Ana hibu ita! Ana Jibu “Good News”. Ana tali Jesu Taki! Guess what? My Arabic is picking up. I said, I love you! I bring Good News. I come in Jesus Name! This has been a crazy week in the spirit realm, and in the natural realm. We have all been experiencing a large amount of opposition this week and we know that the devil is not happy about what we are doing here.
Our Bible School students are growing so fast in the Holy Spirit and they believe everything they are taught and they do it! When we go on outreaches, we don’t leave until people are saved, people are healed and people hand over their little witchcraft charms. We went to the hospital on Thursday and there was a ton to be done there.
Before we could even get in the first dorm area, we heard this blood curdling screaming. We said, “Let’s go! They are calling us!” We came upon this little girl, about 10 years old, who was screaming and all tensed up and her eyes were not focusing here on this earth. We found that a crazy in the head SPLA soldier had gone on a rampage in a nearby town and had sent 5 people to the hospital. He took his gun bayonet and literally stabbed this girl in the back of her head while she was carrying a small baby! It went into her brain.
We began to pray for her and pray and pray. We kept speaking peace over her. The entire time we were praying, she didn’t scream once. She even closed her eyes as if in peace. We found that the mother had a witchcraft charm on and we asked her to give it up. She did after we told her that her child would be healed when she trusted God and not the devil. Then the girl started to scream again and our awesome Sudanese pastor got right up to her face and quietly started talking to her, calling her by name, and this girl who was stabbed in the brain began to respond to him. She began to repeat the sinner’s prayer and to repeat a prayer to stop the tormenting of the devil and her memories. It was amazing.
The baby was in the next bed and had her eyelids cut and they were so swollen she didn’t look like she had eyes back there. Another baby was also stabbed and a man was shot. We prayed for them all. Then in the baby house, our team prayed for a little boy who had fallen from a tall mango tree. His legs were crippled under and he was in so much pain that he couldn’t straighten them at all. Our team prayed and prayed and soon, the impossible happened, he straightened his legs. The team prayed some more and soon, another impossibility, he took a few faltering steps and then soon he was strutting around like nobody’s business! Oh God, yay God, you always get the victory God!!!
This was Thursday afternoon. Friday morning in the wee hours, I started my soon continuous journey to the latrine. I was so sick on Friday and Saturday that all I could do was run back and forth and sleep in between. Whatever goes in comes right back out. I have been on a liquid diet since Thursday and still, it all comes out. It is Sunday morning and not much change. I did manage to keep down a few bites of food but am still losing it all out the other way. So I live on 7up and water and a banana twice a day. Don’t you know that the devil was ticked off! I was the team leader and he decided to take a swipe at me I guess. Oh well, too bad he is so sad!
So this morning I had church with my Cornerstone Church family by way of a CD that I bought a couple of years ago. It is the choir and all their wonderful best songs. One of them has become my theme song today. My good friend Tim, singing with all of his heart, and the choir backing him up, “Give God the glory and He will give you the victory! Satan the blood of Jesus is against you and I will give God all of my praise!” Been singing it all day long. Makes me smile. Every trip to the latrine (about 5 an hour) I claim my victory! Even though I am miserable in my body, I am strong in my spirit. I have to be or the devil wins.
This morning, even though I was weak and still not doing great I went with our team to the Police Training Camp because today was the day they would be baptized, hundreds of men. We arrived and the camp was empty except for a small group of sick men. We decided to have church until the main group returned, thinking they were on their morning run. After almost two hours there, and more healings by the way, we realized that the main contingent wasn’t coming. We learned that the director, who is a Christian, was reassigned somewhere else and the new director is a Muslim. So, he decided that the men didn’t need to be there on Sunday morning I guess.
We heard this testimony from one of the sick guys, a devout Christian, and were amazed. He said that the week before we made our first visit to the camp, there was a man in the camp who was demon possessed and was shaking and screaming and frothing and stuff. They gathered the few around who would pray and rebuked the demons and the man was set free and received salvation. This small band of brothers began to pray together for God to invade the camp and His Presence be known there. A week later we show up, handing out over 400 Bibles and preaching a message of salvation. Don ‘t you know that God hears the prayers of the faithful!
The next week I came and so many answered the call to follow Jesus in holiness and righteousness. This man said that he was so encouraged that he vowed to make the Bible his number one gun and the governments gun his second choice. There were guys getting healed today right there in front of us. One guy said that he couldn’t even walk hardly because he hurt his back and when he was prayed for by the Bible School brothers, he had full movement. We give God the glory. He gave the victory! The blood of Jesus is against the devil!
So we left there before the main group ever returned and we just pray for this door to remain open to us and for the new director to receive Jesus as the guest of honor.
On some brighter notes, we somehow got a sheep here at Iris while I was home for Christmas. Well, a little baby popped out on Valentines Day and the kids had already named him before I even knew what had happened. They named our love baby (Valentines Day is about love right?), they named him David! Hah, a little sheep after God’s own heart! How amazingly prophetic is that! Very cool. So, now we have Isaac and David running around and another baby goat on the way. We had no idea that they were pregnant. Supernatural increase I say!!
Earlier in the week I was walking home and I stopped and bought 5 bags of peanuts. I usually only buy one and had no clue why I bought so many. As I am walking home, you guessed it, I am handing out peanuts to all the kids along the way. I finally get to our path and there is this old lady who lives on the corner by our church. She has a son, I am assuming, who never smiles and never says hello. He looks about in his 30s. I always wave to her or say a greeting when I go for my runs.
So I am walking by and I wave and as I continue on I hear God tell me to turn back and give her a whole bag of peanuts. I’m like, You’re kidding right? What would she want my peanuts for? This is crazy. But I do it. As I come upon her, I see that she is sitting there shucking a huge batch of peanuts! I almost laugh. I bend at the waist and offer her the bag in my right hand while holding my right forearm as a sign of respect. She smiles and thanks me with a big grin.
Later that day I learn that when you give someone peanuts in Sudan, it is a sign of intimate friendship being born or continued! So, I was showing all these along the path that I am your friend. It especially meant a lot with the old lady because she is always alone and her son seems so unhappy and angry. I pray that I can sit with her and somehow communicate my new friendship. God is so cool isn’t He?
Also earlier this week I found myself telling God that I would love to hear Him laugh and that the first thing I wanted to hear when I get to heaven is His amazing laugh. I want to hear the sound of my happy God. As I am teaching the Bible School about the prophetic, we then get to actually practice it. So I give them the assignment and after they listen for a word of encouragement for their partner, I ask if any want to share what God said to them. Here in the Sudanese culture ALL want to share, seriously. So they all did. We had such a great time and laughed with so much joy because they really were very good and so original, it could only be God. Then I heard in the midst of it all, “Carolyn, this is what my laugh sounds like. I dwell in each of you and you are what my laugh sounds like.” I love it!
And so I have just ended my week of warfare and infirmity and teaching and reaching, by sitting with the mamas and older girls and showing them how to use an American potato peeler. The look of pure joy and wonder alit on their faces. They now have both of my peelers. A very small price to pay for such huge smiles and looks of wonder. They peeled, I cracked nuts as they had a huge industrial pot full that needed cracking, and a small girl of 10 roasted coffee beans over the fire and then commenced to grind them on a big flat rock with a smaller rock to crush them. It was such a peaceful scene, even though I had made oh about 8 trips to the latrine. I tried to eat a little lunch today. Ma quez! Not good! I still very much enjoyed sitting with these older girls and the mamas. It’s the best place to be in South Sudan, on that porch!
It is now Monday morning and I am sitting at the internet café ready to send my email but I just have to testify first. Last night as I sat in my room reading about Jesus death on the cross and His resurrection and the power that He left for us, I was holding my large bottle of water. I was so thirsty but didn’t want to drink more than a sip or I would be running to the latrine again. I looked at my water and I said, “God, You made this water. You made it to do my body good and not harm. I am going to drink this water and believe this of you and it will no longer run right through me but it will nourish me.”
I took a drink and waited. I took another drink. I drank deeply then. And do you know that since that declaration I have not gone to the latrine once? Not once since last night at 9:00 when I said that declaration. Hallelujah, praise the Lord! I got up this morning and I stood on my porch and I said loud, “Hallelujah!” and the mamas were so happy! God is truly a great and merciful God and He cares for us.
I love you and I bless you and I thank you for your prayers. They always avail much, I just know it! I believe it.
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