Sorry folks, no pictures this month. I’m in Dondo, Mozambique which is in the outskirts of the second largest city in Mozambique. So it’s a blessing I even have internet, but it’s spotty and terrible! Maybe at debrief in 2 and a half weeks I’ll locate some internet and treat y’all to a photo blog.
Charles said this morning that we’re nearly halfway through our ministry month, which is blowing my mind right now. Time is passing in such a bizarre fashion. I feel like the days go at a perfectly normal, sometimes slow pace, but then here I am, pondering my past week and a half and wondering how it’s possible I only have one more full week of ministry before we make the HELLISH travel into Swaziland. Most definitely not looking forward to getting into someone’s sketchy van/bus and making the 18 (maybe longer?) hour drive into Swaziland. Getting here was all of 82 hours of travel. The last leg was the worst. We bartered with some dude at 8:30pm in the big city of Maputo and asked to pay our tickets in advance for his bus/van and asked if we could sleep in the van, since he wasn’t going to leave until 4am the next morning. He gladly took our money and we propped ourselves up against a window, while Charles kept watch at the door and looked over our stuff. Well, LONG story short, the next 8 hours several drunk and boisterous men came in and out trying to get us to move and get out…singing and smoking and drinking and screaming “THIS IS AFRICA, BABY!� as if we weren’t already aware of the awesome stereotype these drunk men were living up to. So, none of us slept, and we left the next morning while the packed bus was full of us World Racers and many drunk Mozambiquans still drinking and dancing and making our lives hell. But then, 15 hours later we arrived at Iris Ministry into the loving hands of the staff here. And it’s been smooth sailing since.
Our ministry is super laid back and spirit-led. The have no agenda for us. They have several ministries around here they have their hands in, and if we feel called to help, we’re more than welcome. So far, Monday is a day of prayer and reading, where we all screen fast from our computers and focus on the Lord. Lauren and I also travel into the city of Beira and grocery shop for the team for the week. It’s a nice chore; I’ve missed the little things, like grocery shopping in America, so it’s a nice outing for me.
But for this blog, I want to give you a vision of our hospital ministry. Tuesdays and Thursdays we go to the hospital and pray over the sick and dying for a few hours. It’s a really sad, depressing thing. It’s also why I feel I’m here. I love hospital ministry, which is a weird thing to say, but when I went to Malawi, Africa in 2009, I did hospital ministry and came alive for the first time. There’s something very validating for me as a daughter of the Great Healer when I put my hands on the infirm and pray. I haven’t seen a miracle yet, but I’m convinced the spiritual climate shifts in a major way when I speak. Yesterday I met Jo-keen who might not have lived through the night. He was in the hospital because he’s vomiting and coughing up blood. And anyone in the medical field can tell you when you’re to that point, a lot of the time it’s fatal. The crazy thing is, this isn’t tuberculosis, or some stomach cancer, but two nights ago a spirit (conjured by local witchcraft) came to Jo-keen when he was sleeping and offered him food. He ate it and woke up poisoned. And this is seen as a real medical condition because guess what American readers?? IT IS REAL HERE. Witchcraft is real. Say it with me, out loud — WITCHCRAFT IS REAL. Americans may not have to deal with it as much, but in Africa it’s their religion, it’s how they get revenge, how they win soccer games, how they cure upset stomachs, how they make money…it’s everything. So Jo-keen might have pissed someone off recently and now he might be dead.
When I went into his room yesterday I felt physically ill with nausea. Which is odd for me, because I was a mortician for a while and I have an iron stomach. There is not much visually that disturbs me. Sights, smells, textures — all that gets wrecked when you deal with the dead for a living. But what I’m saying is, this room sickened me. We prayed for about an hour with him and his family, and even though his condition didn’t improve in front of us, the spiritual climate of the room changed. He was also hexed and wasn’t able to speak, but after we prayed he could speak and tell us about the vision. We blessed water and had him drink it and he and his family called on the name of Jesus for help. I suppose I’ll find out Thursday what happened to him.
So, that’s a little of what’s been going on here. Not exactly the best of news, but the next blog I’ll give an update on Jo-keen. Just keep him in your prayers, he’s a young guy and his brothers and sisters were there alongside of him, watching him suffer. Also, keep declaring the victory out loud. I heard someone say, “the greatest deception the devil ever accomplished was convincing the world he didn’t exist�. It’s so easy for us Americans to deny the satanic, because we rarely experience it. We have our other distractions and idols the devil uses to keep our eyes unfocused on Jesus (i.e. internet, food, television, our careers, Hollywood drama, and so on). Here, the devil is in your face, manipulating you and ruining your life. Luckily, we have the victory of the war, right? It’s won. But there are still battles to be fought every day for people like Jo-keen who are in way over their head and need us intercessors to call out loud his victory. Please join me!!
