Hello everyone!
I haven’t had a nightmare since I was really little…that is until I came on the World Race.
During training camp, and even while being here, the Adventures in Missions staff have told us a lot about spiritual warfare. Basically the enemy doesn’t like that we’re here spreading the love of Jesus so he hits us with everything he’s got in order to make us want to leave and go back home to normal life. For a lot of people on my squad, and almost everyone on my team excluding Val and myself, that’s looked like a lot of trips to the hospital for sicknesses. There’s been parasite after parasite on this squad, all with names. So many different bacterial infections and UTIs, sinus infections and salmonella poisonings.
I genuinely believe coming into the race, a spiritual protection over sicknesses was placed upon me. As you might’ve read in my last blog, I am not a fan of hospitals. Just being in one gives me a bit of anxiety, so I believe God put a protection over me so I wouldn’t have to go. I mean, here we are three months into the race and I’m the only one on my team that hasn’t missed a day of ministry. Val technically has only missed some because she’s on our squad’s logistics team, but everyone else has missed a couple days each because of sickness.
I prayed over each individual on my team extending my sickness protection over them so hopefully no one will get sick the for the remainder of the race. The most I’ve experienced is some allergies, praise God!
My spiritual warfare, however, has come in the form of a lot of nightmares. In fact, as I’m writing this I just woke up from having five or six nightmares in a row so I decided to write a blog about it.
I wake up after them just heavy breathing and trying to calm myself down. At first they really freaked me out, now that I know it’s the enemy trying to scare me into going back home they don’t scare me as much. Well, in the moment they do but once I wake up and realize it was a dream and I remember why I’m having them it’s not as scary.
They’ve been anything from me being trapped in a room filled with massive spiders (one of my biggest fears) to being in a library watching someone go around killing everyone I love back home.
One thing I’ve learned while being on the race is being grateful for spiritual warfare like this. Makayla said it best last time she got really sick, “This sickness just means the enemy is scared because what we’re doing here is so important. I’m encouraged by it!”
Spiritual warfare really sucks in the moment but thinking about it as an encouragement because we’re doing amazing work just makes you excited when something like it happens.
Anyone feeling any kind of warfare because of spreading the word of God, don’t be discouraged by it. Be very encouraged by the fact that you’re scaring the enemy by what you’re doing. God will protect you and help you through it whether it’s sicknesses or nightmares.
The enemy has thrown a lot at Squad W but it just gets us excited for what we’re doing here because we know how amazing and impactful it is!
That’s all I have for now!
See you soon!
-Chelsea
