So Ghana comes to an END tomorrow, and we head to TOGO!The following are some highlights of the last half of my month…
UFC PASTOR: One night we were on our way back from Revival, when out of no where, our pastor gets choked. All of a sudden a full-out fight breaks out between our pastor and a guy in his twenties. Just when we think its over, our pastor hands off his Bible and camera and starts beating this guy AGAIN. So many punches are being thrown, and Jory is trying his hardest to get pastor to stop. Jory finally gets the pastor to keep walking, but now a crowd has surrounded us. Randomly a guy picks up a huge bench and smacks the other guy in the head. Then the crowd takes the guy to a different area. We were all so confused at what happened, and that is when our Pastor tells us what was going on….
Sage stepped on the pastors shoe on accident, which made him bump the guy in front of him. So our Pastor asked the guy if he could walk faster or move over (we were walking along a street with traffic). The guy turns around and sees white people, and starts yelling at our pastor and saying stuff like, “I don’t bow down to white people.” Well our pastor was like, “your not from around here are you?” (They have tribal scars on their face to know that). Our pastor was telling him that he can’t talk to people that way. The crowd gathered because they knew our pastor, and they thought the guy had hurt or stolen something from one of us. Our pastor then had to leave us, and go tell the crowd that everything was fine or they would have killed the other guy, he said. HAHA this was the most confusing and awesome experience I witnessed this month!
Preaching: Last week I had the opportunity to preach 4x. I spoke at a revival, a sunday morning church service, and a community outreach twice. After my first experience with preaching in Ghana I was a bit frustrated. God was stirring so strongly inside of me with a word, but when it came out of my mouth it didn’t sound as intense. God was revealing things to me in a new way, BUT I felt like I was having a problem with Him getting it THROUGH me. So Sage and I prayed, and by my last night of outreach I didn’t even have my notes open. The Spirit of God was so strong in me, and I could tell that it was POURING out of me. None of my limitations or fears could stop the Spirit of God from getting His message out of me in the same manner that he put it in. IT WAS AWESOME!
Strongholds of Ghana: As we met back up with all the teams we noticed a common theme throughout the country. There are many people here who profess God has their Lord and Savior. From a glance, so many people look ON FIRE for God, yet it is mostly superficial. There has been little or no discipleship to the Christians here. They are still drinking “milk,” when God has “solid food” for them. They have many strongholds in their lives, keeping them from going deeper in Christ. Something my team hit on in our community, is the fact that it is a necessity to dive deeper. It is great that you are saved, but there is a calling for your life in Christ. Our last night we were able to have a POWERFUL altar time, where we specifically called out strongholds and broke those chains.
Randomness: A producer was shooting some commercials in our area. He asked my team to be in an advertisement for the hotel (if you could call it that) that we were staying in. So we are in a commercial! ALSO, five people on my squad have had malaria. Between Sage and I, we have about 175 mosquito bites, but Praise the Lord we are not getting sick this year!!! Finally, you can shop from your taxi! Many people walk the streets with food and products on their head, and as you drive you can get what you want! My personal favorite purchases from the street are frozen chocolate milk, plantain chips, and bags of water!!
