They keep telling us that we are going to experience crazy things on the race. Miracles, spiritual warfare, healing, etc. so I’ve been waiting for the opportunities to arise. Little did I know that it would happen so soon.
On Wednesdays in Cambodia we do prayer walks, sometimes around the riverfront, sometimes inside temples. This past Wednesday was our first day of prayer walking with our ministry host, Rocky. No, not Rocky Balboa, but he might as well be! He warned us before heading out that it’s possible for us to experience spiritual warfare, especially heading into a buddhist temple to worship and praise Jesus. I took him seriously, but not too seriously. I’ve never experienced serious spiritual warfare, the most its ever been would be a demonic nightmare here and there.
So here comes team Ekklesia at 9am Wednesday morning, and as soon as we drove in we could feel a different kind of heaviness. We marched up the steep steps, and I mean so steep you break a sweat climbing them, of the first temple and took one lap around just praying and inviting Jesus’ presence in. During our first lap a lady came running out from inside looking so excited to see us, my immediate thoughts were A. she wants to sell us something or B. she wants money from us, otherwise known as a “beggar”. The lady approached Rachel first. She began feeling Rachel’s pockets and bag, so the defender in me rose up and I stood behind to assure that nothing was taken from us. All of a sudden it was like something switched and the lady began tugging at Rachel’s arm aggressively and almost started crying and speaking Khmer (which we would soon find out she was just speaking gibberish). She left Rachel and approached Katie, but this time she only pulled on Katie’s arm and yelled at her saying she hated her. At this point we are all a little confused and thrown off. This Khmer lady began cursing us and saying we needed to die because we were “too big.” Our team did the only thing we knew to do, ignore her and continue inside the temple to worship. We circled up in the middle of this temple and sang 10,000 Reasons and worshiped Jesus not minding those inside. Everyone watched and listened to us, they may not have understood the words but it was powerful and Jesus was made known. Halfway through, the Khmer lady came and joined our circle.
Throughout walking to each of the three temples the lady followed along, she halfway spoke English, halfway spoke Khmer. I found myself physically trying to run away from her. At one point she grabbed my skirt and my first reaction was to push her off and quickly walk away. Something came over me and I had no idea how to handle the situation. I’ve never feared something so much in my life and every time she got near I felt like walls were closing in and I couldn’t breathe. I found myself getting angry, angry with the lady because she would throw people’s money on the ground or curse us, angry with people that invited her to continue to come along with us. It became a very big distraction to the point where I couldn’t even find words to pray, and that’s exactly what the enemy wanted.
It was a scary morning and it made the day really tough. I believe our team has experienced our first of many interactions with spiritual warfare and demonic presences. From this one situation we have already grown tremendously. We’ve discovered the true power in prayer. Every night it is important to pray over our sleep, it is important to begin our days with prayer, and to continue with prayer throughout the day with every little thing. Wether it be needing an attitude check or fighting off a little cold we’re catching.
Please keep my team and I in your prayers as we finish out this last week and a half in Cambodia!
