God has been using my team and my squad to help point out spiritual warfare to me and help combat it for with me. The first time was in South Africa. We had had a sermon at the Lighthouse Church about insecurities. My team then had a discussion about what our insecurities were. We found out, that true to an all-girls team, our insecurities revolved around beauty and acceptance. We all felt very accepted within the group so we made it a plan to face our insecurities head on, whenever anyone complimented something about us we needed to just say thanks. We also made the plan to look up verses that would speak life into each one of our insecurities.
The next week I felt like I could trust my team completely but for some reason, that I could not put words to, I did not feel comfortable and like I was not being myself around my team. These feeling came out in a rushing wave when we went on a street evangelism day. I ended up crying in the mall that we had gone to because I felt so uncomfortable and so fake in what we were doing. After this I was able to open up to my team and tell them how I was feeling. One by one each of my team mates was able to speak God words ad life back into me and pull me out of the dark hole I had fallen into. Right after they were done it was as if someone had taken a weight off of my shoulders and the Joy in my spirit came back. Praise God for the life that he keeps giving.
Month 2 has now began and we are working at an orphanage at the top of a mountain is Swaziland. It is surrounded by witch craft and a population that believes beating their wives and kids is the only way to get them to obey you. There have been a number of people that have been having really scary dreams or not being able to sleep properly and everyone has been feeling abnormally exhausted since arriving. Last night our Squad leader Alicia talked about Spiritual warfare and how we need to aware of the darkness but not scared of it.
Psalm 23:4 Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no danger because you are with me. Your rod and your staff – they protect me.
She also talked about how it can be the enemy working against us if we are struggling with things that we don’t normally struggle with. This really hit home with me because all week I had been struggling with not feeling at home and I normally make everywhere feel like home. Later that night I had 2 other people come up to me and share things that they have been struggling with which isn’t normally a struggle for them.
That night as I was reading John 11 and verse 35 says “Jesus began to cry”. This spoke to me in that Jesus knows what our pain and sorrows are all about because he feels them too. He knew that everything was going to be ok so wasn’t afraid but still wept from the pain and sorrow of a dear friend dying and seeing the pain that his friends were in because of the death of their brother. In the same way we will have struggles but knowing that God is always with us is our hope in the tears. God then started to lay person after person on my heart to pay for them. I started to get overwhelmed with the number of people so I went in search of others to pray with me. When I was walking over to them I got really nervous to ask them to pray with me even though I knew that they would be excited and really want to pray with me. So I told the Devil to get lost and asked them. I was right they did want to and 5 of us headed out. We went around the property and prayed for all buildings that people were in them and claimed them for Jesus. As we started to pray for each building there was feelings of things creeping in the dark, the images of dark creatures and physical pain. As we prayed the images turned to weights being lifted, feelings of needing to be protective and and praying for the subtle spiritual warfare thatwas going on, and pictures of Jesus kissing the forehead for people while they slept to calm their dreams. It was very exciting to see God moving in this place.
This is now a call to all of you to pray for El Shadai orphanage God is going to do some powerful things there but this also means that the enemy is also going to be fighting hard to corrupt those plans.
