…The Walrus Said

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”

“But wait a bit,” the Oysters cried,
“Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!”
“No hurry!” said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.

I have tried for weeks to put my African
experience into words. It was overwhelming, insane, the hardest three months of
my life, constant battle, and filled with soda.

I think Lewis Carroll puts it best in the poem
above. The time has come, I have said, to
talk of many things. Of shoes…of chips…and door to door. Of cabbages and the
king…and why the room is boiling hot…and whether we could sing.

But wait a
bit, we exclaimed, Before we share the gospel, because some of us are out of
breath (from hiking up this mountain) and all of us are fat (According to
African standards…). No hurry, they replied. We thanked them for that.

Seriously. It was a random three months. In Kenya
we did Vacation Bible school and then door-to-door evangelism. Sometimes they
made us sing, though they told us it was okay we didn’t sing very well. In
Tanzania, we did hospital visits, door-to-door, a crusade, suffered through
malaria (well, Cat and I did), and Bible Study. We also went on safari. In
Uganda, we rafted the Nile and went door-to-door, or rather, homestead to
homestead through the hills and mountains of North Mbale.

But if you read any of my blogs, you know these
things. What I haven’t shared is a greater revelation that is still developing.
I have seen it all year long, in the various countries we visited. A year ago,
I had no idea what the following meant. But now I have seen it and I know it’s
real, and it is a very real challenge in ministry.

What I am talking about is the power and pull of
different spirits. Obviously, there is the Holy
Spirit, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Of joy, and peace, and love.

But there are other deeply entrenched negative
spirits. Now, I don’t know all the theology to back it up. I do know they are
of the enemy. These spirits are things like lust, religion, idolatry,
laziness, depression, oppression, and tiredness.
The spiritual climate, if you will, dominates the landscape in these places.

I have felt this personally nearly everywhere we
went, but acutely in Africa.

In New Zealand, I felt apathetic towards my relationship with the Lord.
Apathy is a huge stronghold there.

In Australia, I felt lazy a lot. Laziness and lack of motivation is
present there.

In the Philippines, I needed to be broken of my need to perform, and my need
to be accepted. I needed to know God loves me just for who I am. Catholicism is
the dominant religion in the Philippines-they believe they have to work for
their salvation there. The spirit of religion (as opposed to relationship) is
very strong.

In Cambodia, there is deep hurt, pain, and tiredness. We worked
through a lot of the same issues as a team.

In Thailand, lust and religion dominate the spiritual climate. We were
witness to this and some of us struggled with similar issues.

In Africa, we saw a lot. We felt a lot. We were affected by lies, by
inferiority complexes, by laziness and sadness and homesickness. And we saw the
lies the people had been told manifesting themselves.

“You are inferior because you are not white.”

“You are poor-physically, but also sometimes poor in
spirit.”

“You will never break out of the cycle of poverty.”

I saw greed, I saw hurt, I saw selfishness, I saw competition, I saw striving to follow
religion to a T for salvation, instead of the
showering of grace. I saw judgment, I saw pain, I saw laziness, I saw exhaustion. I saw people fighting for whatever they had left.

And I know these are all lies from the enemy. I
know these people, these nations, have a desire for God, but in some cases,
they don’t know what that looks like. A living, breathing relationship with the
Lord has not been modeled for them.

We fought against all these spirits in all these
places. It was exhausting.

 My biggest
desire for the people in Africa is to see them empowered.

To see
them rise up out of the lie of inferiority and step into all that God has for
them.

To see
them believe that the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives inside
of them.

To see
the bondage of religion and witchcraft broken off of them and see them live in
freedom and in the Spirit.

I don’t want them to rely on a mzungu to pray for them.