Charles Woodrow presents the latest news from Nampula, Mozambique. You can read this newsletter online here.

Missionary Blessings

This month’s report is loaded with amazing stories and encouraging testimonies. I hope you will have time to savor them in their complete form!

Amazing stories and testimonies. 

Please read!

We have been extraordinarily blessed to work in Nampula for over 32 years. What follows are the two areas that represent our greatest joys.

Our two greatest joys:

When we came to Mozambique in 1990 it was a difficult place to live. Throughout the 1980’s Mozambique had been the poorest nation on earth and in 1986 had the highest level of human suffering of any country in the world. Even in Nampula, the third largest city of the nation, electricity was sporadic at best. During our first four years, on two occasions we endured six months with no power at all. Until we moved to the Mission’s property in the year 2000, where we drilled a borehole, I had to fetch our water four times a week from six miles away and hire men to haul it up two flights of stairs to our apartment.  

1. Proclaiming the gospel in a dark, difficult place ...

... despite the trials of electrical and water shortages ...

On arrival in 1990, the nation was still in the grip of a communist regime that had been hostile to Christianity for 15 years. During our first three years, the warfare that had already engulfed the nation for 25 years continued around us. One could travel outside the city only in military convoys or by flying over the danger. The roads were strewn with the burned-out wrecks of people who took their chances and travelled without military support. Such travelers were bound inside their vehicles before setting them alight. As will be described later in this report, the hospital three miles outside of town where I worked was repeatedly attacked by guerrilla forces to plunder our medical supplies for their own base hospital and to kidnap medical personnel. For a while I kept my old Air Force mobility bag packed and stashed in the operating room in case I too was carried off, as happened to others who did not flee before the hospital was breached by the terrorists.

... communism, guerrilla warfare, and terrorism in former days.

The health center of Marrerre, where it all began

Because of these realities, Mozambique was a closed country to missionaries. But I got in through negotiating a contract with the government to work as a much-needed surgeon in one of their hospitals. For several years I was the only physician in the land with bona fide credentials from a western nation certifying me as a qualified surgeon, though there were experienced surgeons from the former Soviet Union working in the largest hospitals.

There were hardly any missionaries or physicians then.

And that is where the first great blessing begins. I was for some years an almost lone missionary voice, first proclaiming the gospel to people who came to our hospital for surgical help, then planting a church, and finally, as religious freedom began to blossom, enjoying the privilege of spear-heading with Editora Fiel and my associate Karl Peterson a nation-wide ministry to the Evangelical church in Mozambique through literature and pastors’ conferences.  

So I had opportunities to teach and preach as well as operate!

My great privilege was getting to be so involved in extensive spiritual ministry despite being a lay missionary. In the absence of trained churchmen, I could engage in activities normally reserved for more qualified missionaries!

The other half of this blessing was that the church in Mozambique was indeed a needy mission field. The long absence of missionaries, Bibles, and Christian literature had resulted in the true gospel of grace being replaced by a works gospel that was no different from the one people recalled from the days of Catholic colonists before independence came. That event had triggered the flight of nearly all the Portuguese settlers, but their gospel of salvation through works remained behind in the ruins of the pleasant civilization they had created. 

Ours was a truly needy mission field. Even lay missionaries could help!

The result was that even in the Evangelical church, practically all Christians labored to earn and to keep their salvation, and that without the aid of the Holy Spirit which is poured out only upon those who enter the New Covenant through faith in Christ’s finished work on the cross, not through their own merit.

Church people depended on works to save them.

It has been my joy to see many people amazed and overwhelmed by the gospel of grace when finally they came to hear and understand it. In 2005 I started a seminar for the week following our annual nation-wide pastors’ conference. The seminar was comprised of fifteen 90-minute lectures presented over six days with homework assignments and tests for each lecture, all of them devoted to the gospel of grace. 

Grading 30 assignments for each student in only six days compels me to limit the course to only 20 leaders at a time (meaning 600 papers to mark in a single week!), but so far 310 have taken the course. Though some still cannot understand the gospel even after getting such a large dose of it, others are radically changed, devoting their energies to spreading the life-changing information they have learned. One alumnus, Sortino Caero, now has a Face Book channel dedicated to the gospel of grace with over 20,000 subscribers.

Sortino Caero as a young man coming to the doctrines of grace

Through the post-conference intensive seminar, 310 church leaders have been taught salvation by grace through faith, not works!

More and more indigenous ministries, conferences, and reading clubs established by other grace men are springing up every year, all seeking to fortify the church in the truth. Grace Missions is involved with 24 different works now, ten of them founded and led by Africans whom the Mission assists with finances and materials. 

For example, three of those 24 ministries relate to reading groups. There are presently fourteen reading groups of six to thirty persons each, spanning the full length and breadth of Mozambique, 1250 x 500 miles. Each reader receives one free book a month for 36 months, provided he reads the current book of the month and meets with the group to discuss it. 

Grace Missions furnishes the books for eight groups while Fiel Publishers from Brazil supplies the other six, with our Mission handling the administration. And the Mission has just ordered books for starting another five groups at our cost. Most of the group leaders are men who have come to the doctrines of grace through the post-conference seminar.  

One of two reading groups in the capital organized by Ekklesia and supplied by Grace Missions

Grace Missions now assists 24 ministries (ten of them indigenous) and 14 reading groups of six to thirty persons each. 

Readers receive 36 free books over three years. 

Group leaders are usually graduates of our seminar.

In order to promote the last post-conference seminar, I asked four men to write recommendations. I was gratified by their response, but much more by the spontaneous testimonies that were added when the original recommendations were sent out!

Testimonies from seminar participants follow:  

• I know of no one who has completed the seminar and remained the same. This is the testimony received from the many pastors I oversee in the Fiel Publishers reading program who have experienced the seminar. In my own life, the benefits of the seminar have been enormous.  

The seminar changes all who take it; its benefits are enormous.

(From church planter Ernesto Valoi, one of Ekklesia’s founding members, a speaker at many conferences, a student in the master’s program in theological studies at a highly regarded Brazilian Reformed seminary, and a professor of philosophy at the local university, having trained in Portugal.)

Ernesto Valoi receiving the certificate of distinction for the highest mark at the post-conference seminar

Ernesto Valoi, a college professor of philosophy

• I thank God for the many rich opportunities He has granted me for spiritual growth, but the one where I learned the most about God and which will stand out through all my life was the post-conference seminar. While I greatly esteem the Fiel Conferences, with absolute certainty I can affirm that the seminar has had the greatest impact of all on my life.  

The most beneficial of all the opportunities in my life for growth, and that includes the conferences

(From Calton Manuel, a leader in our church who lives to promote the gospel of grace through regular conferences planned and hosted by him, through You-tubes, a Face Book channel, WhatsApp groups, and extensive audio-visual work.)

Calton Manuel, founder of many ministries

Jeremias (L) and Calton (R) the day Calton joined the church ten years ago

• At the seminar I found a treasure chest of foundational doctrines for Biblical faith that changed my way of seeing and understanding life, the church, and the world. Those truths have influenced my ministry to this day. 

A treasure chest of doctrines that change how one sees everything

(From Ibrahimo Hamido, another of Ekklesia’s founding members, a speaker at many conferences, and now a graduate of the master’s program in pastoral studies from a respected Brazilian Reformed seminary.)

Ibrahimo preaching at the 2022 Fiel Conference

Ibrahimo, now a seminary graduate

• In one week I learned truths I had not even imagined before. Those lessons have undergirded my faith to this present day, teaching me the grand truths of life. The course was brief but so useful, and to this moment, what I learned continues to guide my doctrinal position and to serve as the anchor of my faith and convictions.  

(From Baptista Herculano, a Baptist pastor who took the course the first time it was offered 17 years ago).

Baptista Herculano, in the green shirt, attending the first seminar with 17 other leaders

The opportunity to learn truths one would never imagine, that then become an anchor to faith

• The seminar was the portal through which I came to properly understand Reformed theology. Though a Christian, I left my home knowing nothing, with no Biblical basis for a steadfast faith, but through the seminar my faith became firm. Blessed be the seminar!  

Before I knew nothing, but in one week my faith jelled.

(Spontaneous response from Sortino Caeiro, who subsequently developed an Internet following of 20,000 persons on his Face Book channel for promoting the gospel of grace.)

Sortino Caero today, heading up a Face Book ministry with 20,000 followers

Sortino Caero, now with 20,000 Face Book followers

• I am living proof of how important and transforming this seminar is. I participated only three months after the Lord brought me to see my need of a Savior. I had not yet read two books in the Bible, nor did I have any theological equipment.

• All that I now understand and any theological foundation I now possess are thanks to this seminar. My faith was made alive, and I received much clarity about who God is.

• Brothers, take the seminar! It will be invaluable, not merely to gain theological or intellectual knowledge, but because the seminar has the power to transform us and make us love God and long for more of Him in our lives.

The seminar transforms!

Faith comes alive through truth!

The seminar

makes one love God and long for more of Him!

(Spontaneous response from Jeremias, a pharmacist and one of our church’s finest preachers and evangelists, featured in the last newsletter.)

Jeremias, much loved preacher and evangelist

Jeremias Muquito, gifted preacher and evangelist

• Absolutely, my brother. It was through your peace and the confidence you had in your salvation that God’s grace reached me! 

• I remember the time that I first came to understand what salvation by grace meant. It was through reading the syllabus you received at the seminar. I found it in your house and read it outdoors under the soccer goal in 2012. Often I had heard those words “Salvation by grace,” yet I never understood their meaning. But that day it was as if a veil was lifted from my eyes!  

I discovered salvation by grace through reading your syllabus from the seminar.

(From Faizal, Jeremias’ house mate.)

Jeremias' friend

• In the past I was anxious about whether or not I was saved, because, until I took the seminar, I had been taught that I was the cause and the maintainer of my salvation, that staying saved was up to me to accomplish.

• Through the seminar I learned about true salvation, I gained peace within, and I was led to a greater fear of God. It was not like the former fear I had of whether I was good enough to be saved; rather, I now saw how infinitely sovereign God was in both saving men and in keeping them saved. This brought peace, and helped me to serve God correctly, out of gratitude for the immense grace that had taken hold of me and that would go on sustaining me in the faith.  

Carlos Sel with bride Nélzia

Before, I lived in fear of losing my salvation because that is how I was taught.

The seminar revealed God’s sovereignty in saving and preserving me, bringing peace, gratitude, and obedience that issues from love.

(Spontaneous testimony of Carlos Sel, a physician who God subsequently led to our church and our hospital.)

Carlos Sel, one of our physicians

• Oh that the Eternal would grant me the blessing of taking the seminar. I may never have the opportunity. However, I can imagine it through hearing the sermons of our brother. When he preaches, my heart longs to hear it continuously.  

Oh how I love hearing about grace!

From Sancho, a member of our congregation for only a year before being transferred far away where he could no longer hear grace preaching. It was not the oratory of the preacher, but the content of God’s grace and glory that charmed him, content one does not hear in churches unaware of what we have been so blessed to discover – yet too soon begin taking for granted! 

Here, where the gospel of grace is still so scarcely known and heard except during annual conferences and seminars, people who understand and resonate with those truths can never get enough of them! 

But this man did get a large dose. To his surprise, his employer gave him two weeks off to travel to Nampula and attend the July conference and seminar!

Sancho Xavier, pharmacist.

It is not oratory, but the content of God's grace and glory in the gospel that charms those who have never before heard what we take for granted.

Though I am only a lay missionary, the above testimonies hint at the great blessing I have experienced through being the purveyor of this precious knowledge to people who formerly labored in the flesh to earn and to keep their salvation, who until Grace Missions came to Mozambique in 1990 had no one in or outside the church to explain to them the full story of what Christ has accomplished for those who trust in Him!

Oh! The blessing of preaching the grace of God where it has previously been unknown!

The second great blessing of serving in Nampula has been the opportunity to observe in marvelous ways the power of God at work owning and sustaining this ministry in a difficult place where the arm of the flesh avails for almost nothing. 

I had the opportunity to reflect on that recently as I prepared a message for Mission Ekklesia’s first annual church leaders conference which was held on our property.  

The second blessing: seeing God’s power often displayed.

Ekklesia is one of the indigenous grace ministries with which we partner. Two of the three leaders are alumni of the post-conference seminar, and Ekklesia initiated and oversees most of the reading groups we supply.

Ekklesia is an indigenous ministry.

As usual, the Mission made all its conference resources available to Ekklesia for free, and Paul Washer’s HeartCry Missionary Society funded a large part of the expenses. The two-day meeting drew 153 participants, a good start for what is expected to become an annual event.  

Their first leaders’ conference had 153 participants.

The theme for this event was “Dealing with African Problems: Leading through Transformed Lives.” There were five messages and four discussion sessions devoted to the church’s response to witchcraft and divination, ancestor worship, occult powers, spiritual warfare, rites of initiation, and traditional medicine (which is usually mingled with charms and spells).  

The theme was African Problems: divination; ancestor worship; and rites of initiation.

Even as a foreigner far removed from these things, I found three of the messages helpful, including one by Ekklesia’s founder, Timóteo Bila, where he eloquently proclaimed that everything people seek from spirits is found far more abundantly in Christ, and one by Ibrahimo Hâmido, whose riveting message was full of real-life illustrations and applications on spiritual warfare taken from Ephesians 6:10-19. 

If you want to hear a message that deals concretely with spiritual warfare, find an African who has grown up in the midst of rampant witchcraft, divination, and superstition and then been delivered through the gospel of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit!

Mission Ekklesia's first conference for leaders - looks a lot like one of ours!

The superiority of Christ was eloquently proclaimed over African alternatives and promiscuous manifestations of occult powers. 

Bila, who planned the program, also recruited a speaker to deal with another important cultural issue the African church must grapple with – Western missionaries importing culturally adapted gospels originating in the West, gospels crafted to cater to perceived Western concerns, which are then uncritically embraced by Africans. 

This is a theme I would have been happy to preach upon, as I would warn Africans against man-centered gospels from the West such as the mechanical, instant results “accept-Christ-and-be-forgiven” gospel, the self-affirming “smile-God-loves-you-and-has-a-wonderful-plan-for-your-life” gospel, and the felt-needs “health-and-prosperity” gospel. 

All of these are entrenched in Mozambique thanks to Western missionaries. I would have advocated the old-fashioned, God-centered, God-focused “God-be-merciful-to-me-the-sinner!” gospel or the “LORD-SAVE-ME!!!” gospel which we have promoted for 32 years and which come straight from Scripture.

Another problem for Africa – imported faulty gospels from the West, adapted to fit Western culture rather than Scripture. 

The speaker took the theme in a different direction, but, as he intended, his message got me thinking hard about the issues that were raised. Afterwards I wrote my own essay on the gospel we preach and why we preach it, as well as mentioning the defective culturally-adapted Western gospels that are prevalent in Mozambique, why we do NOT preach those, and why Africans should not embrace them either. That essay is available on our website by clicking here.

The message on culturally adapted gospels stirred me to write my own essay – read it at this link.

My assignment was to canvas the Scriptures on witchcraft and divination and condense it all into a one-hour message. It may seem ironic to have a Westerner speak to Africans on this theme, but anyone can read the 70 passages in the Bible that refer to these matters and immediately shed much light on what is happening in Africa and the response people are receiving from the Lord and from the evil one because of it!

My task was to preach on the Bible's teaching about witchcraft.

Also, in 32 years, I have had plenty of head-to-head encounters with charms and spells both in and outside the hospital. My patients have told me incredible things they had to do in their attempts to get help for their problems from witch doctors before finally coming to the hospital. Others have been admitted in bad shape because of taking overdoses of powerfully effective herbal drugs administered by local shamans. 

Multiple times, to get to where I was headed, I have had to kick aside the pile of spirit-drenched spell-casting chicken bones placed at the thresholds of our church building or the storage rooms where we kept our medical supplies.

Though I do not practice witchcraft, I have often confronted it!

At the hospital, we prayed with all our patients in the operating room before surgery, and when people showed up with the amulets of witch doctors around their wrists and necks, they were advised to discard them because here we prayed to God for safe operations and good results - but God would not help us if they trusted instead in their charms and amulets.

And God was faithful. We performed thousands of operations, praying with the patient every time. We had no choice about how ill the patient was when he entered the OR, but by the grace of God, no one ever died under the knife in the entire eight years.

Charms were not tolerated in our surgical block. Patients knew we prayed to God and depended on Him in every case.

The superior power of God has been manifested in many other ways during our decades here in Mozambique. For example, people go to witch doctors to find out things they do not know. When 20 years ago we needed to find the man who killed our bookshop employee in order to steal our most expensive books and a bicycle, we did not consult the witch doctors. We prayed to God and claimed Jeremiah 33:3, “Call upon Me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.”  

We also depend on God, not witch doctors, to supply otherwise unknowable information.

We thought God had already revealed the likely assassin, but no one could tell us where he lived in a mud hut neighborhood of 50,000 persons. After six weeks of searching in vain, the police called and said they were closing the case. That is when we took Jeremiah 33:3 to the Lord and then asked the police to try one more time. 

When they agreed, we drove them to the mud hut barrio, and the very first person the detectives met after leaving the car just happened to be the neighbor of our suspect. He took them to the man's hut, and there was the blood-stained smock with the name of our bookstore printed on it, all our stolen books, the bicycle, and the killer! The assassin is still in prison today.

By this means we found the assassin of our bookshop attendant.

People also go to the witch doctor to recover stolen property. When we were traveling through the capital of Zimbabwe on our way home to Mozambique with our Land Rover and trailer packed to the hilt with Bibles, medical supplies, and family purchases, my briefcase was stolen containing all the invoices to handle importation at the border, all our passports and residency documents, and all the papers required to operate our vehicle legally.

We also depend on God, not witch doctors, to recover stolen property.

It was Saturday afternoon when we discovered the briefcase was missing. We did not go looking for the local witch doctor. Feeling utterly helpless in ourselves, we rounded up the entire family and each one prayed, from two-year-old Gracie on up to Dad, pleading that God would return the case because without the documents there was no way we could cross into Mozambique.  

When all our documents were stolen outside the country, we prayed.

First thing Monday morning I went to the U.S. embassy and told them I needed to replace six stolen passports for my family. “You would not be Charles Woodrow, would you?” they asked. Amazed, I said, “How did you know that?”  

They told me that Saturday afternoon the thieves had driven three times through the alley and the third time the guard saw a briefcase pop over the wall into the embassy’s back yard. They called the bomb squad to open the case, but there was no explosion – just all the documents we needed to get our load into Mozambique! The embassy was dumbfounded. No thieves had ever returned stolen goods in their experience. They could not explain it – but our family could!

Returning from South Africa with a family of seven and loaded with supplies for the ministry - always an experience!

God caused the thieves to return what we prayed for!

People also go to the witch doctor to cure their illnesses. I have not needed to do that because in 32 years of living in Mozambique, I have never been ill enough to stay in bed or miss work even for one day, nor ever suffered from the ubiquitous diarrhea and abdominal complaints that force virtually all of us here to regularly remain within a few feet of a toilet because of drinking fouled water or ingesting contaminated food from the outdoor market.  

We also depend on God, not charms, to keep us well. I have enjoyed 32 years without missing a day from sickness!

If that alone were not extraordinary enough, I delight in telling people how God protected our entire surgical team during the eight years I worked as a surgeon such that not one of us was ever home ill on an operating day. We had a four-man team, we operated four days every week, and each member had to be present for surgery to take place. But through thousands of operations over eight years, we never cancelled or postponed a single procedure because of running out of supplies, or because someone on the team was home sick, or because of any other problem except for one month when the entire hospital was closed by the provincial authorities after it suffered repeated guerrilla attacks. 

God did not have to miraculously heal any diseases of the surgical team during those many years because He “miraculously” kept us all from falling ill in the first place! Truly a wonder here where malaria and countless other illnesses are endemic!

More amazing, the entire OR staff went 8 years without one sick day among us, enabling us to do every operation when promised!

The story of God’s faithfulness and power only starts there – because people routinely go to witch doctors for charms and amulets guaranteed to protect them, but we rely on prayer and the arm of the Lord.

We also depend on God, not witch doctors, for protection.

In our case, the risks were significant because the hospital we served was three miles outside of town and could not be defended. As mentioned earlier, it was attacked and plundered four times by guerrilla terrorists during the first two years our surgical team worked there. This always happened at the break of dawn, before the team showed up for work, because the guerrillas needed the cover of darkness to approach, but they needed light to see by once they got inside the hospital (the government was too poor to provide light bulbs – I always brought my own which I screwed into the nearest socket when darkness fell!).  

Guerrillas attacked the hospital four times in two years.

During the attacks one patient died trying to escape, nurses were kidnapped, everyone who could do so fled, and very few who could flee dared to return! On one occasion a whole day’s worth of surgical linens was stolen from the laundry. But inexplicably, the surgical block was always left undisturbed, though every other door of the building was broken down and every room ransacked. The OR alone had more valuable equipment than the rest of the hospital combined, but it was never violated!  

One person died, others were kidnapped. The hospital was thoroughly ransacked each time. 

During the first attack, patients who could not flee cowered outside on the balcony of a room adjacent to the surgical block. One was a Portuguese woman who testified that the guerrillas were yelling to each other to break into the operating rooms and carry off the much-needed equipment, but despite hammering on the doors with the butts of their rifles, the doors would not give way, even though they were identical to all the others in the hospital. 

After hearing this report, I inspected the wooden doors again. They were not even scratched, which makes me wonder about the perceptions of the terrified patient. In any case, I accept the outcome as a miracle! The loss of our costly equipment which was the entire surgical inventory of a modern hospital in the States donated to us when they went bankrupt, would have brought a quick end to our ministry here in Mozambique!

But the surgical block was never entered, despite prodigious efforts according to one patient!

Because the OR was always untouched, even without the use of the witch doctor’s charms and amulets, the surgical team was back at work just hours after each attack, doing all the procedures scheduled that day without dropping a single case! The day when our linens were stolen, the tailor kept up with us, preparing new gowns and drapes as fast as we soiled them. 

Though the patients who had already been operated on usually disappeared for good, those awaiting surgery trooped back once the guerrillas left the building. After months of waiting, they did not want to miss out on getting their problems fixed! 

The surgical team was able, by God's grace, to do 3500 cases, each on the day promised, a testimony to God's faithful-ness in keeping us supplied and healthy!

All of this is simply to say that God worked in amazing ways to establish a testimony of His power to overcome every obstacle and to give hope that does not disappoint to the patients who came, not to the witch doctors, but to His surgical block seeking the operations they needed.

When I turned this message into a series preached in our church, I noted 29 such testimonies, many of them more impressive than those listed above. These 29 stories were not the only manifestations of God at work, but merely those instances related to the ten basic needs here that send people to the witch doctors.

We have 29 stories of God’s sufficiency in matters where Africans turn to divination. 

So, on many fronts, an inexperienced Westerner can speak authoritatively to Africans about what the Bible says regarding depending upon the power of spirits and the overwhelming superiority of depending on the God of Scripture!

Indeed, a Westerner can speak to this subject!

1. Please pray for God's guidance on opening the clinic. 

Prayer requests:

• We need cooperation from the health authorities to secure the contracts of our church’s doctors, dentist, pharmacists, nurses, and PA’s. They are ready to start if the government approves our proposal which is now winding through bureaucratic channels.

1. To open the clinic, cooperation from the government is needed...

• We are much in need of at least one certified, experienced generalist and one general surgeon. We would delight to have long term missionary physicians join us, but short term assistance would be welcome too!

... missionary physicians also ...

• We need to receive our license to import medical equipment and drugs. We have completed all the requirements and passed all the inspections and are waiting for the results.

... and our license to import drugs.

2. Pray for inside completion of our guest house / pharmaceutical building.

2. Completion of the guest house

One of the Nampula reading groups

3. Pray that God would continue to supply the many books we distribute for free through the reading groups. Thanks to the seminars, indigenous associates, and our own far-flung church members, there are leaders qualified to direct more reading groups in new places, and there is a waiting list of leaders who want to read and learn!

3. Continued provision of books and other ministry supplies

By His grace,

Charles and Julie Woodrow