So no more than three hours after we left Agnes’ house, she
showed up at our door. We welcomed her in and sat and chatted with her for a
few minutes. After getting to know her a bit and asking about her family, Agnes
admitted her real reason for coming. She wanted to accept Christ and begin a
personal relationship with Him. We were all so excited for her!
After praying for Agnes we continued hanging out with her
for a bit until our translator disappeared for several minutes. We felt bad
because we had no way of communicating with her, so we decided to take her down
the way to a small shop and buy some sodas. When we came back, we were told
that we needed to preach for a small service that was going on inside the
church. My teammate Janee had planned a message for a youth service, but only a
few people had showed up. We were told that we should just shorten the message
to about ten minutes or so, just to share something before the few people left.
I felt bad for Janee since she had put a lot of time in to preparing a message
and I knew she didn’t want to butcher. I suggested that someone just get up
there and give an impromptu message. Of course everyone looked at me (well I
guess it was my suggestion…). I thought about it for a second and thought, “You
know, this would be a really cool challenge for me, and it doesn’t have to be
long so I should just volunteer.” So, the plan was set and we walked over to
the church. When I saw that there were so few people, I suggested that we sit
around in a circle to make things less formal. The circle consisted of three of
my teammates, two church members, an elder, one of the pastor’s daughters, the
translator, and myself. I scanned through my Bible really quick and decided to
talk about a passage from the book of James, which I had read a few days
before. It was really cool to see the Holy Spirit take over. I prefaced my
message with the fact that I only had something short to share and it would
take about ten minutes. An hour later…I was wrapping things up. It was a really
cool experience and I learned so much by just taking a leap and trusting that
God would give me the words.
As I was about to close in prayer, I suddenly had the idea
that we should pair off and pray for our partners. I was going to be paired
with Agnes, but I asked our translator Joyce to be with her instead (I figured
that Agnes probably didn’t know how to pray and I didn’t want her to be
uncomfortable). We all split off into our groups and began praying. (I was praying
with the elder who only spoke Swahili and it was really cool praying for one
another in different languages) As we were praying, all of the sudden I heard
Agnes screaming. We all opened our eyes to see Agnes’ arms flailing around,
shaking, and her body going violent. She fell to the ground as her body
convulsed and the men and women all gathered around holding her limbs.
Immediately everyone stood around her and started casting out the demons inside
her. It was a crazy moment. People were yelling in Swahili and English and I
allowed myself a few seconds of wide-eyed shock before I joined in. I’ve cast
out demons before while on the race, but this time just seemed so different. I
felt so spiritually charged; it was unbelievable. I was fully yelling at them
thing telling it they had no place being inside her and in the name of Jesus
they had to flee. I’m usually a little more on the conservative side- I never
yell, so it was pretty new for me and it actually felt really good. And as if
the day hadn’t been filled with enough new experiences, I started praying in
tongues at the top of my voice. I had never spoken in tongues in front of my
teammates (or anyone really), so that just added to the list.
After we prayed for a bit, Agnes’ body became peaceful and eventually
we helped her up. We all sat back in our seats and then closed in prayer. When
we left the church, we went back to the house and finished our sodas from
earlier. We talked to Agnes for a while and she said that she felt so much more
peaceful and happy. She had told Joyce as they were praying that her chest felt
very heavy, and as Joyce began teaching Agnes how to pray, Agnes started
avoiding eye-contact and acting strange. That’s when all the manifestations
started.
In the end, we gave Agnes a Bible, wrote down a bunch of
verses we all wanted her to read, walked her home, and agreed to meet tomorrow
for another church service.
Tanzania….already full of surprises…
