At this point on the race, I
would be the first to say that evangelism is my least favorite ministry. I love
hearing people’s stories, I love hearing people’s lives, but I still always
feel like an imposition to walk up to someone’s home, Bible in tow, and say “Yes,
I’m white, so I know you feel obligated to let me into your home, and yes I’m a
missionary, so have you accepted Jesus into your heart?� (Actually, I don’t
think I have ever said that). I just
can’t bring myself to only be in someone’s life for five minutes and say that
their life is hopeless unless they have Christ. Yes, that is true. And God can
and has absolutely used this type of evangelism to bring people into His truth,
but when I was in high school and college, people–even friends–would evangelize
to me this blatantly, and it would send me running miles and miles away from the
church. It felt so scripted, it felt so condemning, it never sounded like grace.
It never sounded genuine.
So coming into this month, we
were told we would be doing more door-to-door house visits. Oh joy. Well, God is a God of
redemption. And through this amazing, radically loving church in Uganda, God
has slowly begun to show me that in some places, people are hungry to hear the Gospel, are hungry to hear the Word. Weird. I have
never experienced this until the past few days.
Yesterday, Peter and I were
visiting some of the older church members homes when he suddenly shifted our
path of walking (*1). So we weaved down some roads until we finally dead-ended,
and Peter told me that this was a home where we would have the opportunity to
share the Gospel with a woman who didn’t know Christ. Again, oh joy. So we walk into this home, and I shared a little bit
of my story, prayed with a churchwoman whose husband had left her, and then
began talking to the other woman in the room. I asked her if there was anything
she wanted prayer for; from what I could tell, she looked pregnant, so I figured
for a healthy pregnancy and a good life for the child–standard. But, then she
lifted her shirt part way, and I have never
seen anything like this. It straight up looked like a monster had attacked her.
So, it should have been of no surprise when she said, “I was bewitched seven
years ago, and my stomach has been like this ever since. I have tried all
medications, and counter spells but nothing has made it go away.� Right. This is obviously something that I
hear all the time in the States…NOT. Peter looks at me, and goes “Tell her
about Jesus.� Uhm. Right. So I
started rambling about power, authority, healing, heaven coming to earth, and
unpacked everything I have learned this year, and stopped again. Peter looks at
me and goes, “Good. Now ask her if she wants Jesus, and I will translate.� PETER. I WILL PUNCH YOU AS SOON AS WE GET
OUT OF THIS HOUSE. SHE’S NOT INTERESTED. “So, do you want to accept Christ
as your savior? He is the answer to everything that has ever happened to you,
and He can and will redeem you. That’s His promise.� “Yes, I do.� What. Really? Ok.
Right. So that was that. The
angels are throwing a party in heaven. I would love to tell you that when I
laid hands on her stomach that it magically shrank and the demons went fleeing,
but not so much. But, she’s coming to church in a few days, and I know God is going to continue using her
testimony to bring glory to His kingdom. I have absolute faith that this woman
will be healed and set free. I know there are no demonically possessed stomachs
in heaven, which means that there’s no reason for us to be seeing that here on
earth.
Bottom line lesson: I came into
this with a pretty jaded attitude. I
was walking obligingly to honor our (fantastically amazing) contact, but I
still was not convinced that our walking around was anything more than our being
“white puppetsâ€�. Well, God can–and did and does–use white puppets. So, that’s
that. I’m learning. I’d love to sit here and say now I wake up every single day
PUMPED to walk around the community and “give a word�, but He’s still
transforming me–attitude included. So, day-by-day, I look differently, and
yesterday was definitely one of those days where He humbled me and exalted
Himself in such a powerful way.
*1: How people know where random
people live in these communities, I will never understand.
UPDATE: Today, Sunday August 7, she was in church today. She spoke to our wonderful pastor for awhile, she’s receiving a Bible tomorrow, and we are praying without ceasing for her.
Afterward, I asked the pastor to explain to me what was physically going on with this “bewitched” stomach. The answer was something I was not anticipating. Her family is split in two–and the two sides worship different African spirit gods, so they curse one another. Her grandmother was the witchdoctor who cursed her…Yes. You read that correctly. So. The pastor continued, “Here in Africa, people worship spirits and demons. This woman is married to a spirit–she has a spirit husband. That is who lives in her stomach. She is unable to get married to a real man because if she did, her spirit husband would cause her real husband to have bad accidents, poverty, and probably die. She has also conceived many spirit children with her spirit husband, so if she were to have real children, the spirit children would get jealous and torment her real children until they died.” Right. So, be praying for her. The good news is, Jesus is BIGGER. HE IS ABLE. This community sees people delivered from spiritual husbands quite often apparently. So be praying for freedom for this woman. She is desperate and she is hungry for the Lord. God is good. He will deliver her.
