Today, we experienced our first Zambian church service!
Like usual, we woke up with a plan that didn’t really pan out like we thought it would.
The plan was for us to meet up with some friends at “Big Tree” and catch a ride to a church together. Something was lost in translation and my team arrived at “Big Tree” and we pretty much knew instantly it wasn’t where we were supposed to be. Because we didn’t have a phone number to contact the people we were meeting, we stuck around for a little bit, just making sure they weren’t going to show up, but then we started walking in the direction of our hostel, trying to decide what to do next.
We had found another church earlier in the week (the one we prayed over in the video in this blog) so we caught a taxi and headed there. We were about an hour late for the 4-hour service, but it turned out just fine (and we weren’t the only latecomers! Yay for “Africa time!”)
The service was one of my most interesting services so far: a sermon meets Bible study discussion meets dance party meets loud praying and declarations… good stuff.
After the service, we met with the pastor for an impromptu meeting. We explained who we are, why we are in Livingstone, and we thanked him for welcoming us so warmly. We put feelers out- did he, perhaps, have/know of any ministries that could use some assistance for a few weeks? We made plans to meet again this week to discuss options.
During this meeting, we met one of the “ministers” of the church- a young man named Timothy. Pastor stepped away to deal with a couple matters and Timothy opened up the floor for us to ask him questions. My teammate Kayla asked him what the people of Livingstone needed the most.
His answer: Deliverance.
He then dove into the history of the Church in Zambia- Christianity has only been around for a relatively short time (20-30 years in his estimate) but, before that, witchcraft reigned. He talked about the various demons and spirits that plague Livingstone, ruining people’s finances, causing sickness, and blinding people to the Truth.
What he said fascinated me. I have wondered how much of an impact spiritual warfare and, specifically, demons have on our world. From an atheist’s perspective (or, really, from many Christian’s perspective as well), many of the issues he was discussing could be caused by a person’s life choices. Is there a demonic force behind poverty? Or does blaming a third-party, such as a demon, remove the feeling of responsibility to do something about your circumstances, perpetuating the poverty mindset? Or is it both? Or neither?
As he was talking, I was reminded of the Egyptians of Moses’ time. Does attributing a nation’s poverty pandemic to a demon, perhaps, give that demon more power than it should have (similar to a god of Egypt- the “god of poverty,” as it were)?
I know nothing and none of the above was written to offend or alarm- it is just some musings I had this morning. I would love your thoughts on the subject.
Spiritual warfare, man. Tricky stuff. I’m glad I’m on the winning side!
Fighting the good fight,
-L (Xena)
P.S. This will never cease to amaze me. The process is fascinating as well- they literally balance the baby on their backs while they situate the wrap. So cool!
