Links to some of my photos

Hey everyone,

Here are just a few of my pictures from my summer in Africa...it would take forever to post all 875 of them. Just clik on the links to the left hand side of this post under the title AFRICA PICTURES, or if you are on facebook, you can find the photo albums on my profile. Again I would love to share stories and my heart for Africa with you so let me know if you are interested.

Sharing My Stories

Hello everyone!

I am home and am so excited to share my stories and pictures with you. I will be posting pictures on an online website within the week...so stay tuned.

Also I would love to share stories from Africa with you in person, so please contact me if that interests you. I will be speaking at Mosaic church in Bellingham (dates to come) so you are welcome to join me there as well.

Amy McMurtrey
mcmura@spu.edu
360-961-2698

Home Again and Missing Mozambique

So I am home in Seattle again. I must admit that the transition into my life here has been much more difficult than expected. Not only was I bombarded by horrible jet leg, last night was my first night to sleep through, I am having a hard time expressing to others how much I have learned. I truely am a different person. All that matters now is that Chirst is Holy and I am trusting him to show me how to live here in America again. How to live here, but not in the materialistic, greedy, selfish, and self-satisfying way that we all do. I am excited about how the Lord is already giving me visions and dreams of how to help Africa, the families, children, and people I met from here, and the promise that the Lord has giving me...I will return to Africa next summer and many times over the course of my life.

Please pray for me as I continue to process all that I have seen and as I continue to learn from my time in Mozambique.

Also I encourage you to pray about how you might be apart of Aiding Africa. Please contact me for suggestions or contacts.

Mom for a week

Pieter and Rika are back! Yay! It was so fun to help run the orphanage while they were gone, but I must tell you that I am very tired. I get to go get my baby (Judah)home from the hospital tomorrow morning. Please pray for strength...I don't think that I will be sleeping for the next week, as I will have a new born in my room (that's right call me mom). I am really excited for Judah to come home, but I am worried that he will take time away from time with the other kids, who I LOVE oh so much, so pray for a good balance of time spent as I have only a week left at the house. One week! My time here has flown so quickly...as my mother told me it would. I will be leaving next Tuesday for South Africa and then leaving for home on Thursday. I am really emotional and don't want to leave. Everything in me is screaming for someone to pull the emergency brake! Slow time down! I can't imagine leaving my family here! I love them so much!

Walking with God through Life

Today we went to Iris ministries. They are big centers here in Mozambique for children...they provide housing, food, schooling, medicine etc for as many kids as they can fit into the center. This is also where my house brother Luis grew up once he was off the streets. They are amazing. The theme of my trip here in Africa seems to be meeting people that are sold out, and completely on fire for God! I met a girl at Iris from Seattle. God is so good to give me a little taste of home. She looked me straight in the eye and asked me if I was being called to Africa. I told her that I wanted to be, but that the Lord is teaching me to just walk with him... As we walked away from Iris I started to cry. I want so badly for the Lord to call me to this place. For him to say that it is ok to drop everything back home and jump into life here, but there has not been such a word from the Lord. It makes me wonder if it is just my lack of faith or me not making the decision to stay. I don't know how to leave this place...even as I type this in the internet cafe I am starting to cry. This is my home...my other home. I thought that when I came here the Lord would give me a dream or a purpose for time in Africa in the future, but he hasn't...its so hard for me to leave not knowing when I will be able to come back...I will die if I don't come back. Start praying now that the Lord will provide a way.

But GOD IS FAITHFUL!!!! What I am realizing is that God is taking me on a journey...there is no grand calling, no super purpose, its a journey. I will be traveling over mountains and rivers with Him....sometimes it will be hard, but I get to have an adventure with him...its called life!!! How lucky am I that my Lord and creator, lover and friend, has taken my hand, smiled at me, and walks with me just barely a step ahead...I get to do life with God! I don't know what all this means yet...and the words in this blog do not scratch the surface of what I am feeling in my heart and mind, but I have never felt so loved, so excited, so pursued, by God. I am just clinging to the hope that this feeling, this life that I know with the Lord here and now is not a mountain top experience, but it is something that lasts when I get home...I don't know what I would do without the Lord. I know that there are seasons...waiting for example...but what is amazing is somewhere a flip has been switched, a light has been turned on, and I realize the amazing gift to be able to wait with God...NOT FOR GOD...to wait with him. Basically I can't get enough of him right now.

So in the midst of the frustration and sadness of leaving this place, God has been faithful to love me, teach me, and grow me into more of the woman that he wants me to be.

Lion of Judah

A father came to our house this morning bagging us to take his baby. The baby is in the hospital in an inqubator. He is less than a month old and was born two months premature. The mom died in birth. We talked with the man and then he took us to see his house; it is a shack made out of reeds and there is no way that he has the money or the ability to take care of this tiny baby. We then went to the hospital to see if they would release the baby to us. They wouldn't, but i got to see him. I have never seen anything so small. His head is smaller than a tennis ball and he is skin and bones, probably no longer than 10 inches. When we do get him at the house, he will need constant care and he is going to be sleeping in my room with me. Basically i am going to be mom to a premature baby for my next three weeks of my time here. Pray for strength and for my heart....i want to name him Judah, but we'll see. Pray for this little one too...he has a big fight ahead of him...we don't know if he has aids or not yet, he is malnurished and so small. My heart is already attached.

Also pray for me because the week of the 13-19 I will be running the baby house while Pieter and Rika take their boys on a small holiday. It will be their first family vacation in 3 years! It is such a blessing to be able to watch the house for them to have this time, but I am going to need strength. Pray against loneliness too.

Oh Luis!

For some reason I couldn't fall asleep. My mind was racing at first and then I felt the Lord leading me to pray for everyone that I could think of. At about 10:45pm Luis (2yrs old) started screaming. He had struggled with a fever and not feeling well all day (we took him to get a malaria test in the morning, but it was negative), but this cry was different...piercing and full of fright. I got out of bed and something wasn't right. Luis was so hot and was crying, but didn't look awake. Suddenly his whole body started convulcing much like a seizure. Quickly Luis (our translator), Pieter, and I packed a bag and jumped in the car to drive to Central Hospital in Maputo. I don't think that I have ever gotten to the city that fast or ever been that scared. I was holding our convulcing Luis in my lap in the back seat praying harder than I have ever prayed in my life. About every 5-10 minutes Luis's whole body would convulce in the midst of deafening screams. I can't explain all the thoughts and emotions that I had while this was going on.

We got to the hospital and waited for three hours while they looked at Luis's blood. All the Dr.'s did was test him for Malaria again! That is the extent of African, or at least Mozambican Medicine. They didn't even take his temperature! I was holding a screaming, convulcing baby in my arms for 3hrs and they sent us away with medicine to help him sleep! In other words the Dr.'s canot even begin to know what is wrong with our little Aids baby. Africa is so frustrating! The doctors are hardly trained and seem useless. We brought little Luis home and the convultions stopped at about 3am and Luis slept for a few hours.

Today Luis has slept a lot and seems to be recovering. But we are fearful that this will happen again. Please be praying for our little Luis. And continue to pray for Pieter and Rika. I do not know how they continue to work in this hard country! They are so graceful and filled with the Love of the Lord. Pray for strength and continued blessings for thier ministry.