1. God healed my hearing! On March 17, during a night of prophecy and worship, my teammate, Liz, felt led to ask me to stand for prayer over my ears. I’ve been – independently – praying that my hearing impairment (caused by surgery on my mastoid) would be healed. Thirteen of my fellow Racers (all of my team, all of “Dream Team,” and my Squad leader/BFF Becky) gathered around me, laid hands and began to pray. I begged God like never before, confessing over and over how devoutly I believed that He could heal me, literally tuning out the prayers and praises going on all around me. The next thing I knew, a force I can’t explain rushed my body and I fell backward. A few people caught me and I stood up, met by Spirit-crazed screaming from a few other people who had been touching me and felt a volt of shock go into them. I confess, I freaked out a bit and left the circle, overwhelmed by what had just taken place. I sat down by myself, but shortly Liz and Anthony were there with me, continuing to lay hands, pray and encourage me to proclaim healing over myself. I kept plugging my left ear to test my right, and I could not believe what I heard! Two years worth of foggy, unclear, muffled hearing is absolutely wiped away! My fellow J Squad-ers keep walking around and whispering on my right side, and I HEAR EVERY WORD! God is great and I am healed!
2. Hymn night at debrief! For six months I’ve been whining about wanting to have an all-J Squad a capella hymn night, so during debrief at the beginning of this month, Shelli challenged me to lead one. Lesson learned: YOUR VISION = YOUR MISSION. I roped squad-mates, Timothy Haley, Alex Moulds and Darren Ma into helping me and together we formed the hit sensation quartet, “Old School HYMZ!” Great harmony or rhythm we have not, but the four of us led J Squad in singing any assimilation of songs from “way back when.” Best part – we did so smack in the middle of the bar of the hostel we were staying in, and some of the patrons loved it so much they joined in! God doesn’t need beautifully harmonized voices or extra-flashy venues to rock out!
3. All night prayer! The founders of Zehandi Missions, Johan and Marie, challenged everyone working on their property this month (almost 50 of us in all!) to participate in a round-the-clock prayer night for the Mission. We were told that Johan had received three warning signs concerning Spiritual Warfare, and he asked us to pray for wisdom or words from God regarding these things. I’ve never done ANYTHING like this before, but I was game, and when our 3:00-4:00 AM time slot rolled around, Becky and I rolled out of my tent and headed to the prayer hut, ready to do work! The whole walk there I kept hearing the same song lyrics over and over in my head. Once at the hut, Becky busted out her iPod to play some worship music and the first lyrics to play were the same one’s I’d been hearing: “All consuming fire. You’re our heart’s desire. Living flame of love. Come baptize us!”
4. Dancing at Living Waters! Part of this month’s “relationship building” ministry has been attending local churches on Sunday morning and joining in their worship. Our first Sunday both Just Love and Dream Team chose to visit a local Assemblies of God church called Living Waters. From the moment we walked in, I knew it was going to be fun! My friend, Anthony Pinto, and I sat in the very back, content, aside from our co-team rendition of “Down Deep” in front of the entire body, to enjoy the perks of what I like to call being a “Back Row Baptist.” You can clap if you want, read if you want, sleep if you want, etc. Not quite what God had in mind, apparently! While Anthony ad I stood for a worship song, a lady named Nali joined us. She was clearly happy to be in church and before we knew it, she had us dancing right along with her! Apparently this was entertaining to most, as we rapidly drew uite an audience. Nali leaned to my ear and said, “You go to the front.” HECK NO! I instantly worried over what others would think about me taking part in this style of worship that I’ve never done before. Just as instantly, God seemed to nudge, “Who are you dancing for?” TOUCHE’, Big Guy. So, led by Nali, Anthony and I made our way to the front and joined our Malawian brothers and sisters in one of the most fun times of worship I’ve ever had!!! I can’t wait to try that at home!
5. Chips and Fanta! A major chunk of this month’s ministry has been Outreach, where we would literally go into any one of the 12 surrounding Muslim villages and simply “make friends.” On one such outing, I befriended several local children – Jim, Edina, Fatima, Zwani, and Faghila– and spent several hours playing along the beachside with them. We climbed trees, ventured onto an abandoned fishing boat, took a million silly pictures and giggled at our severe language barrier. Eventually I met up with Liz and Karen who had a few little friends of their own, and we wandered in Carolina Rest House and Restaurant, hoping to find a bathroom. Our flock of kiddos swarmed the yard of the place, munching on a strange looking fruit that had fallen from the surrounding trees. I asked one of the hotel staff, Stewart, what they were eating and in telling me the name he added, “They are hungry.” My heart broke! I realized how little I could really do for these children. I couldn’t tell them stories about Jesus – they wouldn’t understand my English, at all. I couldn’t heal their runny noses. I couldn’t buy them desperately needed new clothes. But I could feed them something. So two bottles of Orange Fanta and one large plate of chips (French fries) later – we prayed that God would multiply the feast – we had seven very happy little buddies. We likewise prayed that the Holy Spirit would help them understand that this was a demonstration of Christ’s love for each of them!
6. Listening Prayer with Becky and Liz! Throw together three close girl friends, place them in a beachside setting, give them absolutely no agenda and what do you get? If you’re on the World Race, you get a suggestion from one of them to do ‘Listening Prayer’ for one another. Cool! Not much will fill you up quicker than having two incredible women of God praying over you and spewing out all kinds of amazing things that they hear Him saying on your behalf! As I lay with eyes closed, listening to waves crashing on nearby rocks and feeling totally at piece, Liz and Becky spoke over me things like, “God is reminding you of his promises,” “You are meant to be a fisher of men,” and “He is freeing you of your past!” Just another day of The Race. Speaking life! Fighting for one another! Calling each other up!
7. Truck Bed Surfing with Laura and Karen! Natural air-conditioning in Malawi comes in the form of flying down 20 kilometers of questionably-constructed road while standing in the bed of a pickup truck with as many as thirty of your new and incredibly close pals! Laura, Karen and I had the great fortune of basically having a truck bed to ourselves for one such venture, and spent the ride standing side-by-side, smiling wide as wind whipped our hair, sun danced on our skin and a few bugs slammed into our faces. Locals walking along the roadside got quite the kick out of three Mzungus (white people) waving and yelling, “Hello!” to everyone we passed! Smiles truly are contagious, and even if only for a moment, we brightened a lot of days! Ministry truly never stops
8. Fishing with Felix! Our month of ministry in Malawi also consisted of a fair amount of manual labor – I hauled bricks, cleared boundary lines, transplanted trees and helped wire a house – but my favorite act of physical exertion came on a Sunday afternoon when I watched a family of fishermen working together to haul in the day’s cast. What looked like great fun turned out to be REALLY hard work when I offered to help pull in the line, but I enjoyed getting to truly feel like a local. Our conversation was pretty limited, but I hope Felix and his family understood that this crazy white woman who wanted to help them was really just a representation of Jesus. For a full account of this story, check out “Fishing for Men in Malawi.”
9.Swimming in a Rain Storm, in Africa! One of the most important lessons I have learned on the Race is the importance of “taking time away.” What better place to do that, this month, than a nearby lake-front resort called Livingstonia? On one of my off days, Claire and Becky whisked me away to this grand establishment – complete with pool, restaurant and Wifi – for some time to relax and recharge. Maybe it was this month’s home fast, but for some reason I have really been missing my pool, of late, so I was thrilled with the prospect of taking a dip. Only one problem – on that particular day, usually sunny, scorching hot Malawi turned into a cool, windy and rainy mess. For an hour or so, I brooded over my misfortune, down right ticked off that my day of respite had been spoiled by Malawi’s crazy weather pattern. Then something just clicked. I’m in Africa. There’s a pool – a non-parasite infested pool, at that! (Lake Malawi is pretty questionable!) Who cares if it’s raining?!?! So in I dove. Yes, it was cold. Yes, I was the only one in the water. Yes, several people (including my Squad Leaders) probably thought I was nuts. But, yes, I can check “Swim in a Rain Storm in Africa” off of my bucket list. YOLO.
10.Playing Netball! I’ve been missing organized sports like crazy, so when our contact, Johan, asked me to plan an afternoon of sports for everyone on the property, I was totally game! He had one stipulation – all girls had to play Netball. What’s Netball? Basically, it’s basketball. Without a backboard. And with completely different rules. And man is it fun! We combined World Race, Passport, Zehandi and locals to make two teams, and though the majority had never played, we weren’t terrible (that’s my professional analysis!) I loved getting to see the competitive sides of my teammates – Laura and Monica are vicious! – and it was awesome getting to play with the local girls. Sports united people, plain and simple. We didn’t have to talk. We just played. We got dirty. We got thorns in our feet and broke a few shoes, and all-in-all, we laughed a lot! Oh, and my team won! That’s what really matters!
11.Photography Worship! Since being on the Race, I’ve discovered that one way I really love to worship God is by capturing photos of other people while they are worshiping – however they choose to do so. Luckily no one has seemed to mind this stealthy Mzungu walking around snapping pictures of while they are praising God! Check out my next blog (it'll be a photo blog, hopefully loaded shortly) to see my 11 Favorite Worship Photos from this month!
Be Blessed,
Ashlee
***Special Note: I drove this month! On the wrong side of the road. On the wrong side of the car! No one was hurt during this process. 🙂
