worship evening

I made my way to Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship last night (Thursday).

One of my favourite worship artists Ruth Fazal was leading. She is a gifted composer, instrumentalist, worship leader.

Heidi Baker, who along with her husband Rolland, have ministered in Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world since 1995.

The government offered Iris Ministries a horribly delapidated and neglected "orphanage," and with no promised support such a project they simply said, "Yes, we'll take it!" They began with eighty children, but their hearts were broken for the lost and abandoned children still on the streets of Maputo. After many years of brutal civil war, thousands left orphaned, displaced and abandoned. The Mozambican and foreign staff of Iris Ministries began to pick up and take in these lost children. God poured down his love and provided food day by day. They grew to 320 children. They planted a church in the community and began to see hundreds turn their hearts to the Lord.

The former communist directors of the government orphanage were furious ever since the Bakers took over, since their extreme corruption and thievery had been stopped. Scheming together with an equally corrupt faction of the government, they concocted accusations and issued a legal decree to Iris Ministries forbidding prayer and worship, Christian singing, etc., and all forms of "unapproved" food and clothes distribution and medical assistance. If they and their children did not obey these new rules, they all had forty-eight hours to leave. Heidi was also told that there was a contract out on her life, and that she was not allowed back on the property. Overwhelmed and exhausted by the fight, they had to evacuate to their office in the city.

You can read more of their story here.