I am in the van, writing away, trying to look up often enough to not get carsick. We just crossed the border from Mozambique into Swaziland. It’s beautiful here, a complete change of landscape from the tropical beaches of Vilanculos. It’s rocky and hilly with shorter trees, and a more arid landscape. Honestly it looks a lot like Bend, OR.
Yesterday we left the bush in the morning. It was an intense few days of working with a Zion Christian Church. They mix Christianity and traditional practices like ancestral worship. Our team was the first group of missionaries that they have allowed to come into their church. We don’t agree with all their practices but being invited to minister at the church was a great honor and a huge open door for future mission teams.
The pastor decided that we would end our time there with a 6 am prayer service, but in typical African practice we had coffee at 6 and started the service around 6:30 am. Coffee is a ritual in the bush, morning and night they set a beautiful table with a lace table cloth, wash our hands by pouring hot water on them, then serve the Nescafe, powdered creamer and sugar. After that the carafe of hot water is brought. As you can guess I love this tradition, but not just because of the caffeine. I really enjoyed the time it gave our team to be together.
Team Salt has been through a lot of changes this month! Amanda decided to leave the World Race and Andrew was reunited with the team after a few weeks in Swaziland. It was a huge range of emotions to be so sad to have Amanda go and at the same time be so happy to have Andrew back. Despite everything that’s happened I’ve enjoyed being with my team more in the last week then ever before, even though I really miss Amanda’s friendship.
As the service was beginning a woman came up, clearly not in her right mind. She was sobbing, crying, choking and snot was running all down her face. I had prayed for her baby and for her the day before. The pastor said that…
Quick side note, I just saw the most beautiful thing. On the right side of the van the huge golden red sun was sinking and at the same height on the left side the moon full and luminescent was rising. Everything seems bigger in Africa, especially the sunsets. We just drove past a sign that warns pedestrians about the lions and elephants, all I’ve spotted so far is a family of warthogs, but even that is pretty cool.
Ok, back to yesterday… The pastor said that she had been possessed by a demon before and was scared that it would come back. At this point our team was getting a little more used to demon-possessed people, I know it sounds slightly weird and sensational, but here it’s just a fact of life. We had already experienced a few people manifesting demons. Africa always reminds me of how real the spiritual realm is, it’s much more on the surface here then in the United States.
The pastor, Simon asked me to pray for the woman, so I knelt down to talk with and pray for her while the worship went on. While I was with her Simon begin to pray and about 7 people manifested demons. One man near me was snarling, growling and bearing his teeth. Other women were moaning and groaning, it was intense. I just continued to pray in Jesus’ name and remind my self that Jesus is stronger then any evil force. After Simon finished praying the people quieted and the service went on like normal. I finished praying for the woman and went back to my seat. I thought and hoped at that point that the “excitement” was over, but it was only just starting.
To be continued…
