Tracey Moyes (right) of TCF’s Tilbury Pride Mission-Shaped Community has recently returned from a life-changing mission trip to southern Africa. This diary is the substance of a talk she gave at the TCF All Saints Centre in Grays on Sunday 21 July 2013. For more about Tracey, see her autobiographical notes at the bottom of this article.
Tracey’s diary
26 June 2013
Arrive in Pemba (Mozambique) late afternoon. Evening meeting with Mattheus van der Steen.
No-one prayed for anyone – everyone receiving was hungry for God and for more of the Holy Spirit. As we reached out to God in worship, adoring and loving Him, He filled us with His Spirit and love. Heard angels singing above us.
The challenge:
- What are our heart attitudes when we come together to worship God?
- Is our focus to worship Him?
- Are we wanting to be filled so that we can take the presence of God out or are we wanting to be filled so that we can simply get through our week till the next meeting?
- We should be being filled to go and give out, then be filled to give out, then be filled to give out.
- It is not just for us!
27 June 2013
Bush outreach
Blind man healed. Eyes were closed and completely white when I opened them. He had been blind for many years. Mattheus van der Steen, Georgian Banov and Heidi Baker prayed for him. His eyes cleared and he left his wife and came charging through the fire tunnel. The next morning his eyesight was even better.
Many deaf men healed. I spoke to one deaf man in English from behind and even though he couldn’t understand English he was repeating what I was saying. His hearing was completely restored! So precious to see his joy at being able to hear.
A boy with malaria was healed and filled with love. Heidi saw him sitting naked in the dirt. No-one was caring for him. He hadn’t been given water or food for days and was so thirsty and hungry. Heidi left the crowd to sit on the floor with him, put clothes on him, gave him some food and hugged him. She cast demons out of him and then we saw as his face changed and he got filled with God’s love. His face was beaming and he was running around hugging all of us. There is such power in love. Heidi brought him into our tented village to stay with us for the night – the next morning he was still running around hugging everyone.
170 salvations that night.
More challenges:
- Heidi noticed the one lying in the dirt and got down with him – there is a challenge there to notice those that have been forgotten and abandoned.
- God hasn’t forgotten them and wants us to show them God’s love – to sit in the dirt with them and love them.
28 June 2013
Chief of village was saved out of Islam and asked for prayer that all the village would be saved, and that God would hedge the village as a bandit-free zone and that any bandits would get saved as soon as they came to the village.
I felt to release something over the widows of his village that God would restore their joy and turn their mourning into dancing, as I know God has done for me. I prayed with the chief for this – he cried. I committed to pray for the widows in Mozambique that they would come to know God as provider, friend and husband.
Prayed for a man who wanted to be released of alcoholism. He had only got saved the night before out the outreach meeting with Heidi Baker. God removed a spirit of shame off of him, and his face was shining with joy afterwards. He wanted his home to be a place where people would come and feel God’s presence. We prayed over his home and over him that what he had received he would give out to others. He later came and started praying over us as we prayed for the demon possessed man. He took what God gave to him and that same day wanted to impart it out to someone else.
- This challenged me about how selfish we can be with what we have received from God.
- We should be giving out of the overflow of what we have received, not keeping the overflow for a rainy day for ourselves.
Demon possessed man set completely free. We needed someone to help us talk to him as we knew he needed to confess Jesus and be filled with the spirit before we left. It was beautiful to see how Heidi came in and poured God’s love on him with her eyes and her touch. Got him to confess Jesus and then taught him a song about Jesus’ saving love to sing when the demons started taunting him. She treated him like he was the most important person there. She brought him onto the truck with us, gave him food and water. While on the truck a demon started tormenting him again. His face contorted with fear. Mattheus gently put his hand on the man’s leg said: “Look in my eyes and sing with me”. The fear left instantly and the man began eating and smiling again. Lesson of receiving victory in an area but then the enemy comes to rob it from us. Keep focussed on Jesus and satan will be unable to steal what God had done. Heidi got in the dirt with him, showed him love and kindness like he was the only person there. I want to love like that!
Pregnancy miracle. One of the team prayed for a pregnant lady who had been bleeding for two weeks and in that time had not felt her baby move. The doctors were going to abort the baby as they said it had died. While the team were praying for her the baby began kicking!!
- Sometimes the things we are about to birth appear to have died…
- … Allow God to resurrect them and bring His purpose to life in you!
The Waterless Well… There had been no water for couple of days at the village well. We pumped and it was totally dry. Heidi got us to pray over the well and then said to go check out the other well and dedicate it. As all of us adults turned to go to the other well, the children of the village began pumping and water started to flow. There was such a beautiful, joyous shout from them. Lesson is to be like little children in our faith. We were too quick to walk away, it was the faith of the children that brought the miracle into being. Unless we become like little children we will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Also Isaiah 41:17-18* – Heidi Baker commented when the water came that the children were so thirsty!
- It made me think about in the spiritual how thirsty are we for the Holy Spirit?
- Are our tongues parched with thirst for Him?
29 June 2013
Prayer Hut time with team
The Parable of the Suitcase. I saw a suitcase left in the middle of the prayer hut on its own. I asked God, “What does this mean?” He showed me that I am the suitcase. It is like Mary Poppins’ case – it looks small on the outside, and yet it contains big things that are drawn on when the time requires. We don’t carry God or the Holy Spirit or the giftings like a suitcase – they are in us, a part of us. I feel like I am too small to contain all that is required yet God says it is His work that makes it possible for a small vessel to be filled with big things.
- Do you feel too small to contain all that God wants to use you for?
- Do you prefer to carry God and His giftings and presence separately so that when it becomes too heavy or challenging you can put it down and walk without it?
- The only way to see the supernatural is for it to become a part of you and for you to allow God to fill you up and draw out of you giftings as they are needed. Ephesians 2:22**
2 July 2013
Bocaria rubbish dump in Maputo (Mozambique)
We took God’s love and joy to these people living and working on the rubbish dump. I felt God say to sit with a lady before I prayed for her or even tried to hug her. After a time of sitting with her and helping her sort through the rubbish, praying and singing quietly, something broke through and she was able to get eye contact with me. It was then that I prayed for her and hugged her. Sometimes we have to stop a while with people, rather than rush in do a “duty” and rush out. Jesus stopped for people, had compassion on them and then met their need. There was a transaction that happened with that lady when I stopped and sat with her for a while, that wouldn’t have happened if I had rushed in and tried to pray or hug her.
One of the team from Iris told his testimony of how in 2000, Heidi came to the dump with food for the children. They did some song and told them about Jesus’ love before feeding them. A team came back every Friday and yet it was only in 2005 that the message of Jesus’ love finally broke through in his heart. He now works as a pastor at the dump for Iris and his family are all living somewhere else with other jobs.
- How often do we give up too soon?
- If Iris had given up after a year of weekly visit and food, that young man and all his family would still be living on the dump without knowing God’s love for them. For that man it took 5 years, but he finally heard and received.
Evening at Pastors’ conference
Lady with cataract in her eye. I prayed for her and the cataract began melting away, with white stuff ran out of her eye. Her eye became clear. She couldn’t see perfectly but began to see shapes – gave her a prayer of confession to pray and told her to continue receiving her healing. She said her knee had been healed when we prayed for her at the rubbish dump and she just wanted to live for God and do His will. She wanted to receive her sight back in that eye as she could do God’s work so much better if she could see.
4 July 2013
Alexandria (Johannesburg, South Africa)
The Miracle of the KFC boxes. We only had 150 boxes containing chicken and mash with gravy. In the chaos, we never gave out the gravy initially, and yet the gravy ran out long before the chicken boxes did. Yet when a box was taken another would appear in the gap! Only when we became tired and wanted it to end that the food stopped multiplying.
- How often do we stop God from moving because we become weary?
- In Galations 6:9 it says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
Thoughts on returning to the UK
Before I went on the trip God took me to Romans 8:38-39*** which says that nothing could separate me from His love. He asked me that if nothing could separate Him from loving me, what was separating me from my love for Him? Is it disappointment, sin, apathy, hurt? We all need to let those things go so that nothing comes between us and our love for God. 2 Corinthians 5:20**** says we beg of you, be reconciled to God!
He also challenged me to know His love for me. That trust comes out of knowing His love for us. Unless we believe that we are loved by God, we will be unable to trust Him. You can only trust someone when you are confident that they love you.
Some of you may have come to hear the stories of miracles because it is miracles that you are seeking to see. But I feel that God wants us to know that we can sometimes make miracles an idol when in fact He wants us to seek Him and His kingdom first. And as we have a deeper love relationship with Him and walk full of His Holy Spirit, loving the lost like Jesus did then the miracles will come.
A deeper relationship will not come out of the miracles but rather miracles come as a result of a relationship with Him.
Let’s seek Him passionately, let’s lavish our love on Him and let Him lavish us with His love in return and out of that relationship we will see Heaven come to Earth.
* Isaiah 41:17-18 – this, with verses 19 and 20, is the scripture over Thurrock (brought by Pam Lane at a prayer meeting of the Thurrock Schools Christian Worker Group in 1996), with its picture of a miraculously healed land producing miraculous unity (the trees) being used by God as a sign of His existence to a previously disbelieving generation…
The poor and needy search for water, but there is none;
their tongues are parched with thirst.
But I the Lord will answer them;
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys.
I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.
I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.
I will set junipers in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together,
so that people may see and know, may consider and understand,
that the hand of the Lord has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it.
** Ephesians 2:22
… in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
*** Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
**** 2 Corinthians 5:20
We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: be reconciled to God.
Tracey Moyes – autobiog
I was born in Nambia and grew up on a farm in South Africa. I got saved at 6 years old and was raised by my mum with my older brother and sister. Went to a discipleship training school for two years after I left school at Midlands Christian Centre, Estcourt, South Africa – it was a time of getting into God’s word, dealing with things from the past and mission into the surrounding rural areas of Escourt. The first year was as a student and the second year as a leader.
I studied to be a Chartered Company Secretary and then came to the UK for a two year working holiday, where I met my husband. I travelled back to South Africa when my visa expired by doing a 6 month overland trip from Istanbul through the Middle East and Africa to Cape Town. My husband and I got married and I came back to the UK, where sadly 7 years after we were married he passed away from cancer.
God has had me an a journey of restoration and healing over the past 4 years since he died. I have since had the privilege of ministering to widows in Kosova and teaching in the bible school and ministering to the ladies in Tirana, Albania, as well as being a part of a prophetic team that went to minister at the churches in Tirana.
God began to speak to me about going to Africa 2 years ago. I have contacts in Zambia and thought it would be to go there, but God knew differently. I met an American couple in Albania who told me about Georgian & Winnie Banov of Global Celebration and the work they do with the poorest of the poor. When they mentioned that Global Celebration do at trip to Iris Ministries in Mozambique, my heart leapt and I knew I had to apply to go. My application was accepted, praise God and it was such an incredible time with Heidi Baker and Georgian Banov, learning from them and being filled afresh with the Holy Spirit to go out and spread the word.
I currently live in Grays and work as the Accounting Partner for a firm on Chartered Surveyors in Mayfair, London. I fellowship at Thurrock Christian Fellowship where I am part of the team based in Tilbury. I run ladies’ retreats about four times a year in my home which God spoke to me about creating as a place of peace and restoration. I have run nine retreats so far with the next one happening in August. (I can give more details of these if wanted).
Part of this is due to the passion I have to see ladies and teenage girls come into who they are in Christ –
- walking in freedom and confidence that they are loved and accepted by a gracious, kind and loving Heavenly Father
- healed of past hurts and their lives restored to the amazing plan that God has for them
- finding the confidence and self-worth that comes from God and not from man
I see so many broken women in the Thurrock area and I long to see them set free and restored.
If you wish to contact Tracey about her ministry or her experiences, or would like to invite her to give her illustrated talk with your fellowship or group, then please contact her at ltmoyes@btinternet.com.
We give glory to Jesus Christ for this true story of witness to the awesome power of His name. Some questions…
- What are the key factors that would release such spiritual transformation in Thurrock?
- What would it take to see Isaiah 41:17-20 become a reality? If it’s God’s promise to us, then it’ll happen – but how?
- What adjustments can we make individually and corporately to prepare ourselves before God?
- Am I a ‘suitcase’ for Jesus?
