My teammate RaeRae has been fasting a lot so I began to think and pray about fasting for myself..
God is this a good idea? Is this from you?
I immediately began doubting..Spirirtual Gifts?? Do people even do group fasts? Eh, forget it..
For two days I kept it in until the Holy Spirit nudged me and I had to share this with my team.
They jumped on board, excited to see what God has for us. We decided to fast on the Thursdays of March.
Here’s the story of my first fast on the race.
For our third month on the race, we’ve been serving at Pop-Up Ministries in Pretoria, South Africa. We usually do various types of ministry at Pop-Up but today we went into the college town in Pretoria with German missionaries.
I wasn’t feeling hungry but this painful headache began creeping up on me.
We were each partnered with a German missionary and we went into the University of Pretoria to do what is called “street ministry” which means you go up to strangers and start talking and praying for them.
I was partnered with a rather talkative missionary and my headache was only getting worse..
We walked around for a long time looking for the entrance to the University of Pretoria.
I felt like my brain was bouncing around my skull with each step.
When we finally entered the University, we split up with our partners to begin ministry.
My partner and I stopped at the first student we saw. She was waiting for her bus. My partner began by telling a story from the bible until the student said she knew the story and that she goes to church.
Okay, good so she believes in Jesus. God, why are we here?
Then she said she was having a terrible day and began tearing as she said it was nice that God sent us to talk to her. I asked if she had a relationship with Jesus. She said yes, but not like you do. We asked to pray for her but she said she was too conservative to pray in public, then her bus came.
Afterwards, we were led to this picnic table with three women. Two of them left because they had class but a woman named Stacey remained. She told us she hates talking to strangers so its weird that she wants to talk to us. It didn’t surprise me because I could see in her eyes that she was lost. At first she told us she was just chillin’ on campus because she quit her job, but as she began to trust us, she told us that she actually got fired. She also opened up to us about her family. She has a son without a father who blames himself and her for his absence.
So we just spoke against the lies:
“You’re financial and relationship status doesn’t define who you are. Fact is, you’re God’s daughter. You are a strong mother and the enemy is feeding your son’s emptiness. You can change that, tell him its not his fault. Speak truth.”
Then my partner had a vision that Stacey was going to be a worship leader.
She was shocked, “How did you know I love to sing?”
“God didn’t forget about you, He loves you.”
The tears began flowing.
I looked through my sketchbook and ripped out a verse I wrote a while ago and gave it to her.
The rest of the day is a blur.
I remember throwing up on the car ride home, taking a hot shower and passing out in my tent when I got back.
When I woke up the next day (feeling much better!) I couldn’t remember anything about the day before until I saw this picture.
Stacey had written on the back of the page: “07/03/2013 The day my life changed.”
Whatever happened yesterday must’ve been interesting..
Then slowly everything came back to me.
God was using me even through my lack of physical presence.
The men and women of Pretoria need prayer. They know Jesus but most of them don’t follow Him or have a relationship with Him. When they hear truth, their hearts break because they well aware of their brokenness.
