A few days later Team Tranformers encountered their first bout with darkness. One of their team members had been sick and late one night she found herself on the floor under an oppressive sickness like she had never felt before. She said she felt like her mind was being attacked, as well as her body, in a way she didn’t know was possible. That night Team Transformers, and a few girls from Quake, surrounded our friend in prayer and fought the fight that Christ has already won. They claimed the victory we were promised at the cross when they rebuked the evil attack on the good work we are doing.
The next night the twelve of us World Racers sat at dinner with a friend of ours who will be ministering at the Children’s home for another five months. The Transformers were recounting the battle they had encountered the night before as I wondered how my prayers would have sounded in that situation. As Dan was about to speak some truth that had been revealed to him about his team over the last few days, our missionary friend started gasping and squeezed out, “I can’t breathe”.
We immediately surrounded her in prayer. We situated ourselves so each of the twelve could place a hand on our friend. Prayers came. I prayed in boldness for “Full Health”. I asked God to fill her up and to breathe His holy breath in her. I asked him to open up her lungs. While others prayed I echoed their prayers and breathed over our friend. We told her she was beautiful, accepted, chosen, a daughter of the King, and that she would do great things in her life. As the spiritual weight of the place lifted, our friends account of how she was feeling went from “I can’t breathe” to “I feel something crawling on me” to “I feel sick” to “better”.
When our dinner table felt clear of attack we began speaking life over each other for about 30-45 minutes, affirming our teammates in their giftings and revealing words we had gotten for each other in that time. It was beautiful. The World Race is in full swing.
A ministry team from Minneapolis joined us at our site last night. They arrived to our whole group singing “I will survive” on the karaoke machine. We had three new roommates in the boys’ room. When we all woke up this morning I was reminded of how set up we’ve become in Mindinao. Our new friends awoke with the sun to take pictures of the mountains off the balcony while the four of us World Racers rolled over and buried our heads in our pillows to drown out the crowing of the roosters. The picturesque setting has become commonplace. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it will mean for all the experiences of the World Race to become commonplace.
On the 25th Quake and Transformers will fly back to Manila for a day, then on to Hong Kong for a week of debrief before we enter The Big Red country out east for a month. In that time I will not have my computer as their government tends to search your hard drive when you enter their country and we want to avoid the hassle. We’re going to leave our machines, and our contact with you, at a secure location in Hong Kong.
I’m holding less to my routines and have accepted that I have to live pretty much hour-by-hour for the next 10+ months. I realize now that the Lord only allows us spiritual trials that we can handle, though they may be at the very edge of our comfort zone. When we meet him there we stretch our horizons and we begin to operate in a whole new place. In short order, attacks like we saw last Friday night, like the morning view off our balcony, will be commonplace.
So what do we do when our world tends more and more toward the spiritual margins? What do we do when God calls us to a life and we’re not even sure what it looks like yet?
