Pemba, Mozambique

Place: Iris Ministries in Pemba, Mozambique, Africa...
Reason for visit: missions work...
What does that look like? For me, it was supposed to be photography work, quickly I would realize that it was so much more! I had been given words from more than a few friends that God was sending me to Africa for more than picture taking, and I agreed with them, however that was still my focus. When we landed in Pemba, I was so excited, I had dreamed of this day for a few years now and it was finally here. While the rest of the team I was on was tired, I was ready to run! I have this amazing ability to have the excitement of a 5 year old at all new situations, some find it childish, I see it as Gods way of keeping me young! We walked right through the customs and visa portion of this tiny airport, which I have seen closets bigger than(a total favor thing from God), and went to the room to wait for our bags.
The bags came, we loaded them into the trucks and off we were to journey to base. I asked how far we were from base and the driver, a friend we will call Sam said “oh, about 2 hours”, I was perfectly content with that answer as the girls I was with laughed because 2 of them had been there before and it was only about 10 minutes away!
We arrived at base at around 8pm, so it was dark and we did not see much of our surroundings. We were shown to our rooms and given a brief intro with a more detailed one set for morning. We sorted out who would room with who, I was with our leader in a special room(more favor), the three other girls roomed together and our one lone guy was in a room with another man from a separate trip(he would later join our team with his sister). We meet quickly to have our leader give us a, “well we are here, get some rest” talk and we were off to explore, well I was. There was one other team in the community with us and they were from England, they were decorating for a party for a girls birthday, they were from NGM, New Generation Music; a christian organization that uses non christian methods to reach the unreachable. Over the next week we would grow very close to this group due to the closeness in age and living quarters, and the fact that they were all so friendly.
Here at Iris breakfast, which is at 6am which comes early when you did not get to bed till late and is over by 7 so to get ready for lunch. Lunch is served at noon and is over by 12:45 as to get ready for dinner that is served at 4, all times are approximate due to the fact that it is Africa and they work on a much more relaxed time system then I am use to(mostly because of preparation time, all things are made for the meal they are making when they are needed, over an open flame in giant proportions). We learned all things happen early and end early due to the hours of sunshine, the sun comes up at 4:30 am and goes down at around the same time in the evening and by 5 pm it is totally dark feeling like 10 pm. The time thing and going off base at night took a bit to get use to, base is a safe place to be on after dark(seeming to be the biggest part of the day if u are a night person) due to guards and the residents that make up the base mostly Iris kids, staff, students & visiting missionaries. However going off base is not recommended, in fact it is discouraged because in the past there have been incidents that left someone injured. This was a hard thing for me, I am a night person and thought that if we went as a group it would be alright and learned from others & their stories that group or not, if we were to walk to town there was a chance that a larger group would try to confront us to take what we had because they think as visitors we have a lot of money. We do not consider ourselves as having a lot of money but in actuality we do. The exchange rate is good there for us, what is considered small change in the states is wealthy here. For example 100 meticack(their currency) was equal to $3.00 US dollars. So if a guest of Iris had changed $100.00 that was like a million dollars to a person living in Pemba and I am sure they could live on it for a very long time, as things are very inexpensive(even cheaper if you are the same color as the seller, a prejudice we encountered everywhere we went in Africa). So, there was no leaving base at night, that time was spent getting to know the kids on base, the missionaries and other visitors.
We did a neat exercise called I Think, I feel... it was good, we all talked about what we thought God was going to do, what we were feeling from the first impression, and how nice it was to get sleep in a bed after traveling for almost 2 days, oh yeah and how good the shower was even if it was cold! I was thinking how amazing it was that people could live so simply, I mean it is very basic here and I was feeling very excited to see what God was going to do with me and with the team while here in Africa!
Our leader had planned for us to join a 2 day outreach, tenting over night in the bush(not completely sure what that was when we signed up but it was amazing) a few hours from base. I was excited for that, not looking forward to the food, but looking forward to the ministry. We got all things packed up and headed out packed semi tight and totally uncomfortable, but sometimes we got to move out of our comfort zone to see what God has for us! As we were driving we came to a stop, like a random place along the road that would be like a convenient store at home and we were rushed with many people selling items, mostly food. It was amazing, there were bananas, papaya's, mango's, bread, grilled goat on a stick, chicken that was grilled and cold drinks. We never even had to get out of the back of the army style truck we were riding in, just reach out the canvas top with our money. Some of the items they were selling I was not interested in but people on my team ate them and enjoyed them, like the goat and the chicken. I bought some amazing looking bread to go with the peanut butter I had brought from home, in case I did not like what was for dinner and bananas. All had made their selections, paid the few cents it cost and we were off again headed to the village that was waiting on us.
We arrived to find so many people there already, expecting to see the Jesus film we brought, so we got out and the pastors that came with us set it all up. We were setting up our tents and getting situated as to where we were, when we got word the generator was dead so there would be no film tonight. The people were told we would pray for them instead, a good substitute, and the film would be shown tomorrow night. This changed the plans that had been made for us to spend one night here then do a jump to another near by village, but God is in control so it is all well. The team I was with mixed among the crowd as I photographed, I was also able to pray for people near me, as I was on top of the truck to get a higher vantage point. I watched many miracles take place from where I was, I saw a friend pray for a boy who could not hear from his right ear and God opened the ear and the boy could hear, I watched another friend pray for a baby with malaria and the fever broke(normally a sign of healing), I prayed with one of the pastors that was with our group(he was a student at the school) for a man that was ill and coughing and after we prayed he said he felt better and the coughing was less. I got down from the truck to pray for a boy that I had been hearing cough for the entire time we were there, it just took me a while to pin point who he was, I had no translator so I just prayed, God understood me because the boy while I was praying was coughing, and badly and after I prayed for him he was no longer coughing and he was happy, speaking words I did not understand but he was filled with joy, so I know he was healed! The night came to a close with us heading back to the tent area, eating diner(a spaghetti type dish) and having a lot of the village kids standing about 20 feet away watching us get ready and get into our tents. We woke up in the am to a beautiful welcome, first the sound of ducks quacking(I love ducks) so I unzipped my tent & climbed out to see the ducks and even better than duck kids! There was around 20-30 children of all ages about 20 feet from our tents, being silent just waiting and watching for any signs of life, it was amazing. I got out and took some pictures of them, no one else was awake yet, and as I got a few pics a pest soon came buzzing around, A BEE! It was liking me, I was not liking it, I kinda bobbed and weaved away from it, not swatting at it to not make it mad, and soon I became the morning entertainment for the children, they laughed at me in unison! It was great, I actually enjoyed being their “morning cartoon in life form”.
The team was soon up, due to the rising temperatures in the tents and we got going with coffee, tea & bread rolls(the normal Iris breakfast). We organized a few games for the kids, which went from 30ish to like almost 100 in the blink of an eye, and played for a while before heading to church for a meeting. We lead the meeting at church, 2 of our team preached with a translator and then after that we had lunch and rest time. We all gathered again after lunch & rest time for seperate meetings, the kids were in one group, the men in another and the women came with me and two other women from the team I was a part of. We got to go into the church, it was cooler in their, and we had books to hand out which we thought we were going to preach on. We found out when our translator came in that one of us women needed to preach, Ha, seriously! Well no one had anything prepared, but I asked what the women wanted to learn, and their answer was how to pray better. I took over and taught them what I had learned about prayer, how we need not think of God as this far off being that we had to be all proper and impersonal with, I taught them to just speak to him as you would speak to a close friend, to communicate with him was most important. It was so great, I taught them that they have the same authority that men have and they could see miracles before their eyes too if they would just ask and know who they are in Christ! At the end, instead of us praying, I had them pry for each other, so they could activate what they had just learned. It was so amazing to see them praying with power, and watching the chains that had held them in such bondage fall to the ground, God showed up in a mighty way in that room!
We all gathered together after the separate meetings to hear a great story from a missionary to Pemba, we will call him Shawn, God had given him this great story just days before about a lion named Karomu, an African word meaning lion, and it was a great evangelism tool, because it talked about a little girl who is saved by this giant lion from the bush. The entire church loved the story, Shawn told it with such life, people were laughing at the things in the story, no matter their age! After the story, we went out to do hut to hut evangelism, we broke into teams and off we went. I was in a group and I still am not sure if we had a translator, communication was very difficult but I was very popular, all the kids were with me, I looked like the pied piper walking from place to place. I had a camera, and a big one at this time so the kids would almost trip over themselves to get me to take a picture of them, it was so cute. As we walked we would come into contact with babies with their families but they had never seen white people, so the babies would cry from being scared of us, it was kinda of humorous to us until we learned why they were scared. We had someone tell us that parents would tell babies that while people were bad that they would do terrible things to them so to stay away from them, how sad is that. The kids that were older knew better and their parents had changed their stories after Iris had gotten involved(people learned that not all white people are bad, some come in love). We continued to walk from hut to hut and invite people to the film tonight and when we had covered the whole village we headed back to the base area. We had a rest, we ate dinner and prayed as a team while the village was watching the Jesus film. It was amazing, we each got great words and encouragement, well needed before going out and praying for God to show up and heal the masses. The movie ended and off we went to the crowd like the night before, the crowd was bigger and hungrier. The team spread out in groups of 2 and started praying for people, and healing after healing was recorded, God showed up again and did what he does best, Loved on people! After the night had come to an end we were off to bed, very tired and excited to leave and move onto the next thing God has for us seeing as we had only arrived in Africa 3 days earlier and had a whole 6 weeks ahead!
The next thing that had a great impact on me at Iris was the village feeding program, everyday Iris cooked food for the village kids. They came and there was a program set, they would sing some songs, hear about God for a bit and there would be from time to time a special guest, this day it was the NGM dancers(from England), and they did one of their routines, it was great the kids really enjoyed it. After all things were done the kids ate, first they came to the washing station where a mix of water and some sanitary solution was poured over their little hands as they rubbed them together, then they headed over to where the mounded plates of beans and rice were being handed out. It was so interesting to watch these children gather, they all seemed to take care of one another, there were children as young as 6 and 8 with younger siblings strapped to their backs with a African wrap, because there was no one at home to take care of them and this might be the only meal they get for the day. I was in shock over the level of responsibility the children have here, I know adults in the states who can not take care of a child and here at the age of 6 they have it down like it is natural. I would walk through the sea of little feet and faces as they ate and laughed and feed the even littler ones and began to see some not finishing their food but packing it away into what ever they could find to carry it home in, some used plastic bags, some had containers but most used their shirts to carry the “leftover” to a family member that was home or for themselves to eat later that night. I found myself stuck in the sea of little ones with tears streaming down my face, as they just looked back at me as if to ask why I was sad. I could not help but have the reality of the statement we as Americans use often when one of our children do not finish their food and throw it in the rubbish bin,”There is a starving child in Africa that would love that you know?” and it was too much for me to bear, the tears flowed like the Mississippi river flows from the great lakes, from my eyes down my face and fell in the dry red dirt that was beneath me... This would not be the only time I would be overwhelmed with this feeling, and I pray it is not something I ever get numb to, because too many have, that is why these children struggle. Along with this feeding program Iris has a widow feeding program, which feed the widows, handicapped & elderly. I was able to help with this one of the days I was there, I went down to the dinner hall where the dry storage goods are stored and found some of my NGM friends there. I asked what I could do and we started out by separating the bags of beans and rice, they were weighed out into 5gks each. Volunteers come for a full day every 2 weeks and sort in total a ton of beans and rice, they put 5kg of each into bags and piled at the back of the store room. This is done the day before it is handed out, so on the day it is headed out more volunteers come and move it to the front of the room, close to the doors in a bean section and a rice section. The people we are feeding then come to the doors, garage like doors that are fully open, they hand in a ticket and the receive a bag of beans and the rice is dumped onto a cloth that then they wrap and carry away on their heads. The way the people get the ticket is by working on base, it is like a trade program as so they know it is God that is providing not people. God sent the people here to start the base, God sent the work that they can do and God sent the food for them. They do odd things depending on their ability level, and the food is their payment. It was amazing to walk out of the store room and see how many people this program helps, it had to be more than 100, more than 100 families that otherwise would go with out food.
The last group I encountered personally at Iris was the sewing school. It is a great ministry that teaches local village women how to sew, that is headed up by a wonderful & cheerful women from New Zeland, we will call her Annette. I had been told of this place but each time I had gone down I had just missed the open hours, but not this day. I went down with a few other women from another group that had just arrived and we were in amazement. There were ten women, all sitting peacefully at sewing machines working hard to complete their task for the day, some even had little babies on their backs. I had to chuckle a min inside when watching the moms with the little ones strapped to themselves, they were working just as hard as the ones with out a child. I could not help but think of the excuse used so many times at home from people I know with children for the house being untidy or the errands not being handled, because they had the kids, seemed to have a whole new meaning now. I mean it was even as severer as when the baby got hungry the mom would swing the child to the front and allow it to suckle while she was still working, not something our society could handle. The women were not only talented seamstresses, but great moms and singers. They got together after each day after their work was done and checked, they prayed and sang to the Lord, it was great to be included in one afternoon session. They made beautiful shoulder bags, shirts, coin purses, & buttons of various colors and sizes. All the proceeds from the sale of the products goes directly back into the school to pay the ladies(so they can support their families), to pay for product and towards a new building so the women can live there like a boarding house with all the equipment for their work there also. It is a wonderful program and I pray for more and more success daily!
I had a great time, meet a lot of great people and participated in loads of ministry that I would never have gotten a chance to anywhere else. I was blessed by all the staff, missionaries and children there as well as the beautiful landscape surrounding the base.(it is located directly across form the Indian ocean). I would say to anyone interested in going, go, you will be blessed in many ways.

Headed to Africa!

Hey friends... Just wanted to stop in and leave a quick note! I am leaving Sunday the 23rd of May for Africa! I am so excited, I will be there for 6 weeks, then I will be in Europe! I will be leaving bits and pieces as much as I can! Thank you for all your love, prayers & Blessings! Till we chat again soon, Got a big car wash tomorrow!

Free Africian Missions Trip!

http://freeafricatrip.com/?fbid=hl24mXr9Upn


Check this out!

I am headed to AFRICA!!!

Cara is going to Africa with Awaken Worldwide for 6 weeks, She will be the photographer for this amazing move of God.

It is her heart to bring the gospel to unreached people groups of the world, and show them to you by her photography!

Awaken GO team members will have a wide variety of ministry opportunities including village and bush outreach, preaching and teaching ministry, evangelism, healing ministry, worship, children’s ministry, and more. We will be working along side many ministry's including Iris(Heidi & Roland Baker).



The costs for this trip is $3,500.00(Awaken World Wide is covering half of the expenses as I am their photographer, total trip cost $7,000.00)

***Dates are: May 25 - July 3
Need $250.00 deposit for March 21st
***All monies raised are to be made out to Awaken, Inc. and are completely tax deductible.

Prayerfully consider sowing a financial seed as Cara takes the Kingdom of God to Africa
or if you would like to be an Intercessor for this trip -

Please Make all checks out to -
Awaken, Inc.
320 Vine St.
Hillsboro, Ohio 45133
on behalf of Cara Jayne Ross - Africa 2010 trip

Thank You and may God bless you 100 fold for your gift!
Cara Jayne Ross

God is SO GOOD!!! Happy Valentines Day All!

   So today church was GREAT! Lou Engle preached and called the church to a 40 day Daniels fast, I am so in, and the focus for the fast is the colleges & university's  in America! They will be doing missions trips to BOSTON!!!!!!!!!!!! God set New England on FIRE 4 U! Then went to lunch w/ friends and I was giving people dove chocolates, ya know the ones with promises written on the wrapper, just so they could smile and know Jesus loves them, so fun! A friend at lunch wanted to get a valentines gift today so I just prayed quick for it to happen... Went about the day, Was invited to a dinner party that was in honor of women from young men in intro, I brought the friend that I prayed for the gift because I wanted to hang with her. We had a nice dinner, felt a bit out of place at first, but after we all ate the women then wanted to bless the men for doing all they had done so they took turns telling the men how they blessed them! It was so great to hear what they said(they are all in intro to IHOP together) and my friend that wanted the gift was given a word from God for a few of the people as they shared! What a great time... So as we were leaving one of the young ladies handed out GIFTS to all of us there! As my friend and I got in the car she was beaming with JOY because she had so much fun and God gave her a gift! We quickly, like small children unwrapped the gitfs to reveal they were journals, mine pink(perfect for me) hers blue(fitting for her) and again she was joyed because she was going to be needing a new journal because hers was almost full! God so showed up today just to tell us how much He loves us! Wow, so great! Thank U Jesus for being the MAN in my life!

Stay Focused on God, don't stray even for a sec!!!!

    First I want to say God is Great, I am so blessed I don't know where to begin. I am here, at IHOP, that is a testimony in itself. Many many things were put in my path to keep me from getting to where God wanted me... but over all i got here! It has not been a bed of roses but God never promised it would be, He just said He would be there, and He is!!!
    Last night I was completely a mess, God came and totally overwhelmed me, it was great... Then I made a mistake and not even knowing what I was doing I stepped out of His presence to do what seemed like an innocent thing, I asked someone to coffee... It was someone of the opposite sex, I thought it would not be an issue... but I have felt miserable because it was not what I was supposed to do, funny how a little seemingly insignificant thing like that could rob me of thge joy I was so filled with. I allowed my self to be put in a place that I could possibly be rejected. I learned a very good lesson this day, if it is Gods will HE WILL make the connections, WE DON"T need to do it.
   Today a realization hit me that I am going to be just me and God, God and I... I am going to take some time to just hear, and learn God. God desires me to just be, JUST BE with Him as Adam was with Him before Eve. I am going to learn how to be loved, SERIOUSLY LOVED, by God. I have felt the love of God, but I don't walk in it 24-7, that is my hearts desire... I don't want to just feel God when I want Him, or when I need Him, I want God to be with me always, I want to hear Him speak to me as loud as I would hear a person speaking to me, I desire to become a true friend of God. I know all we need is that desire, and that that desire is from God because He longs for us as we long for Him.
   I say all this to say that we need to stay focused, stay with our eyes on God, it only takes a sec, to be derailed, I have a lifetime of derailments, I ask God right now to fill me and be that piece I am missing, that lover I long for so desperately, I ask that God enter in and keep me focused on Him and only Him. I pray for others that have been there, that God puts blinders on them like a horse in a parade so they stay the course God has for them, so they can come into a fuller knowledge of God and so they can fulfill their Destiny.
   Thank You Jesus for showing me how easy it is to loose focus, please keep me from ever loosing focus again, please reveal the plans u have for me so I can stay the course. God thank u for being my HERO and coming to my rescue! Amen!

My Request, My Heart....

Hello my dear friends,
I am writing you during this time of my life, to ask you to hear my testimony of Jesus as I am now at the International House of Prayer mission base in Kansas City Missouri. God has been doing great and mighty things in my life as I have walked in obedience. God blessed me with the finances to get here and get my daughter back home after attending the Onething 09’ conference. Now I find myself in a place where I have done what I was called to do, get here, get involved in the community as far as serving, small home groups to be a part of and a wonderful place to call home.. I currently have no leads on work though I have filled out many applications.
I am currently training to grow The Seer gift that God has placed inside me, I am blessed to be learning from a Messianic Jew who ministers as a prophetic equipper, who is also teaching me about that culture of our Christian roots. This trainer has brought the gifts out in others who have gone through this course. I also would love to attend the Intro to IHOP course that starts in April, as so I can become staff with them. I am currently serving as an usher for the prayer room 3 days a week and will also be ushering some meetings. Serving where there is need is very important to me, I am praying for support so that I can stay in the prayer room as much as possible.
God is moving mightily here in Kansas City, and IHOP is currently in Revival. You can watch live 24 hours a day-7 days a week at IHOP.ORG.
My greatest desire is to know and seek the heart of God, to not move without hearing from Him first and to be so full of the faith of Elijah. “Faith is being confident of what we hope for, convinced about things we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1) Thus, meaning I would have a firm belief that I could speak to the clouds and tell them not to rain, and have God so pleased with me that He does not allow rain until I call for it.
I have prayed that God opens finances and for work, but most of all I seek the will of God, if He wants me to rely on the people in my life that not only love me but that I have blessed in the past in one way or another then He would put a burden on their hearts and have them answer that call of provision.
It has been a blessing to be able to share my heart with you, to give you a window into my journey, I ask that you pray and see if God would have you support me in any way possible. Your prayers are always welcomed and valued, also if you feel led to give monetary offerings, that can be done at my website (CaraRoss.Com) by either clicking on the donate button, or by purchasing photos from events I have photographed.
Whatever may be your task, work at it from the soul, as something done for the Lord and not for men, Knowing with all certainty that it is from the Lord [and not from men] that you will receive the inheritance which is your real reward. The One Whom you are actually serving the Lord Christ the Messiah. Colossians 3:23-24
Thank You and God Bless!