to sell these items. Tracy was thrilled about this idea as 90% of Mozambicans are unemployed and there is little opportunity for jobs, especially among women, particularly women with AIDS. This would be a dream come true, as I have wanted to do something like this for years. As for Aaron, there are many opportunities to teach, preach and disciple men- which is where he comes alive. These are only a couple of things that we could do there- the sky is the limit. There is so much opportunity and so much need!

The Next Step
We have decided to work this summer and intern at Bethel in the fall. This will allow us to be in Redding to re-new Crystal’s green card in December as well as be here as the rest of Aaron’s family moves here and does their first year of the School of Ministry. The internship we’ll be doing is actually considered a 3rd year of the School of Ministry. Crystal will be serving the missions department helping develop micro-enterprise projects and ideas, raising more awareness and support for Tracy and many other things! Also, we both may be leading some mission’s trips for Bethel this year, which is an enormous honor. Aaron will be interning for the outreach and evangelism department. Chris Overstreet, the pastor of that department is incredible and Aaron is looking forward to working with him and others to bring transformation to the communities of our own city. He will be taking the Alpha Course into neighborhoods that we have been investing into. So, we are super excited about this next year. We feel like our internships will be great outlets to serve and pour out into Redding and into the nations!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR INVESTMENT IN OUR LIVES. Thanks for being part of our journey. All of you are amazing and we love you very much!


Aaron & Crystal

The YEAR OF NEW BEGINNINGS!!

HELLO there all our amazing friends and family! I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas. I know my family sure has! The Lord is really moving in my family, and my brothers are all getting set ablaze by the PRESENCE and POWER of the Lord! Josh and Jesse have joined us at Bethel in Redding, and are now doing First Year of the School of Supernatural Ministry (Me and Crystal are in 2nd Year), and now the Lord is radically revealing himself to Eric ! He has been struggling with anxiety, depression, and anger for years and has not really been walking with the Lord, but God is getting a hold of him, and he is now planning on coming down to Redding for the ministry school this next fall!! He has been getting rocked by the testimonies of the REVIVAL that is going on at Bethel and the absolute transformation that has happened to Josh and Jesse. Josh has had the opportunity to help him encounter the tangible presence of Holy Spirit, and since then he has been getting delivered from demonic bondage and is really hungry for the fullness of God, and wants to fully live for Him. Almost all he wanted to do at Christmas break is spend time in the presence of God, or read books about the Lord! Since then he has been prayer walking his own neighborhood, and sharing his testimony with everyone! It’s really hard for me to articulate how amazing this is, but I can tell you that Jesus is in the business of miracles and I really believe that 2008 is a year for NEW BEGINNINGS, and the Lord is bringing home all the prodigals and restoring families! CAN I GET AN AMEN! BE ENCOURAGED! We are truly living in the most exciting times EVER, and the Lord is pouring out His Spirit like never before! COME ON! JESUS!

BACK TO AFRICA!
We are excited to share with you about our upcoming return to Mozambique… a different area of the country and a different ministry, but still the land where we met and became good friends. =)
We will be embarking on our journey into central Mozambique with 8 other students from our ministry school and will be joining a missionary named Tracy and her team ministering there. The times we have heard Tracy speak and times we have talked with her, we have been blown away by the things she has experienced and the ways God has used her. She has been captured by Guerillas and purposely not escaped so that she could witness to them. She has led national leaders to the Lord including a president! She has seen the sick healed and the dead raised. She has jumped off of a burning ship into burning water and swum to a remote island where she lived off of the land. More than any of her radical stories and experiences we love her heart to see people truly discipled and raised up to be leaders who will impact their nation. She intentionally moves in a manner that will ensure long-term and lasting fruit, even when she knows she could move faster and increase her “stats” and have more impressive newsletters.
For us, this is more than a short term ministry trip. It is an exploratory trip to see if living in Mozambique and working with Tracy is a longer term option. Although the trip is only a couple of weeks long, we will be “covering a lot of ground” and having the opportunity to take part in all of the regular ministry that Tracy and her team do from week to week. We will be visiting the prison, ministering in various remote villages and in the churches that Tracy has planted, teaching and praying for Mozambican leaders at a conference, demonstrating God’s love through dramas, teaching and children’s ministry, and whatever else comes up when we get there! Tracy has also built a stationary medical clinic and is a physician’s assistant.
When we were talking to Tracy about what we would do if we moved back there, the main need that she sees is teaching and discipleship- both things that we are passionate about!!! She has recently started a ministry school for nationals and also teaches government officials English and leadership skills. There are many opportunities for ministry and she is very open for missionaries to pioneer whatever is in their heart, if it doesn’t already exist. In many ways, it seems like this could be a good fit! We’re hoping that as we are in Mozambique and have more time to spend with Tracy and her team, it will be clear what our future involvement is to be there. We are also “sorting out” the timing of our future missionary ventures with Crystal’s green card renewal coming up and possible application for citizenship- both of these things will require us to be in the United States. Without getting into the boring details of it, we would appreciate your prayers for wisdom and discernment about timing. We are including a “prayer reminder” with some more specifics of how you can pray.
Our trip will be from April 4-16, 2008. If you would like to give towards this trip, refer to the financial slip attached for specific instructions. Our total cost (for the 2 of us) is approximately $6300. Our airfare portion has to be turned in by January 30th and the remainder of our payment by March 19th.

Miracle in Las Vegas!

We were on a ministry trip (The Call Lax Vegas) in October where we met a really cool girl named Erin. She had been through a lot of really hard things in life and wasn’t sure how she felt about God or if she even believed in him. We hung out with her for quite a while and it came up that she had a root canal scheduled the next week. We prayed for her and the pain in her mouth instantly went away. The day of her operation rolled around and we got a text message from her saying that our prayers had worked and that she didn’t have to have a root canal!!! When we talked to her later on the phone she said that she was in the dentist chair, numbed up, when she asked if they would do another x-ray. They agreed and she watched the dentist examining the previous x-ray and the current one, shaking his head, calling another specialist for a 2nd opinion and finally they told her that her teeth were totally normal!!! Yay, Jesus! She told us that she never knew “that stuff” (healing) was real… but now she does! We have kept in Contact with her and she seems to be really curious and hungry for God, and asking good questions, and we have no doubt she will soon personally know the Jesus that healed her! It's obvious that Jesus is after her heart! Come on!

GOD IS MOVING!!
I want to really encourage all of you to be really pressing to the Lord right now. I don’t know if you have realized it or not, but we are in the beginnings of THE GREATEST MOVE OF GOD that the earth has ever seen!! The book of Acts has literally nothing on what the LORD is beginning to do right now!! The Body of Christ is just beginning to get the revelation of what Jesus tells us in John 14:12 that we will do “GREATER WORKS” than He did, because the same Holy Spirit that worked through Him, also longs to work through US! Acts 10:38 says that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with POWER, who went about doing good and HEALING ALL who were oppressed by the devil, for GOD WAS WITH HIM.” If Jesus needed to be anointed with Power than so do we!! The really cool thing is that He is pouring out His Holy Spirit like never before. Here at Bethel we are seeing and hearing testimonies of people getting dramatically healed, saved, and set free every day, in the church, and more often even in places like Wal-Mart. There is one pastor in our church, Kevin Dedmon, who has prayed for over 10 people this last year with 4th stage cancer, often given days to live, and they have been totally healed, the cancer miraculously disappearing! I could go on all day about the crazy miracles that we have seen and heard, and how people’s lives are getting transformed. It’s truly Amazing! Even thought God is using Bethel as a spearhead of this revival, and is training and equipping hundreds (probably thousands) of churches all over the planet, this move of God is not by any means limited to them, but is really igniting in pockets all over the world in every people group and denomination. That all to say that Jesus is calling His Bride to “Arise and Shine” (see Isaiah 60) and display His wonderful Glory to a world that desperately needs it. We should be excited and expectant to see how we can be a part of seeing HIS KINGDOM COME that it would be ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN!

THANK YOU!!!!

We are really excited about this next season of our life after school gets out, but we really need people that are excited to partner with us in PRAYER for sure, and financially at times as well. Please pray with us for favor and wisdom as we explore missions and ministry possibilities. We are really honored the Lord has called us to be “covered” by Bethel, and right now we are exploring what that looks like. If you would like to partner with us longer term, and support us in Prayer and/or financially, please let us know! We really LOVE ALL OF YOU and couldn’t do what we’re doing without your encouragement, prayer, and generous giving!! Thank you so much for abundantly blessing us!! May His Glory and Goodness overtake you this year!!