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Trying to get out of Zambia was ridiculous. Seriously. Never in my life have I seen more potholes on the roads… I felt like I was in some kind of twisted video game, doing everything in my power to not get a ‘game over’. One pothole too deep, and poor little Tazz would’ve been done for. Three hours and 45 kilometers later we were on a smooth road heading for the border to Malawi.
Near dusk, we were slowing through a small town. After crossing through the main road, I looked to my right and saw a woman lying in the middle of the road. She was stretching out her arms and grasping her hands for something invisible in the air and slowly rolling from side to side. I saw the there was blood around her and on her clothes, a bag a few feet from her emptied of oranges, a candle, and a small loaf of bread. No people stopped to help her, though there were quite a few walking around on the roadside.
I pulled the car over, hurriedly turned off the engine and asked Kelton to come with me. As we neared her, I expected to hear her moaning from pain, but she was silent, still rolling and grasping. I knelt down and tried to talk with her, looking in her eyes to see if she was coherent. She stared at me and spoke nothing, but was obviously in a lot of pain. Blood was coming from the left side of her head. It was hard for me to figure out how long she had been laying there, and she wasn’t answering any of my questions… I didn’t even know if she spoke English.
Within a few minutes, a crowd had gathered. I found that a few women spoke English, and they began to translate for me as I spoke to the woman. I asked her her name, and what happened, and she answered Getrude and that she didn’t know. No one in the crowd knew who she was, nor did anyone see what had happened. One man spoke in broken English that he thought it was ‘fits’, which I assumed meant a seizure.
We had passed the hospital a ways back, so I helped her up and brought her to the car. Michelle, and Meredith willingly got out of the backseat to make room for Getrude to get in, and they began walking back towards the main town with Kelton as Matt and I turned the car around to get to the hospital. Just as I was about to change from reverse to 1st gear, a woman tapped on my window and said in broken English, “I will escort you to the hospital.” We drove for about 20 minutes, and then followed our escort, named Gift, straight to the back ward. Matt sat outside while I went in with Gift and Getrude, who was still very disoriented and bloody. The doctor looked her over briefly, filled out some papers, sent us to another room where we waited until a small man wearing a bright white coat and an even brighter white smile entered in.
He shook my hand and spoke in broken English, “My name is Peter. What have we got here?”
I explained all that I knew, and then Gift spoke more in their local language. Peter put on some gloves, and neared Getrude. He had a quiet dignity about him that made me trust him immediately, and I thought to myself, “He probably loves Jesus, too…”
Gift and I escorted Getrude to the next building and as soon as we entered through the doorway I was almost knocked back by the stench that filled the room. It smelled like death, but all I could see were walls, until I turned the corner and saw about 50 beds filled with sick, thin, dying people of all ages. They stared at the three of us as we walked in and sat down at the desk. Oppression filled that place… I felt the darkness try to wrap itself around me like a dirty blanket, but then I felt it repel like opposite magnets as I spoke softly but firmly, “No. I bring peace here.”
Near my chair, one woman was sprawled out on the stained floor with her 1-year-old baby. The baby crawled away from her and towards us, so I sat down on the floor crossed legged and smiled at her. She stopped about 6 inches away and stared in my eyes, and I made faces to get her to laugh. She did, as did some of the sick people a few feet away. I stayed on the floor beside Getrude until an attendant came about 30 minutes later and told us we could go. Gift said that she would come back tomorrow after the surgery to check on her… it turns out that Gift follows Jesus, too.
I knelt before Getrude, placed my hands on her and spoke health, life and peace into her in Jesus’ name, then prayed for the doctors and the others in the room. She smiled, still disoriented. I looked over my shoulder a few times as walked away; she was watching me go. I really just wanted to hold her until it was all over, but it was getting dark, and I needed to find my team. Peter had said she was in good hands…
Matt, Gift and I walked back to the car, dropped Gift off by her village, and then picked up Kelton, Meredith and Michelle just as the sun was going down. We drove, and I was lost in my thoughts, amazed that today, I crossed paths with two disciples of Christ in the middle of nowhere, Zambia, thousands of miles away from my home culture… and unexpectedly got to partner with these saints to be Jesus’ love to a bloody woman on the road. I saw the vastness of the Church, and how the Holy Spirit in them is the same Holy Spirit in me, and even though they speak Chichewa and I speak English, we both speak love. Thanks be to our Dad, who brought us with Tazz at just the right time, to meet just the right people.
I thought about what our World Race dad, Michael, has told us many times: “Everywhere you go, health and life should break out because of Him who is in you.” …Therefore, even oppression in a sick ward must flee at His presence. There is no authority above that of Jesus Christ, and so I wondered… what if a generation of Christians begin to understand their authority… what if a generation of Christians begin to embrace their Kingdom identity, and out of that, begin to step into their Kingdom roles… because Peter’s shadow passed over people and they were healed, and I have the same Holy Spirit in me, not a lesser degree and not a Jr. one… and it is the same of every disciple. So… I thought, “Can I just speak into existence right now a generation that is awake and walking in authority in sick wards, and orphanages, cars on the road, and schools, and churches, and public offices, and marriages, and homes…?”
