My feeling on Hurricane Gustav

I am guessing if you know me at all, you would know that I live in the greater Baton Rouge area. There is a huge hurricane heading towards Louisiana. This will be my first experience with this. I was not here for Andrew, and I was in Dallas during Katrina and Rita, which explains why I feel uncomfortably calm. This is supposed to be worse than Katrina, but I don't know what that feels like. When I was younger, I have to start putting it in that category, because time does start getting compressed and blurry. I have really bad short term memory or long term memory. Lets put it this way, I can remember off the top of my head the Magna Carta was passed in 1215 and the Battle of Hasting took place in 1066, but I can hardly remember the occurrences of earlier days up till I left for Dallas Texas. I just remember it lasted forever.
Anyway, when I was younger, there was a hurricane coming, I believe it was a category 4, my family packed into a house, and the adults were prepared for the worse. I remember they told us if we heard sirens we would all go into these concrete ditches. Lets just say there was fear in the air. I am not going to lie and say I have never struggled with having faith, or I have never felt despair, but I did feel a conviction that it would all be o.k. The faith of a child. I woke up the next morning, and the news said it was a miracle, the category 4 storm had downsized to a tropical depression. I mentioned I had never been through a hurricane, but I almost did. Please, don't get bogged down with all the details of my story, but get the big picture. God protects his children. I pray we all have faith to believe God will be there for us.

High School, Bible College, and University Friends

So, I went ahead and announced to all my friends on facebook that I was moving in January. I can keep up with all my friends from high school, Bible college, and university, and they can keep up with whats going on in my life. As the day approaches, I get more and more excited. I will miss everyone, but I can keep up with everyone. Things have changed since my grandparents left for the mission field. They hardly had contact with anyone, they were very isolated.

Pre-K Class

I love these pictures. They are now running about 60 kids in the Pre-K class. Most of these children do not have the opportunity to attend Pre-K, if it were not for the CarePoint in Nkobe. They are also being fed everyday.

Visit to HPC_St. Francisville

So, I got to share a bit about what is going on in Mozambique, at the St. Francisville campus yesterday. I was amazed by the response of the people in St. Francisville. Dave and Jean Ohlerking shared about Children's Cup, and world missions; They rock. I feel unworthy to even be mentioned along side their name, they have gone far and above, and I feel embraced as a daughter. Pastor Timmy Straight is leading a great bunch of people out there, and some believe they have a call to missions. I am so exciting about representing Healing Place Church_St. Francisville, out in Mozambique. The kids are going to love them, so I hope a lot of them come to visit.

Vision for the Mission in Mozambique, Africa

My name is Deborah Williams, and I was born in Manaus, Amazon, Brazil. My grandparents were the first to answer the call to missions, and they spent 18 years in Brazil. I believe I was born with missions in my heart. Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” I moved to the United States in 1994 at the age of eleven, and began attending Healing Place Church in 1996. I graduated from St. Amant High in 2001, attended LSU for two years, and then moved to Dallas, Texas, to attend Christ For The Nations Institute. While in Dallas, I received a 2 year Practical Theology Diploma and earned a bachelor’s degree from Dallas Baptist University in 2006. I have spent the last year and a half working for Church United For Community Development as a Case Manager for the Prisoner Reentry Program called Step Out, located in the inner city of Baton Rouge. And now, I want to share with you a challenging ministry opportunity God has presented to me.
Envision a land slightly less than twice the size of California, where men, women, and children are trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. Having gained independence in 1975, from 470 years of Portuguese colonial rule, it still ranks among the least developed nations in the world. Since independence, this southeast African country has suffered through socialist mismanagement and 16 years of civil war. They started having democratic elections in 1994. The population estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; at any time there are 1.3 million people living with HIV or AIDS: A crazy amount considering only a little over twenty-one million people live in Mozambique, Africa.
After much prayer and consideration, Pastors Dino and Delynn Rizzo and Mark and Cindy Stermer believe now is an opportune time to reach the people of Mozambique. Healing Place Church and Children’s Cup International Relief have built a Care Point to reach the impoverished families in the village of Nkobe, 20 minutes outside the capital city of Maputo. They provide free meals, medical care and education to these families. There are 300 children who are fed daily, and for the vast majority of the children this is their one and only meal of the day. There is a potential to reach thousands of people in this 15,000 person community. The community is ever growing, and many of the families are attending the HPC Sunday Service. Nkobe is changing and God is moving in the hearts of the people. To keep up with the need and to follow the momentum God has created in this area, I am moving to Mozambique to serve Campus Coordinators and Pastors Isaac and Carol Williams with the growing church and to assist them in reaching the lost and hurting in that area.
I'm excited about the opportunity and experience that lie ahead. I hope you see the value in what we will accomplish. As you can imagine, a trip like this requires financial support from a number of people. I need to raise $30,000 by January 2009. If you can support me in a financial way, I would be very grateful. It can be a one time gift or a monthly support, and all support can be sent to Healing Place Church, 19202 Highland Rd., Baton Rouge, La. 70809. Be sure to designate your gift for "deborah williams-mozambique." And, most importantly, I need your prayer support. Prayer is the fuel that will allow us to be successful as we follow God's leading in ministry in this country. Without prayer, nothing will happen.