I’ve been in Swaziland for 1 week now. Camping in what used to be a chicken coop, we usually wake up to the sound of a goat walking by, a rooster crowing, or the laughter of kids playing on a nearby jungle gym. Most days we’ll escape the hectic scene of 50 people living on 1 small property and wake up early to run to the foothills of the mountain, accompanied by the sweetest silence of nothing and the occasional mother walking to fill up water jugs at the well. On the way back, the kids who are walking to the nearby school run along side us holding our hands. Honestly, it’s a dream, I feel like I’m in a movie.
Our days look like building relationships with the locals (swazi people are the friendliest, you can approach anyone and hold their hand and ask how they are and they love it), soccer, hacky sack, helping elderly ladies carry their buckets of water from the well, cramming 15-17 people into a small truck everyday to ministry, working on a playground, and feeding children. Then you come home after a long day of ministry to 40+ who just did the same thing all around the city, and sit and eat together, sharing testimonies of the day. Communal living is seriously the best, I miss my friends after just a full day of not seeing them. Church is amazing, the Swazi people worship and make the best music I’ve ever heard. We sing and dance for Jesus and it feels like theres no such thing as a language barrier. Swaziland has been in a terrible drought and hasn’t seen rain this year; and we prayed for rain, and a storm came! God is so good.
To be honest though, our nights haven’t been as bright. The first two nights I and many others experienced strange nightmares and spiritual attacks from the evil one. This was expected though, as believers we know that the devil will try and keep us from building God’s kingdom. On the third day, a sandstorm came, blowing sand in our tents. So with a layer of sand covering everything I own and live with for the next 9 months, I had a choice to pile into the living room to sleep or try and sleep outside during the sandstorm. I made the more intelligent choice and cuddled up next to my buddy Cole on the cold hard tile. With people playing cards and playing music, I fell asleep and slept through the night with the occasional kick from Cole but no nightmares. I woke up to a different feeling in the room. People were talking about the crazy night that had happened. A lot of people experienced spiritual attacks that really shook them. People feeling the devils presence in the room, people seeing demons, people waking up paralyzed with pressure keeping them from moving or screaming Jesus’s name, people having visions of battles, it all happened, it happened 5 feet from me. As I slept people had to get adults to pray over the house, the Holy Spirit told girls to go and pray over the sleeping boys. I’ve found spiritual warfare to be so much more present in Africa, away from all the distractions of the American life. The fourth night, in the very same building people were having nightmares in, we worshipped, but there was a dark presence in the back corner. People subconsciously shifted away from that corner, and after worship my friend had noticed he and the people around him had moved about 4 steps away from the corner towards the center of the room. (If you’ve ever been to a church service, you know you tend to stay really close to your chair because if you step forward people can see you worship out of the corner of their eye, or at least that’s what I do, so I have a hard time believing the Lord wasn’t protecting them that night). By the end of the night, as we continued to sing, pray, and read scripture over each other, people were seeing visions of angels surrounding the room we were in. Our voices got louder. Hands were stretching to the heavens. The night just kept on getting better and better. I ask that you pray for our nights to be as good as this one.
To sum this up, I can say with confidence that the Lord is good. He is our protector and we have nothing to fear. He is my refuge and my fortress.
Psalm 91:5 “You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day.”
Psalm 91:11 “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.”
