In total I’ve preached four times this past week.
Words can’t express what I’ve seen and what God has allowed me to be a part of.
The Holy Spirit…John 14:15-18
“If you love me, you will obey what I command.
And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another counselor to be with you forever- The Spirit of truth.
The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him.
But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
I will not leave you as orphans,
I will come to you.”
Every time I preached I didn’t know what I was going to say until the moment I opened my mouth.
I prayed, I fasted, I worshiped, and in my spirit I felt God saying trust me and I will show you great grace and will give you the words.
Don’t go with an agenda; rather, allow me to work through you not bound by your expectations of what you think I’m going to do.
And so it was every time I preached, and the answer of God was the same, “draw near to me and I will guide you.”
During worship I would get lost in praising God.
The African songs are so sweet and the church would sing to God with great praise.
The spirit of God would fall on me with gentleness, as if a warm blanket was wrapped around me, whispering, “I am with you and will give you the words, just step forward and open your mouth.”
I had no fear, only great confidence and excitement!
The promise of God is true and real.
1-2 hours seemed liked minutes and the words flowed like a river.
I have experienced the Holy Spirit as a great fire welling up inside me.
This time the spirit of God came to me like a father to his son.
He came to be my counselor, my instructor, and my comfort.
The message… Much of what I said I can’t fully remember.
However I do remember the general points.
The messages were based on the simplicity of God; The power and love of God, the Holy Spirit, the armor of God, and great encouragement for the church. God allowed me to decrease myself so God could increase Himself.
I didn’t speak as a “preacher,” I spoke as a man who is no greater than the ones I was speaking to.
With intent I deflated any assumption that I was better or knew more than the people listening.
I didn’t want people attending church because a foreigner was speaking; I wanted people to come because they knew the presence of God was in the church.
I spoke from an undiluted perspective for the sprit of God was upon me.
How awesome is it that I can’t remember everything I said!
God truly filled in all the gaps with his love and power.
I pray that the people of Swaziland remember the words of God more than they remember my face.
I declare God is the head of the church, not the preacher or any man/women.
The Healings…
The greatest healing among all healings is the healing of the heart which comes from Salvation through almighty God Jesus Christ.
Many came forward to except Jesus for the first time.
Praise God!
And then there were those who have been healed physically.
A woman in her 70’s, who we prayed on the first Sunday, has had migraines so bad that her eyes water uncontrollably.
I saw her Saturday in the “bush” with her family.
She was still in pain.
Nothing had changed since the first time we prayed.
Her face was full of tears.
So I said, “let us pray again,” and so we did.
We walked away and said goodbye.
During worship, at church the next day, she came over to me with great joy in her face and said when we prayed and walked away all her pain was lifted.
Another man who has Aids has been bed ridden for weeks.
He is very week, very skinny, and has much pain.
He has trouble walking because he legs swell and trouble eating because he can’t hold down food.
He wanted prayer to be healed so he could go back to work and provide for his family. We prayed on Him and the next day he was up and about praising God saying God is healing me I have turned my ways.
He attended church the rest of the week, walking nearly a mile to church each way.
Helma is a woman we met during house visits.
Half her body is parallelized from head to toe.
She hasn’t been able to speak in 3 years.
She lies in a bed day after day.
When I met her she couldn’t lift her own head.
She had labored breathing with a lot of pain and half her face was visibly parallelized.
She had flies all over her and the smell of bodily fluids was very present.
She is such a beautiful women with an incredible heart.
All her faith is in Jesus. We prayed healing over her in the name of Jesus.
The next day we visited she was beginning to speak claiming that Jesus was healing her and that God had sent us to heal her.
By the next visit the labored breathing was gone, and she was speaking full sentences, English at that.
Her faced seemed to be straighter and she had much more strength from the visits before. She claimed that much of her pain was gone.
Her eyes were full of life when before they were not, and still she claimed that God was healing her.
She asked us to help her sit up.
At this point she proceeded to name each of us in SiSwati.
She named me Begomuze, which means care taker of the house of God.
Julie’s name means chosen, and Jenny’s name means healing hand.
Every day we met with her she asked us to read her the bible and pray over her.
What a beautiful time it was to have been with her.
The last day we met with Helma was on Monday.
Pastor Mary and our good friend Sma, who has known Helma for years, came with us.
As I sat in the living room of Helma’s house, I listen as best I could to the pastor taking with Helma’s daughter and sister-in-law.
The conversation was in SiSwati but I gathered something good was in the air.
When we walked into Helma’s room we saw her sitting on the side of her bed smiling (like the picture bellow).
She looked ten years younger.
Her face was no longer disfigured from being paralyzed. She was talking to us in English like a mother talking to her children, with wisdom, tact, humor, and love; all the while never wavering in sharpness.
A women free from labored breathing.
A women who could stand on her own two feet, Helma said, “I knew Jesus would heal me, He has sent me children from America to come and pray for me, and he is healing me, and I will continue to get better, every day he is healing me more and more.
Praise God!”
She would sing songs of praise to God giving Him all the thanks and all the glory.
The testimonies of healing go on. Many of the healings go beyond what we know, what we saw, and more will continue to surface.
Praise God!
We are not surprised; we know who God is and what he can do!
That He is the same God he has always been.
He is love and all-powerful.
That His promises still stand as they did from the beginning of time, from 2000 years ago, and today.
They will never change!
He is the truth, the way, and the light.
When you have seen what he can do your faith becomes a shield that no one can bring down.
With great power, wisdom, and beauty, Helma prayed over us and before I walked out of her room she asked me to read her Psalm 108 :3-5
“I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.
For great is your love, higher than the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
Be exalted, Oh God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth.”
I will never forget you Helma!
Final thoughts… I will greatly miss the people of Muputu Swaziland.
One thought that has been with me since I left, is that Muputu was one small town in the bush.
Helma is only one person we met with paralysis. Begsiso was only one man with Aids.
I intimately got to know the entire community of Muputu.
I could write a 50 page blog on all the stories, all that we saw, and all the healings, but that’s not the point.
The Harvest is RIPE! Where are the men? Where are the women of God?
I assure you God will use the least of us to do his wonders.
If the men and women don’t reap the harvest the children of the bush will. And a mighty wind will be in their sails!
