Let me do a little update intro! Yes everyone, I’m alive and safe (hi mom!)! As a matter of fact, Africa is not what I expected! No, I have not gotten sick, no it’s not super hot here, and no I’m not living in a hut this month, but thanks for the concern! As a matter of fact, my entire squad (all 51 of us) are all staying with the same host! All squad month! I feel like we are in the early church because we have all had every meal together and we worship together just like at training camp! It’s amazing and God put me exactly where I am supposed to be! The property we are staying on has a preschool here and it is amazing to wake up every morning and go outside with a bunch of kids running up to you to hold them and play with them! Swaziland has the highest rated HIV and AIDS population out of all of the entire world. We are working at care points feeding and playing with children. The meal we feed them for that day, for many of the kids, is their only meal they will receive. God is moving here through us and it’s amazing! Okay, story time stuff!
So pretty much this entire month we have not had internet due to the fact that it’s Africa and also because we want to actually have time to be in the moment! It’s been amazing not to worry about any social media notifications I am not aware of. However, because we lost that distraction of the world, Satan has been using other tactics to mess with us and God’s work. The first four nights of staying here were true spiritual warfare. For some, it was nightmares, for others it was eerie senses and for one an odd influence. Personally, when I was young, from what I remember, I would sense spiritual stuff. As I got older, satan had other tactics to distract me from God so see others start to experience what I use to experience made me very upset. These nightmares were completely the work of the devil and his demons. The attacks started with people’s dreams which caused a lot of us to not want to sleep. Many of us were left sleep deprived because of this. With such long days, that is exactly what we did not need. It was difficult for many squad mates to make this place our home for the time being when it felt so creepy to be here.
I’m going to share with you guys my person experience and then tell you guys how God was there in these moments and how His light truly outshines everything! So by the second night of us sleeping here I was having, to what I thought, was an amazing dream. In my dream I was hanging out with a friend who happened to be a boy, and that boy in my dream had kissed me. When I woke up from that dream I physically felt someone giving me a hug even though no one was there. Because that dream was so peaceful for the rest of that day I believed that dream was from God, but after a while I realized that dream was far from God. The demons were using a boy as a distraction for me but tricked me into thinking it was something of God so I would not rebuke it. When I came to this realization I felt so disgusted and turned straight to God. After talking to others we all decided we needed to pray over our bedroom.
The night we prayed over the bed room I woke up at about 4 am and just started praying because I was so scared for about an hour, when I finally started falling back asleep I felt the pressure of someone on me again. I was so scared I left the room and went outside. I wasn’t sure if what I has experienced was me just making myself afraid and over exaggerating this second moment of feeling someone on me. While praying to God I asked Him why I was so confused, I felt like I couldn’t tell the difference between His voice, devil’s voice, or my voice anymore. I had been praying for more discernment for about a couple months so me being confused made me super upset. There was a moment between God and I while I was praying to Him outside complaining about how confused I was where I so clearly heard Him say (this was the most clear I had heard His voice) “Know the sound of my voice.” Wow, like a Shepard and His sheep God was having me go through all this confusing to know what not to listen for.
I went for a walk with my friends and found two very pretty feathers. I picked them up and took a picture with them and in the picture you can see a ring my friend Sarah gave me to wear for the race. Then I decided to keep the feathers and tape them in my journal.
Later that day we had worship together as a squad and addressed the spiritual warfare we had all been experiencing. My amazing leaders reminded us of how protected we are by God and the Angels. One of my squad leaders read Psalms 91:4 “He will cover you with feathers. He will shelter you with His wings,” this verse is is so crazy because I went for a walk with my friends that afternoon and found two very pretty feathers. I picked them up and took a picture with them and in the picture you can see a ring my friend Sarah (sometimes we call her warrior) gave me to wear for the race. Then I decided to keep the feathers and tape them in my journal. After that God gave me this crazy vision of a Native American chief feather headdress and then all of my squad mates and I holding bows and arrows read to fight as warriors against this war that the devil definitely did not win! The warfare was a huge sign that there are amazing things to come that the devil is trying to destroy but is not strong enough to!
Overall, good things are happening here! We just started ministry so I will be blogging about that later on. Thanks everyone for keeping up with me! Currently I do not have internet (But Ana how are you blogging right now!?) Well, voice in parenthesis, I am actually blogging from a document that will be given to my leadership to post for me! Later on I will add some pictures for this blog as well! Mom and Dad I am doing well and no I have not touched any animals. Supporters please continue to pray for me or help me in any way possible! My birthday is coming up soon (September 28th) so I will be unable to see your birthday wishes. God is amazing me every day! I feel so honored to be able to love all of the people here in Swaziland!
