We started off the day in prayer. We prayed for God to do something with us, let His words shine through us. To be honest, I was excited, but not really sure why. Evangelizing has always had a bad connotation to me because there seemed to be not a whole lot of freedom in it. “Believe in Jesus because I do and look how great my life is…” followed by pride and the eventual junk mail. While I know that Jesus is the Good News, my mind was tarnished with the commercialization of American Christianity.
As we set down the unpaved paths of Nakuru, I was filled with joy; A joy that I think can only be described as divine. Looking back, if you take only at face value what I was doing, it doesn’t look like much. Here I am, going door to door in a predominately Catholic neighborhood, telling people about Jesus. A thought lingered in my mind, “What are you going to tell people about Jesus that they haven’t heard?”
However, as you may have read from my previous blogs, I made a decision to trust God. “Whatever happens today,” I thought, “This is God’s war, not mine.” We walked up to apartment buildings that made “The Projects” in America look like five star hotels. Naked babies ran by in a whirlwind, followed by waves of scolding Swahili. I had a wave of kids come over and ask, “Howareyou?” and as I proceeded to teach them how to beatbox (which was surprisingly easy).
We knocked on a few doors, and I was asked to share whatever God put on my heart. Most of it was things I was currently learning in Christ: being free, learning that God is much bigger than my plans, not living like an orphan but living like a son of the King most high. I tried my best to not spray a “This is how Christians talk” veneer over it. I wanted it to be a witness, not a reciting of the “right answers”.
Many seemed to be refreshed by some of the things I said. (Or rather what was translated from what I said). As we entered the last compound, two ladies no older than in their early twenties were hand-washing their laundry. I prayed to God that I could say something right, something that would heal broken hearts. After our guide, Ernst, did some quick introductions in Swahili, he did a small diatribe that I couldn’t understand. The entire time she never took her eyes off of her laundry. When he finished, he looked at me and said, “She is a believer. She is born again. She fellowships at another church. Do you have any words for her, brother?”
“Words? Like prophecy?” I asked.
“Whatever is on your heart for her.”
I sighed, and remembered the words of my brothers and sisters on the Race: “You have authority in Christ. NOW WALK IN IT!
I threw up a quick prayer and talked about what God has freshly laid on my heart: What to do with anger. I talked about being angry and asked her if she ever felt that towards people.
Her eyes removed themselves off of her laundry, and she stared at me, “Yes,” she said in perfect English.
After being taken aback at her sudden shift in language, I talked about what staying angry at people does: It destroys people. It destroys yourself and hinders your hearing of God. It’s because, when you stay angry, you are really saying, “God I don’t trust you enough to handle this.” When I finished, I quoted a fridge magnet my sister had which simply reads, “Bitterness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. I want you to learn from my mistakes of being angry a lot of my life. I want you to be free by the blood of Christ, from a brother to a sister.”
She stared at me for a few seconds before nodding. We prayed for forgiveness of being angry without taking it to God. We prayed that God would restore the years we wasted being angry. We prayed that we, as a brother and sister in Christ, could be free of the anger we’ve held on to. When I finished, she paused and stared deeply in my eyes, before giving me a small hug, and going back to laundry.
I left the compound feeling like I did something, but not really sure what. After my head stopped spinning what just happened, I noticed my guide staring at me.
He said, “Do you have the gift of prophecy?”
I scratched my head, “I dunno… I was told I had it once a long time ago.”
He smiled in such a way that I could see the gap in his front teeth, “I know you are a prophet. I talked to her last week about anger. I guess God is using us both today.”
Thank you God for using me!
