Frederick Beuchner writes, “The place God calls us to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” South Africa is my home, at least for a month and I couldn’t be more in love with this place. Parts of me have come more alive in this past week than ever before. God has filled me with such a deep love for my team and for the people of South Africa, that I can only claim it is from Him. God is present here and He is working miracles.
Miracles were always something I heard about growing up, but was very skeptical about and believed that they only happened back in the “bible times.” Over the past two years God has been working in me and showing me that He still heals the blind, heals the sick, and causes the paralyzed to get up and walk. As disciples of Jesus this is what we are called to do.
On our first day of ministry this week I was so eager I could hardly sleep the night before. This day was the day I had dreamed about for a year now and wanted nothing more than to love on these people and share the love of Jesus with them through my testimony and His word. As we pulled up to the squatter camp,( which is an informal settlement of the lowest income inhabitants of South Africa) our team took some time to do some listening prayers. A couple of us heard from the Lord different characteristics of people that we would minister to today. Four people saw the color red, one person saw black slides, and I saw a woman cooking in her house. We all split up in to teams of 3 with a translator and we walked the streets and went door to door saying “Coco” (which means knock knock) to see if we could come in and talk with them. We always asked if there was any dishes or clothes that we could help them wash or just sit and talk with them.
The second house we came to was a man and his precious son. We sat down and began talking with him and just getting to know him. When we asked if he went to church nearby, he said no. He didn’t seem to know much of the gospel so we began to share with him who Jesus was. I could tell he just thought we were trying to recruit him to a local church so I began to ask the Lord to give me a word that would be able to encourage him and really resonate with him. As his little son ran by to play with some trash on their porch, it hit me. God said, “tell him about how I sent my son to die for him and compare it to his relationship with his son.” I asked our new friend if he would allow his son to die for me, he looked puzzled so I jumped in and said, “of course not, I probably wouldn’t let my child die for you, even though I love you already.” He laughed and eased up a little bit. I was able to share with him that God sent His only son to die for him and He still would’ve done it even if he was the only man on earth just at the CHANCE of getting to know him and have a relationship with him. I explained that God had that same feeling of pain knowing His son would have to die for our sins, but He gave him up anyway so that we could spend eternity with Him and have abundant life on earth. I explained to him that he shared a special bond with God that the rest of us (me and the 3 others with me) didn’t have at this point because we didn’t understand the love you have as a father for your son. I could tell God was moving. We concluded by asking if we could pray for him. He said he was in search of a job and was sick and had really bad chest pains. So our team huddled up and laid hands on him and I began to pray.
In that moment I have never felt the Holy Spirit like I have before. I began to pray with such boldness and passion that I knew this wasn’t me. The Holy Spirit was clearly praying through me as I pleaded and begged God to heal this man of his chest pain and to provide him with a job for him and his son. I began to pray Isaiah 61 over him as the Lord prompted me and declaring that this year that he would be like an oak of righteousness. No longer would he be swayed by the world and the hardships that blew his way, but his roots would be deeply rooted in God and on a solid foundation that would allow him to stand firm. And when people saw how rooted he was and the righteousness that followed him, people would follow Jesus because of the new man he would be. We sure did confront hell and touch heaven as we came against spiritual warfare and declared that pain and disease had no place in this man’s life. It was amazing. When I opened my eyes and looked into my new friend’s eyes, I knew the Holy Spirit had touched this man’s life. His eyes were captivated and were alive and sincere. Jesus had touched this man’s heart, and he told us that his chest pain was no more. I wanted to fall to my knees, praising God because of His goodness.
As I grabbed my bag to leave, his shirt caught my eye that I hadn’t noticed before. Low and behold there was a tree on his shirt, and his shirt was red, and he was wearing black slides (red was the color our team saw, black slides were shoes someone saw, and I just prayed over him that he would be an oak of righteousness). I dropped my bag and ran up to him and told him about our listening prayer. I pulled out my bible and showed him Isaiah 61:3 “to grant to those who mourn in Zion– to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.” His eyes were glued to my bible as I explained this chapter to him and began to encourage Him that the Lord was about to do something amazing in His life, that He was a good man, a great father, and that the Lord would NEVER abandon Him. His smile beamed from ear to ear, and my smile beamed further. This man blessed me more than any other person ever has. I am so humbled and am so in awe of my savior and the fact that He allows us to work WITH Him in this life because He loves us so dearly.
Thank you so much for all of your prayers, I can feel them closely each day. Please continue to pray for our ministry each day and that many people would see the light of Jesus in us, rather than seeing us.
Much love,
Hannah xoxo xoxo
