I am in a new country, new town, have a new team, and ministry.
But here’s a little bit about the group of girls I now live with: There is Emily who is our team leader. She is full of humility and peace. And both radiate her as she leads us with a stillness that has authority. She also is very ear to mouth with God, he tells her something and she speaks it out. There is Libby who reminds me of the voice shouting in the wilderness preparing way for the Lord. She not only speaks truth into situations and others but walks proudly in the authority of Christ within her. There is Sam who is a warrior of the Lord. She dives into scripture, finds connections, and continually uses the sword of the spirit to fight the good fight. She also shows the Lord’s gentle loving spirit. There is Olivia who powerfully stands with the Lord. You can tell as she moves and speaks she is standing arm in arm with the Lord constantly. As she does so she also is full of the Lord’s humor, laughter, fun spirit, and fearlessness. There is Danielle who is a prayer warrior. When she prays you can feel the spirit move, feel the authority of Christ with every word from her mouth, and you know that the words are not her own but the Lord’s. On top of this Danielle is a lover of life who is free in who she is. She radiates the freedom we all have in Christ. And then there is Courtney she is full of the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of the Lord. She lights up when people talk about the bible and the glory of the Lord that is shown through it. Her heart is for him and you can tell that she stands in a stance of constantly wanting to serve. She also is someone who radiates the father in the little things. She too, like Olivia as well, seem to live life like a child in awe of all the father has gifted us with. Though these are things I see these sisters and warriors of Christ as they are full of so much more. It has only been two weeks and they are full of so much more. And the Lord has so much more for them to walk into and through.
I told you part of who they are to say what a powerful group of women the Lord has given me to live with on this last season of the race.
When we first talked to each other we decided we wanted to go to the top of our potential in the Lord and then press into it and continue going further than what we consider the top. So we decided to name ourselves Zion because of all it stands for and all that it is. Zion means dwelling place of the Lord, is almost always referred to as a woman, and is eventually called Hephzibah which means my delight is in her. There is way more as to why we chose Zion but it seemed very fitting to who we are and what we wanted to be defined as. I say all of this to tell you that team names on the race typically seem to become prophetic. And for us we saw the results of that almost immediately. You see because where the Lord is actively moving and working, the devil tries to attack…
My team and I started recognizing that spiritual warfare was going to start happening more and more after a man robbed and threatened a group of girls from my team as they were walking home from the beach (if you want to hear this story go to Sam’s (Samantha’s) blog). Our host told us to pray over our house and to start praying because the devil was going to probably start working. This all happened two Sundays ago, and that following Thursday was the next encounter. One of my teammates asked us to pray healing over someone in their family who is very sick. As she was telling us what was wrong Libby started crying and explained how she was told before she left for the race that she would be able to speak healing over people and was given anointing oil to use when she prayed over people. So Libby asked if she could use it on our teammate as we pray and have her sit in place of her family member in the middle of all of us. After Libby shared I voiced a vision the Lord gave me about the situation. Then more of my teammates also voiced that the Lord gave them a vision from the Lord of either the family member and healing, her meeting Jesus, or what she looked like. We could feel the spirit moving. We could feel the Lord and his angels amongst us and we knew the night was going to be special but we did not know what we were in for.
Libby anointed her head, the place where her family member’s sickness was located, and one of each of our hands (the one we were going to place on her). Then the prayers began.
I left my eyes open looking around, I can’t tell you why other than the Lord told me to stay guard. I also heard absolutely nothing that the first two girls prayed for because my thoughts were going all over the place and I heard the Lord tell me to pray for protection. So I did, and as I did I saw angels surround us in a circle and around the room we were in.
Then I started noticing more and more of the girls started opening their eyes and keeping their eyes open as we prayed one by one. You see we were praying one at a time with the authority and power of Christ. We were declaring his authority, power, and were claiming his territory and what he is capable of.
And then past the angels that were guarding us and I saw demons running around our windowed walls on our outside porch. The lord would tell me to turn my head and I would see them in a corner of our house outside of the circle of protection the Lord had us within. And then as I started paying attention I realized that all of the other girls saw it as well.
Prayers continued claiming the Lord’s power but they also started and then continued rebuking Satan and his demons. We started claiming how the Lord has already won and has victory and through that Satan was not welcome. The prayers continued and so did the literal warfare that we could all visibly see.
This whole time I felt the Lord peace and hand on my shoulder and then I turned and saw him. Standing behind me with his hand not only on my shoulder but on the shoulder of Libby who was sitting next to me and then his arms were all around us within the circle of angels.
I saw a demon in the corner and then turned and rebuked him and then I saw an angel with large wings and dressed as a warrior of the Lord sitting with his weapons guarding that location as the demon was pushed further away from us. We felt the holy spirit come down upon us all and fill us all with more authority and power. And when we finished praying we thanked the Lord for all that he was and is and all that he does and worshiped him.
But we also talked about what happened and that’s when I realized that literally all of us knew and saw exactly what was happening the entire time except for the girl who we had placed in the middle and was praying over. She said she felt nothing but peace and protection the entire time. We were protecting her with the lord and we were being protected by him but she was at the center of it all and the Lord made sure that’s all she felt, him. But us girls who were on the outside felt it, saw it, and were overall made very aware of how the physical and spiritual worlds collide. One girl said how she saw the same things I saw, one had to fight to keep her hand on the girl we were praying for, one had to fight to keep her prayers and her mind on what we were fighting for, one continued feeling the demons run behind and near her, one saw more visions of the family member and how God would reveal and or heal her.
Overall we all knew what we had just experienced and we were shocked. We prayed over our house again claiming it as the Lords and spoke out the truths of how good our father is claiming and proclaiming it. A different night the same thing happened when we were praying for someone else. We heard the devil laugh, I came face to face with one of the demons, we fought to keep our hands on who we were praying for as our arms shook, and more. But we stood in more authority as we prayed, claimed what was the Lords and stood with him in battle. From the second night we saw all of that but also saw the holy spirit move us in different ways to pray for other people on our team and worship the Lord in different ways throughout the fight. And from it we saw healing of sickness, hearing from deafness, and the glory of God immediately amongst us.
We are Zion.
We are a dwelling place of the Lord.
And we are standing in authority and claiming the Lords kingdom as we walk and breathe and move. And we are fighting continually.
Growing up stories of the bible seemed like fairytales, they seemed cool and unreal, and I didn’t think the Lord could and did work in those types of way, in the world we live in today. But he does and he continually is. Open your eyes. The things I am experiencing are not extraordinary but the life we all live in. Spiritual warfare is real and we continually need to be in a stance of fighting. I didn’t see it all my life, but the Lord has allowed me and my team to step past the blinders and step past the scales that were on our eyes. We were blind but now we see. We see how this physical world we live in is not as far away from the spiritual as we grew up believing. We see a glimpse of the Lord and the glory that he deserves. We see a glimpse of just how at work the devil is. We see that this life we live is truly so much bigger than ourselves. We see that we are daughters that are able to fight alongside our Holy King. We see that we are stepping into more of the Lord that some will never experience. We see that there is more, and that these crazy past two weeks are only the beginning of what the Lord has instore for us individually and as a team.
So you want to know what I am doing in South Africa and how I am? I am standing as a warrior of Christ next to my team. I am pissing off the devil and claiming kingdom with the Lord. I am stepping into the more the Lord has for me. And because of that I am doing great, and am filled with Joy – perfect, unexplainable joy.
So thank you for your prayers, your support, and for fighting this fight alongside me and my team from wherever the Lord has placed you for now. My heart pours out to you and is so blessed for each one of you. May you be blessed.
With love, Sarah Catherine (Essie)
