Last month in South Africa, our ministry was primarily doing outreach in squatter camps in the Johannesburg surrounding area. It was difficult, challenging and stretching. But it was so incredibly rewarding.
I have a plethora of stories I could share from those mornings and afternoons walking down dirt roads in the communities, following the Lord’s direction. In fact, I’ve got a month’s worth of them. However, one of the most impactful encounters I experienced happened during our team’s second to last day of ministry. This is the story of Jackie.
I had a vision of Jackie a few weeks prior to meeting her. When we first began outreach, the interns with Impact Africa challenged us to seek the Lord for specific direction and/or people He wanted to lead us to. I asked God to show me someone he wanted me to spend time with, and he showed me a woman sweeping the pavement in front of her home. Her head was wrapped and her smile took over the entire vision-you could just feel her joy and sincerity. She kept laughing and my heart swelled with the idea of meeting her.
It just took a little bit of time. I had almost forgotten about her.
Our second to last day of ministry, my small team set out and began talking with a mama in her front yard. All was going per usual, but I knew in my gut that God had someone else in store for us. I looked to the intern with us and abruptly said, “Dawson, I think we need to leave. This isn’t right.” She nodded, trusting my discernment. I got up and said goodbye to the mama, and we exited through the gate and stood in the middle of the street. It hadn’t been right.
We prayed for the Father to lead us to who we were supposed to meet with that morning. “We’re surrounded by angels right now,” Dawson gasped when we finished. “We’re going to walk straight down this street and someone will literally want us to come talk with them.” Sounds like a deal to me.
So we walked for a few minutes until a woman in her front yard saw us. Her face lit up as she exclaimed, “Have you come to feed me Jesus?!” We all laughed, nervousness and excitement welling up within us. We had grown so accustomed to being the ones to initiate conversation. It was usually more along the lines of “Hello! Are you busy? Can we come in?”. But this woman called us.
“Yes mama-we can feed you Jesus!” I exclaimed as we walked through her front gate. Her face bore the lines of age and wisdom, her spirit radiated humility and joy. She informed us her name was Jackie.
The next two hours were filled with washing clothes and hanging them on the line, fetching water from the pump down the street, and sitting in a circle of plastic chairs and talking about Jesus.
Jackie shared with us how she was “born-again” and how her relationship with Christ had transformed her life. We passed around nuggets of wisdom the Lord had laid on our hearts and shared testimonies, laughter and tears amidst the conversation. I then noticed that Jackie had bracelets of string on her wrists and ankles. We had been taught that different colored bracelets represent different things in various religions present in the communities. I had seen many unbelievers with these bracelets on, convinced that their ancestors or church “prophets” would heal them through the bracelets. But Jackie was a believer…why did she have them on?
As I was processing all of this in my head, Dawson interrupted the conversation, looking at Jackie, “Mama, I feel like the Lord wants me to ask you right now why you’re wearing those bracelets. Can you please explain their meaning to us?”
They had been prayed over for her at church and were keeping the pain away.
“And what pain is that?”
“I have terrible arthritis,” she explained. “My hands, wrists, legs and ankles used to hurt so badly. But since I’ve worn these bracelets, all my pain has disappeared.” Wow…it didn’t make sense.
We went on to encourage her that whatever was taking away her pain was temporary, and that we truly felt in our hearts that it was not possible for those bracelets to actually take the pain away. “Mama, do you believe that Jesus could heal you fully if you took those bracelets off?” we asked. “Do you think he could do that for you?”
She was silent for a moment, her gaze to the ground. When she looked up at us, her eyes glistened, “Yes. I do believe he could take it all away.”
Before we could respond, she leapt up out of her chair and grabbed a pair of scissors. “In fact, let’s cut them off right now,” she laughed. We watched in awe as she snipped those threads off, smiling in the presence of the Father’s goodness.
“How do you feel, Jackie? Do you have any pain?”
The answer was yes. It had come back immediately, spreading from where the bracelets had been into her hands and feet. We asked her if we could pray for healing right then and there. She agreed, and we laid hands on her and all began to call out to the Lord.
We finished praying. “How do you feel?”
“The pain has left my ankles, but now I feel it specifically in my right hand.”
So we prayed again. And the pain moved again.
We prayed for healing for Jackie four separate times. Four.
The final time, we all stood up. The pain was gone from everywhere on her body, expect for the bottoms of her feet. She had never had pain there before. This was new. All of us, including Jackie, called out to our Father God for healing once more. We jumped up and down and praised the King and believed that he would heal her fully.
One last time, “How do you feel, Jackie?”
“I feel no pain AT ALL. It is all gone.”
We rejoiced with our sister and then realized we were late to meet our bus. Sometimes the Spirit keeps you from being on time, ya know? I said goodbye to Jackie with a warm embrace, and we embarked on our walk back to the group. We were giddy, lemme tell ya. My teammate Levi, Dawson and I could not believe what had just happened. As we walked along the red dirt road, stepping to avoid the grey water, I had a major realization.
“You guys!! I had a vision a few weeks ago of someone I felt like the Lord wanted me to meet. I now realize that that woman was Jackie!” Cue the giddiness again. We were ecstatic.
~
My biggest take away from last month in South Africa was the knowledge that I’ve been given so much authority in King Jesus! I am his beloved daughter, a direct heir to the throne of Heaven. When we call upon the name of the Lord, we can heal people through his power. We can witness souls transformed and lives given to Christ. It’s perhaps the most beautiful thing I know, and how blessed am I that I got to experience his love in such tangible ways!
Our last night in South Africa, our ministry hostinformed us that our two teams had talked with over 500 people, witnessed 19 salvations, and experienced 10 healings in one. single. month. That’s unreal, y’all!
**AND we can make that 11 healings because my dear friend, Victoria, prayed over me that I would be free of headaches, and I haven’t had a single one in over a month–can I get an Amen?!
Sometimes all I know is that God is good. But knowing and believing that is more than enough.
Love y’all to pieces!
-K
