HPC SWAZI

Can you believe it? We offically have Healing Place Church’s in Swaziland sending their FIRST missionaries going out!

Solomon and Precious Mondlane!

Who would have known? Only 7 months a church and already we are sending people out to bring Jesus to others, God is a busy man! It is terribly hard to see this couple leave. They have HPC DNA, so to say, pumping through there veins. It is obvious the passion this couple has for Jesus! It comes out in there smiles and can be seen in the pure JOY oozing in their conversations. Their lives bring hope to the many people they encounter. It is amazing to hear all that the Lord has done in their lives and exciting to think of what’s yet to come!

See Solomon has quite an amazing testimony. Once a child solider, a famous boxing champion and now pursuing the passion that is driving him to be a pastor he has brought so much life to this place and people here at HPC. His family and him ended up finding out about HPC while they were searching the Internet for local churches in Mbabane. Sure enough the following Monday he and his family were sitting in the Children’s Cup office waiting to talk to Ps. Ben.

The conversation must have gone well because after the ending of it Solomon had acquired a position here at Cup and was offically part of the little “family” here at the church. Everyone was smiling! Nevertheless he served here with passion and commitment. And now the Lord is calling him to move on to Mozambique, his home country. There is much to be done for Cup on that side of things and Solomon and Precious are more than willing to be the team that gets sent out.

Oh, how they will be missed! We know that Ps. Isaac will be very excited about their coming though!

So on Sunday we had our normal services except today was a “NEW DAY” for many of the Swazi’s sitting in the dark gray plastic chairs. Yeah, Sunday was the day of their “public dedication” to the Lord, their God! We had more than 30 people, adults and children, dedicate thier lives on this Sunday! It was beautiful! I, myself adore baptisms… they are such an exciting, life-changing, God glorifying event! It has nothing to do with any one person or any such “event” but ONLY ABOUT THE ONE, THE ONLY, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST! This alone makes the happening “divine”.

So here were the first ones….

Don’t think for a second that the water was hot!

Can you see the EXCITEMENT!!!!! Oh, it was ALL OVER THE PLACE!!!!

Don’t think we didn’t have CAKE at a CELEBRATION… come on, only the BEST for the BEST!

What an exciting day it is for us out here in Mbabane, Swaziland… in the same day the Lord blessed us with 3 FRESH MISSIONARIES! Yes, can you believe that… forget double blessings, we got triple blessings out here…. Mike Pier is from Celebration Church Flordia and he is planning on moving to Zimbabwe just as soon as some of the craziness slows down.

And then there is the lovely couple Greg and Kristen Evans from the Life church in Memphis… these guys, like Mike, have made an indefinite commitment to Africa! They however are staying here in Mbabane to help with the church here and other details that come along.

All three of these additions are from the LORD! The cry of our hearts here in Africa and even stateside is “LABORERS”! Our trust is in the Lord and He has provided us with what is needed in moving forward both Children’s Cup and Healing Place along to reach the people He desires for us to reach!

So a BIG THANKS TO HIM and a BIG THANKS to you all who are praying daily for us and the work the Lord has called us to do out here in AFRICA…. to be a healing place for a hurting world!!!

Here we are the 16th of August 2008 joining with the several other Healing Place Church’s worldwide to have the largest OUTREACH in our churches’ 15 year history! The name is Servolution and the theme is to reach the lost and hurting by showing God’s love in a tangible way. So for HPC Swazi we started where the need is most, in the poorest area of the community here in Mbabane, Msunduza. Our outreach was to 3 separate widows in the area, 2 households that were in desperate need of repairing and of course to the children of the community.

Our arrival was a very, very rare site for the people of Msunduza. First of all there was almost 70 volunteers- all wearing bright, red SERVE shirts, most of them young adults around 15 to 25 years old. So as the kombis unloaded and people spread like the plague, gathering tools, getting rubbish bags filled and moving door frames through the homestead area- you can definitely say we were sparking people’s curiosity.

When did caring about other people become such a foreign idea?

Well everyone dove right in. Zinty and some others started the Kids Club which drew in almost 100 children of all ages. There was dancing, singing and most of all THE PRESENCE OF JESUS right there in the middle of what one can call the “African ghetto”. Others cleaned the area where Children’s Cup is planning on starting their 18th Carepoint, as of now ! Everyone was of one accord. Fellowshipping, laughing, praying for people’s needs, giving out food to the households we tended to… the day was nothing short of amazing and all for the sake of His name!

Karl, one of our interns from Zimbabwe, led a team from our Children’s church and went to a local orphanage to serve it up Jesus Style! With 30 little helpers and 4 adults they were able to clean the garden there and plant seedlings for the Make’ (mother) of the children at the orphanage. The children blessed the children with singing, praying and of course SWEETS!!!

The day was concluded with of course, the Swazi staple, lots of KFC chicken or as the Swazi’s call it “yama”.

All together the day was one that can be expressed as “passing on the love that God has poured into all of us”. We thank all of the people who pray for us and thank God for all of you!

SERVOLUTION

is happening this weekend!!! We have a couple of “NEW’ ways to reach the people of Swaziland so stay tuned in to the blog to see ALL that happened!!! “Showing God’s love in a tangible WAY…. now that is serving”.

We had our very first outreach event last Saturday the 26th! It was a special day here, we had guests from our home church in the States, Healing Place, with the addition of a few ladies from the Life Church in Memphis.

For two days prior we pumped the Streets on Fire outreach at the four schools that we assisted with basketball clinics at here in Mbabane. Our turnout was excellent! We had close to 500 people here to play B-ball, enjoy the music hosted by local DJ’s and to participate in the dancing contest that was happening all for the cause of the Jesus! The outreach definitely served it’s purpose!

We had almost 100 new visitors to the church the following Sunday.

The event is one of many that we will be putting on to be a “healing place for a hurting world”.

What a great weekend! We had a slamming Holy Ghost service with Pastor Mark Stermer from HPC America. He brought a great word from the Lord, If you know him, I am sure you all know how he rolls.( I think I just spoke slang, sorry.) Anyhow we had 64 adults, 20 children and 7 kids under 5.

It was AWESOME!

Everyone left changed!

PRAISE HIM…… REAL LOUD!!!!

We had another amazing Sunday service. Our time in worship saturated the place with the presence of God. It was truly a beautiful time to be apart of. Every soul was in tune with the song of their heart as we each cried out to Him.

Last Sunday the church as a whole truly had an encounter with the Lord. God really moved. So this week Pastor Ben followed that up with a practical teaching on how to hear God’s voice. This is foreign to many of the people of Swazi culture because they think that they must go through the pastor to hear God speak or worse they have to go through ancestors that have passed away.

Pastor Ben’s message was very precise on how to hear the voice of the Lord in a very clear manner. Less talk, more listening. Overall he broke it down to us getting on God’s agenda instead of us making our own agenda!

The number of people in attendance was 131 with about 25 kids. It was a great day.

Well HPC SWAZILAND had it’s wonderful Newcomer’s Reception last Wednesday. We had a ball of a time! The evening was wet and rainy so to foresee the “GREAT” turnout we had was not expected! The night was awesome! We played games, CELEBRATED and had ONE REALLY AWESOME NIGHT!

This was our first official “get together” since the start of the church on May 18th. We had about 80 adults and 25 children or so, it was definitely a night to remember. We handed out special prizes to the guests who won games and made everyone feel apart with the array of excitement that filled the room.

Pastors Ben and Susan shared the heartbeat and DNA of HPC and overall casted the vision of the church! We had a time of unity and fellowship that was truly special and God-breathed!

It has been a lovely first couple of services. We have had the privilege of having a Tennesse Titans football player, Kevin Mawae, here in Swazi over the past week and boy have we introduced him to the wonderful world of Africa! He joined us for our service on the 1st of June. He gave a encouraging word about FEAR… and how even he himself has had to face the giant in his life. He went into losing his brother and the pain and fear of having to deal with such loss. He left his mark here for sure and did a great job encouraging the congregation! Thanks Kevin and family!

Pastor Ben then came up and continued on the FEAR subject as we moved on in our series of “RECONSTRUCTING” our lives. It was awesome. He talked about how God calls us to do things that don’t make sense and how those are the very things that bring us the most freedom! He went into the story of Joshua and recalled how many times God had to reiterate to him, “NOT TO FEAR”! It was encouraging and uplifting. Thanks LORD!

With just 2 weeks under our belt, HPC SWAZILAND is becoming all that the Lord is willing for it to be. We are going to be celebrating our “NEWNESS” next Thursday with our very first ever Newcomers Reception! There will be plenty of fellowship, time to get to know the Pastors and much Inyama (meat for all those Americans out there, it is pronounced Nama in regular English)!