Before leaving the United States I went and visited my mom’s friend Pearlene. She frequently goes to Uganda to do mission work and was telling me that you can see glitter in the air in the pictures. To explain: she showed me a picture of a night time worship in the streets of Uganda. It literally looked as if there was glitter in the air. Sparkles were falling all over the place and it seemed as if no one was reacting. She said the reason no one was reacting was because you couldn’t see the glitter in real life, only in the photos. She said that the people she’s talked to told her that was the Holy Spirit more evident than ever. (Sorry Pearlene if I’m messing any of this up) Once she told me about this I thought it was super cool but she is such an awesome woman of God I doubted I would actually experience anything on the level that she did.
Our first couple of days of ministry consisted of going door to door in different colonies praying for people the pastor knew. It was exciting but I just felt as if nothing was really happening. Maybe my heart wasn’t in the right spot but it all felt kind of hum drum to me. I was really struggling with the fact that they would run to the Americans for prayer. As awesome as that may sound, my team and I all really got the feeling that they were expecting us to heal them because our prayers mean more because we’re American. They didn’t seem to understand that it is God that heals, not us, and their prayers are just as powerful as ours.
Then we went to the BC Colony. This village is considered the backward cast, untouchable, least of these. Upon arriving we noticed the flies were worse there than anywhere else. The stench was wretched, and naked children ran everywhere. They gathered what might have been the only plastic chairs in the village and brought them to us to sit down. Then we did a “drama” of David and Goliath, sang songs, and Brody preached the Gospel. In return, they sang songs for us and some of the little girls performed a choreographed dance. Their style of worship is beautiful. All of the women cover their heads and everyone, even the children, hold up their hands in praise. After all of that took place, the preacher told us to break up into three groups, one translator per group, and people would start lining up for prayer.
When we first arrived at this village a boy came up to me and told me he wanted to pour kerosene on a rag so he could light us on fire (translated). Of course, this was the little boy that was brought to me to pray for. His mother pushed him through the crowd as he struggled and fought to get away. I called the rest of my team over to help me and we began praying for him. I won’t lie, I expected some big Hollywood style exorcism but thank God that’s not what happened because I would’ve cried. As we laid hands on this boy his body began quivering underneath our hands. He wriggled and writhed and tried everything he could to get away from us but we prayed for him for 30-45 minutes. Finally the pastor came over and talked to him and he said he was okay. We could tell he was not okay. He ran over to his mother and pushed her down out of anger. I was struggling with fear so I went to sit down and pray. When I opened my eyes the boy was right in front of my face. I screamed it startled me so badly. After that we got up and continued praying. I noticed Kaitlyn wasn’t around and I found her entertaining a huge group of children as she usually is. I thought it was such an opportune time to take a picture so I did and this is how it turned out:
There was glitter in the air. All I could focus on was the darkness going on and fear so God shows me he’s there. I’ve never felt such a tangible presence in my life. A couple of minutes later I tried to take the photo again in the exact same location and the glitter was gone. But it was there long enough for me to see it and for God to let me know he was there with us. It was so amazing I don’t feel as if I’m doing it any justice.
In other news: I miss my mama and daddy! It was my dad’s birthday on the 15th and I missed it, I got to call him and tell him happy birthday but it just wasnt the same. I have a sunburn on my ears so bad it has blisters. OUCH! Even the Texas sun doesn’t compare to India’s sun. But the pastor installed a shower!!!! No more bucket showers!!! I feel so clean for the first time since I’ve left DC. We only have 13 days left here until we leave for Nepal. I’m excited for Nepal, but I sure am going to miss India.
