At the end of the regional awakening my squad attended in South Africa I was given a prophetic word sheet by one of my squad leaders.
Darkness and Light.
I didn’t know what it meant or how it was going to relate to my life. So I tucked it away in my bible knowing that at some point I would find meaning for it later in the month.
We arrived in Botswana on the 5th of February and went to a little village named Ngrange inside the Okovango Delta. This area is one of the poorest areas in Botswana. Ridden with people who have HIV/AIDS these are the needy: the one’s who live with no electricity, no running water and eat one meal a day if they’re lucky. Ngrange is full of darkness. And every night we hear that darkness manifest itself in witchcraft, alcoholism and abuse that destroys families and lives throughout the village. But I also got to see victory overtake that darkness.
Here are a few of those stories:
Njungu is a woman we worked with everyday. Her parents were involved in witchcraft. At 5 years of age her parents were using her and something made her fall backwards to where she hit her head and she’s been paralyzed ever since. A few years ago Her husband got sick and went to his parents house where He could be taken care of and ended up passing away. His parents buried him and didn’t even tell Njungu he had passed away. She was unable to make peace with her dead husband, who was taken away without notice. Her brother later tried to rape her but she was able to fight him off. Her son refuses to go to school because then no one will be able to get her and her five kids water or food. Darkness tried to take her life. And since it couldn’t take her life it tried to take everything in her life. Yet I’ve never met anyone who radiates the joy of the Lord more than her. She smiles and laughs in a way that lights up the house.
Ntusong is a 21 year old in the village who was paralyzed at birth. She has mobility only in her right hand and neck. Her mother died when she was young and so her aunt took her in to get the 300 pula (30 american dollars) and the basket of food the government gives to people with disabilities which she uses to support her alocholism. Ntusong lives in a house that takes time for your eyes to adjust because of the physical darkness. We greet her with songs, we bath her and change the diaper that she sits in til the next time we see her, we were even able to get her in chair once. She has the kind of life that makes you question whether it’s even worth living. Yet she continues to fight. She refuses to let people feed her because that is the one thing she can do for herself. She wants to read books. She chooses to live in the light, even though her world is surrounded by physical darkness.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” John 1:5
Every morning at 8 am I would head across the street to the kindergarten class while listening to all the kids yell “Makua! Makua!” until they run into my arms. We’d feed them soft porridge, which is the only food they’ll get for the day. We’d sing songs and play games all while telling them that Jesus loves them. Kids would be falling asleep in class exhausted from being used in their family witchcraft the night before. The kids involved in witchcraft are easily identifiable by the string in their ears or around their necks. But we show them what the love of Jesus looks like. The shouts of Makua turned into shouts of my actual name. And high fives turned into hugs and kisses. They even began memorizing songs about Jesus, and these are kids who before could barely speak Setswana or English. I believe that even through the language barrier we get to be demonstrations of the Lord’s light, because we carry His light with us wherever we go.
“In the same way, let your light shine before others…” Matthew 5:16
On one of the last days I fell super ill. I was sitting down by the river when suddenly I began to feel feverish. I walked back to the house and asked my teammate if she could see the symptoms or if I was just exhausted because I know that the African heat will wipe you out almost as fast as a fever will. She said I felt fine so I went to lay down hoping a nap would help. Almost instantly when I laid down I got chills, a fever of over 100 and aches that took over my entire body to the point that I was in tears from the pain. I cried and was waiting for my teammates and host moms to come home knowing that the Lord had done some many amazing things this month that He could heal me too. They prayed, I cried in their arms pleading for God to heal me and then I fell asleep. Soon after I woke up from a nap completely healed! They even told me I looked healthier than I have all month. My hosts and I sang, danced and praised the Lord. Because what could’ve been a horrible travel day turned into one of a testimony of the Lord’s healing love for me.
Here’s the reality of life in Ngarange – taken from Revelation 21:23
“Ngarange does not need the sun and the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light…”
Because every time darkness fails, and it will fail eventually, the light of the Lord shines brighter and brighter. And eventually it will be so radiant that even the sun and the moon aren’t needed for the Lord to reveal himself to His people. Maybe prophecies that are given to us aren’t always about us directly. Maybe they’re about what we get to be apart of. And for one month I got to be apart of seeing bits and pieces of Ngarange coming out of Darkness and into His marvelous light.
