Dearest friends, family and Kingdom Builders,
Another month has gone by and what a rich month it’s been! So many happenings that I just don’t know where to begin!
First and foremost, we had our dear friends Arthur and Liezl come up to Chipata with their family for a week and train up our local ministry partners on how to properly minister to children and to accurately share the simple gospel. At the end of the training, when they’ve completed and passed their exam, they were awarded a certificate and treated to a nice braai which we call “barbeque” in the states. Children are precious in the eyes of Jesusand such a vital part of spreading the gospel to the present and future generations! We all need to be pouring into our local kiddos!
Shortly after the conference we began to plan for a Mozi annual staff retreat in Inhambane, Mozambique. Together, with our Chipata team(besides Kyle) packed up our suitcases, passports, and cars with kiddos, and ventured off to cross borders for the first time as a family. That was an adventure in itself. We endured some difficulties in attaining our visas and remained there for 8+ hours just staring at the men who weren’t doing their job accurately yet all the while attempting to not be too pushing so that the process doesn’t prolong even longer. Andrey quickly became favored and was allowed to assist them in taking photos of us all as well as letting them use his hotspot off his phone because they had no internet access. Customer service? No Such Thing Here. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. This might be a TMI moment, but I cannot forget the border restroom experience we had with the kids. I’d prefer a bush anytime over that hands down!…anyways lol. Grateful is all I have to say for those lovely toilets we have in the states.
If you follow us on instagram or are on our viber intercession group, we posted some funny photos of moses’ sobbing visa picture in his passport! So many stories (funny and yet not so funny) came out from that trip that I could write a novel on I’m sure, but most importantly we saw the hand of God leading us safely to our each destination. One evening we were stopped at a police checkpoint and weren’t permitted to cross further and were forced to turn around and find lodging for the night (little did we know that it was a blessing in disguise). Certain roads are much too dangerous to travel on after a certain time period due to shootings and ambushes. The next morning we woke up early, packed everyone in the car to attempt to get to the checkpoint again because that day we had to cover 10.5 hours of drive time to make up for the lost time the previous day. We drove that road with a police escort and saw soldiers standing along side roads though out the trip. Wow. We are so grateful for all of you praying for us! Thank you!Long story attempted to be made short, we arrived at our Overland Missions base at around 5pm that day feeling super blessed, accomplished and honestly refreshed! By the way, for those who aren’t aware, Im currently 17 weeks pregnant and refreshed isn’t a normal thing to feel after a journey like that lol. God is so good! Baby G is growing quickly and we will find out the gender in a few short days! Who will break the tie? Boys or girls?!!
OM’s annual staff retreats purpose is to gather all the mission bases/locations with OM around Africa (80 missionaries including kids) to meet for 1.5 weeks and refresh in fellowship, worship, spend time together in the presence of the Lord and enjoy a bit of salt water with some good ole Vitamin D. It was wonderful and reminded us a bit of the Florida living. We had such a refreshing time that the kids were begging not to have to leave their friends(and beach).
Our Chipata team is doing great and thriving on the field. Kyle has landed back on the ground from his state-side assignment and hit the ground running. Meeting and touching in with chaplains in surrounding areas in EP(eastern province). Tessa is working on evangelizing specific areas in her assigned villages and pulling down strongholds by the power of the Holy Spirit! The Moore’s are working with the Queen’s in surrounding areas of EP and doing visitations/preparations for Queen’s conference next month where women of strong influence can come together to worship King Jesus and become encouraged to carry the gospel to their area of influence. Andrey and I’s main focus now as the team leaders is to build the team into a strong and healthy unit spiritually, physically and mentally. All though our primary focus has shifted recently, our calling and desire to reach the lost has not so we continue to spread the love of Christ in remote ares such as Chanje as well as lead classes for english and chinyanja for the local children and adults. Fridays we lead discipleship group in our home where we teach our ministry partners the deeper things of Christ and how to enter into the presence of God on their own and the importance of it. As ministers of the gospel, it is the highest importance to be connected to the vine which is Jesus Christ.
Lately we have been hearing of troublesome events happening in nearby cities and are now happening in Chipata. Specific groups of people are “gas rioting” homes and local businesses around town in the evenings. People have been hurt and even killed in these cases. Basically what they are doing is they are putting toxic chemicals into homes in the late hours of the night and then proceed to go in and draw blood from these victims. Disturbing? Yes, and it gets worse but I won’t go into too many details for it’s pointless. The enemy doesn’t deserve any form of glory even if its it is fear-based. Pray. Pray for the nation of Zambia. Enemy is feeling the heat that lovers of Jesus are bringing and he’s threatened. Threatened of his reign on the lost because the lost are becoming found. It’s the power of the Holy Spirit in us and on us that keep us and we travel dangerous roads or our children safety as they go to local schools without the reliance of our supervision. Church, we need to recognize the power that we carry and stop walking in fear for God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear but of love, power and a sound mind.
Friends, we are so grateful to all of you who stand by us each month and help fund the vision of discipleship that is growing in the eastern province of Zambia. We are currently in need of 3 things in order to continue thriving on the field. This is how you can help:
- We currently need monthly partners to join our team and become a part of the work we are doing in the nations. It can be any amount the Lord puts on your heart. If you want to become a part of reaching Nations, help fund us! Together we can reach more people and cover more ground! Your monthly partnership can be anywhere from $25 a month to $500 a month the choice is entirely up to you (I’ll share below on how you can join the team).
- Already a partner? We want to ask (and challenge you) to up your giving monthly and believe God to bring increase in your finances as well.
- Send us a one-time donation! All donations through Overland Missions are tax deductible!
Here’s how you can do it:
Go to the link below and follow the few simple steps to get started:http://www.overlandmissions.com/donate
- fill out your personal info(name, address, card #)
- enter the amount you would like to give
- select monthly, annually, or one-time gift
- in “Donation Memo” add our name and staff code -Gorlachev 3244 to ensure your finances go directly to us.
- select “General Donations”
- Done!
Thank you dear friends, family and faithful world changers. We pray for you each night so that you would be encouraged, blessed in your homes and work places around the world. We love you!
Till next time,
Andrey & Yana Gorlachev
