Giving Thanks
in the Bush
Today, our teams went outside of Zomba to the rural bush,
also known as NOWHERE AFRICA!!!
We visited three churches and spoke at each of them. To say
the least, it was a LONG DAY!!!
We got to the third church at around 12:30pm or so and found
out that they had been waiting on us since 9am. These people wanted to visit
with some mzungus pretty bad I suppose!!!
Well, as time went on, two of the girls spoke words of
encouragement to the people, and then it was my turn. I sat on the pulpit with
my guitar and asked the people, “How many of you have ever heard a white man
play and sing a guitar?� Of course, NO ONE raised their hand! It was
HILARIOUS!!! I played, and half way through, my pick shot across the little
church and hit a man on the head. Didn’t even phase him! Haha After the roaring
laughter and a quick recovery, I finished my song!
It was getting time to go, when the pastor started to voice
some needs of the church, and the surrounding churches, which had also
gathered…. I asked if we could pray for those things right then and after a few
more words, he got the sick people to come to the front as well. Yeah…. One by
one, these native Africans came to the front for us to pray over them. Some had
eye problems, some headaches, some had neck/back/leg problems, some couldn’t
hear, some had malaria, and some had HIV. Person after person, we laid hands on
them and poured out the love of the Father on them, giving thanks all the way
through! There was this one young mother that came with her little baby. She
said that he (Blessings was his name) had eye problems. I held little Blessings
in my arms and prayed over him. As I prayed, he looked me right in the eyes and
I felt the love of the Father rush like a blazing fire through my body. Tears
began to come down my face as I saw this little boy’s countenance change. He
(about 6-8 months old) had a huge grin on his face and began to laugh contagiously.
After a bit, Blessings wasn’t quite sure about this mzungu anymore, and he
started to cry! It was pretty funny! …I can’t explain to you how I felt when
this little boy was staring me straight in the eyes and laughing as the glaze
of his eyes changed before me…. Oh, the love of Jesus for His children must be (insert
unexplainable words here)!!!!!!! Blessings felt and experienced the love of his
Daddy today!!!!!!
Well, the day wasn’t over yet…. One of the last people that
came to us was a little girl. Immediately, I thought of the scripture when
Jesus said, “The Kingdom belongs to such as these (children).� She told us that
she couldn’t hear in her left ear. I knew what was about to happen…. We simply prayed.
I asked her (through our translator) if she could hear and with a big smile,
she shook her head ‘yes’! I asked her again, “Can you hear? How is your hearing?�
She smiled once again and gave me a huge thumbs up and a nod!!!! Later after
the service, I pointed to her ear and she did the same!!!! PRAISE JESUS!
Because of HIS faithfulness, we are healed!!! Because of HIS love, we are made
new!!! Nothing apart from Him deserves glory!!!!! A little girl received her
hearing today and ALL PRAISE BE TO JESUS, OUR MAGNIFICENT HEALER!!!!!!!!
That wasn’t the end of the story either…. After everyone
returned to their seats, I asked them to stand up. I explained, and reiterated
what Lauren spoke about in Psalm 100:4 “Enter His gates with thanksgiving; go
into His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and praise His name.� We are to
give thanks for what God just did, no matter what. We are to give thanks for
the healing of headaches, for the healing of legs, eyes, malaria and HIV. We
are to GIVE THANKS!!! This is when it got crazy for me! I asked the people to
take a few minutes to give thanks! All 100 of us were going crazy before our
Lord with shouts of joy! I found myself alone in a room with the Lord,
surrounded with shouts of joy, shouts of thankfulness and I could barely speak
for the energy coming from my own body. For 5-10 minutes these people raised
their voices to the Lord with passionate thankfulness and Jesus smiled down on
His people!!!
A village in nowhere Africa collided with Jesus today, HEAD
ON….
After everything, we decided to show the kids a movie (probably their first ever)!!!
