August 2, 2011
We are staying with a team in
Seeta, Uganda.
This morning, their ministry
is to visit a hospital in Mukono to pray over the patients, evangelize and
encourage.
For whatever reason, since
the moment I woke up this morning, everything in me has been resisting the
thought of doing hospital ministry.
Absolutely NOTHING in me wants to go.
Chris, a member of the team,
this day is running a fever and is therefore staying back to rest.
We begin our 15-minute walk
to the main street to catch a public van to the hospital.
I stare at the ground as we
walk, a battle raging within me.
Why don’t I want to go?
Maybe it’s the Lord telling
me to stay back with Chris and not leave him alone while he’s so sick. Maybe that’s it. The Spirit within me unable to rest because,
for whatever reason, I’m supposed to turn around and be there for Chris.
I casually mention my thought
out loud to those I’m walking with, wondering out loud if we should be leaving
Chris by himself if he’s sick, meanwhile offering to take one for the team and
stay back with him if necessary.
No one really seems to jump
on the idea and the conversation dies off.
We continue walking as I
stare at the ground, the battle still going strong in my mind and
heart.
Is this opposition I’m
running into coming from the Lord or the enemy?
Is it the Lord telling me to
stay back with Chris for some reason, or is it the enemy trying to prevent me
from going to the hospital?
I don’t know…
or maybe I’m just unwilling
to admit the truth.
So I keep walking, the
thoughts of staying back with Chris fading away the further we get from the
house, yet the unsettled and resistant spirit remaining.
We arrive at the hospital and
sit in the waiting room as the pastors discuss their plan of splitting us into
groups of 2 or 3 people who will each go to different wards in the hospital to
minister.
Still, NOTHING in me wants to
be there. I don’t want to say a
word. I don’t want to pray over
people. In fact, if I could choose, I’d
like to be in a group of three…preferably with Clara, who I know can carry a
conversation without my help, and I’d like to be in the neo-natal ward where
I’ll be praying over babies that can’t even comprehend my words.
Soon I realize that I don’t
actually have a choice in the matter.
Rather than my ideal group of three with Clara, headed to the neo-natal
ward, I am instead placed in a group of two with Carrie as we’re assigned the
pediatric ward…a roomful of mothers sitting in hospital beds with their
children.
I am literally fighting back
tears. I don’t want to be here AT ALL and I’d give anything for a way out of the next couple hours.
But, rather than high-tailing
it to the door, like I desperately want to, I follow Carrie and the pastor into
the pediatric ward.
We pray over the first mother
and child we come to. Check.
We begin to pray over the
next mother and child…
when suddenly Carrie falls
ill and nearly passes out.
She’s pretty much down for
the count.
Awesome.
Now it’s basically on me…
The one who is
oh-so-determined not to speak today.
We pray over a little boy,
then move on to a full-fledged family, complete with mother, father and
daughter.
James, Rose, baby Margaret….
And the Holy Spirit. J
James and I begin to talk,
since his wife doesn’t speak English, and it feels almost like deja vu.
Like our Spirits somehow
recognize each other.
James is not a believer and
time seems to stand still as we talk about the love of God drawing him, God
longing for a relationship with him and calling him by name, him not being
bound by his family’s religion, Jesus’ disciples leaving EVERYTHING to follow Him, Jesus promising abundant life and Satan’s attempts to steal and destroy
that life…
He reads Mark 4 aloud and we
then begin to talk about the parable of the soils, and the soil of his heart in
different seasons of his life…now being the time for the word to land on good
soil, taking root and bearing fruit one hundred fold.
He asks why there are so many
denominations of born-again Christians, so we talk about that for awhile.
We then talk about the gift of the Holy Spirit
that we receive when we surrender our lives to Jesus and all the ministries and
fruit of that Spirit in our lives, then move on to discussing the light burden
and easy yoke of Christ, casting our cares on Him, His promise of peace when we
surrender our worries to Him, seeking Him first, and trusting Him to provide for
our every need.
James joyfully and excitedly says he wants
to surrender his life to Jesus.
He wants to ‘accept this
offer’ of salvation, he says.
He now tells his already believing
wife, Rose, of his decision. She too is overjoyed
and grateful, since apparently both she and her church family have been sharing
this same news with him for years, only to meet with resistance…this therefore causing dissention in their marriage.
I pray over him and his
family, then he follows with one of the most heartfelt, honest prayers I’ve
ever been privy to…ending with, “I don’t have many
words…but my heart, my life and my future are yours.”
Beautiful.
It turns out neither he nor
his wife own Bibles, so I determine to buy them one in English and one in her
language, Luganda.
We exchange phone numbers and
he thanks me for allowing God to use me.
I neglect to tell him how God
had to basically drag me kicking and screaming to the hospital in order to
share with him the Good News that has changed the course of his life forever.
I cry when we leave…in awe of
the love and grace and power and plan of our God.
And I admit to myself and to
the team what I was unwilling to admit earlier in the day…
That the restlessness,
opposition and resistance I was feeling in my spirit was in fact a scheme of the enemy…he had resorted to ‘old faithful’…his tried and true method of paralyzing me…
Fear.
Deep deep down I was
afraid.
I was afraid of not having
the right words to say, not being able to put the gospel into a nutshell for a
non-believer to grasp, not knowing how to adequately minister to someone in
their greatest need.
“Do not worry beforehand
about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour; for it
is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit.”
(Mark 13:11)
How quickly and how often I
forget this simple truth.
It is not I who speaks.
It is the Holy Spirit.
I
call James and Rose on Sunday to check in, and they have just returned from
church. He is just as excited now as he
was a week ago about his newfound relationship with Christ. We plan to meet up the following Saturday so
I can deliver the Bibles to them.
James, myself and Charles
(the pastor who is going to disciple him) meet over tea and chapatis on
Saturday afternoon.
I give him both Bibles,
complete with notes of scriptures to check out, a reminder that the Word is
meant to reveal the heart and character of the Lord (John 5:39-40), and a
reminder to test everything he is taught with the Word of the Lord and the
Spirit of the Lord, so as to follow HIM and not fall prey to following the
traditions and doctrines of man instead.
(Mark 7:6-8)
He’s so excited and wants to
read his new Bible, so he reads Psalms 1 and 139 out loud.
Then he proceeds to tell us
how he and Rose had tried FOUR other hospitals/doctors offices the night baby
Margaret had fallen ill, each attempt failing due to office hours, lack of
manpower or supplies, etc.
They finally found themselves
at the hospital in Mukono around 9 p.m., literally just in time to save his
baby’s life.
The very next morning is when
we came, shared the love of the Lord with him, and God saved his life as
well.
He was in awe of the pursuit and love of God for him.
I
was in awe of God’s grace and plan prevailing over Satan’s attempts to quiet
the words of truth God had placed on my tongue, his scheme to steal LIFE from
James.
In my last blog I, in a
roundabout way, mentioned my dislike of ‘shotgun evangelism’ and rather my
preference for ‘relational evangelism’.
Yet, this whole situation
changed my perspective.
Because though I prefer
building the foundation of relationship before sharing the gospel with someone,
does that mean that when I don’t have the time or opportunity to build that
relationship first, that I won’t share the Good News with them anyway?
Absolutely not.
I realize now that the Spirit
is always on the move, working in ways that we do not see.
And oftentimes, the field is ripe for the
harvest…God is just waiting for laborers to bring it in.
(Poor internet connection, so please excuse the jacked up photos and anything else that might seem a little odd about this post…:) )
I told this story for The Awakening in September.
Below are the videos:
