Talk about a busy week! For the last two years I have been in the pasture of the Lord, partaking of His abundance and enjoying even the wilderness a bit. Basically, my ministry has been one on one with a few adventures preaching to churches here and there. I have been mostly eating a diet of humble pie, being more in the background and not on the stage so to speak. I have very much enjoyed this place and have even said, “You know what God, even if I never preach or teach again in a public setting, I am happy to just sit with the one, because it is where I am needed most.”
I have been under the leadership of people way younger than myself and some with a lot less experience, but I know it is where God placed me. I have been learning to lead from behind, and not from the front, as my military background has taught me. Basically I have been learning how to shepherd. Imagine that! Makes me laugh because God is really very funny. I was just saying this week to a fellow missionary, I most want to hear God laugh when I get to heaven and see Him face to face. I want to hear His laugh because He is such a happy God. He sure gets a kick out of me (lol)!
So, I am finding myself on the front lines again doing ministry in a different way. We are hosting a Bible school for area pastors, even coming from as far north as Darfur! So, now I have friends in Darfur. Hmmmm, God at work again. So, I have been helping to teach some of the classes. We have total freedom and get to teach what the Lord is putting on our hearts to teach and so this is very awesome. We are finding that the things each of us are teaching are lining right up with each other because we are following Holy Spirit’s leading. Isn’t that something (haha)!
I have also been leading the youth group on Wednesday nights where we are going through the Book of Galatians. This week we watched a movie called, “Faith Like Potatoes” and it is a true story about how one man came to his faith and how God did an amazing miracle. The kids loved it and are expecting great things in their own lives!
Also this week, I took a team of four Sudanese ladies and four Sudanese men, all Bible school students, and we went to the hospital for our outreach. The hospital here is a very, very sad place. Some go there just to wait our the tumor or cancer until they die. We saw two people with tumors so huge that it seriously looked as if they were nine months pregnant, no exaggeration. Talk about feeling the pressure of praying the right thing! Well, we don’t feel pressure because we just do what God has asked us to do and believe that He has the rest in hand. We have prayed for two hours before going and have fasted and have done what we know to do and just have to believe God to do His part.
Quite a few received salvation. In the children’s dormitory, we just started singing and soon the entire ward of mamas were singing with us, worshipping God in that place! We gave a very short encouraging message and prayed for the children. The mamas were so thankful and were lifted in their spirits. It is so awesome to do outreach here because you are allowed to follow Holy Spirit and are allowed to preach to an entire ward if you want and everyone wants prayer. They’re not crazy, they know God is God and only He can do a miracle. It’s just awesome, the faith of these people. It makes outreach so easy and enjoyable. We didn’t see any visible healings but God will care for them. We are going every week and so I just have to believe that this week we will hear the testimonies.
We also did an outreach to the police training camp up the road from us. There are close to 500 men there and 80% raised their hands to receive Jesus as their Savior! We were only there a short time as it was an outreach. The director liked what we were doing so much that he asked us to come back to preach on Sunday. Well, yours truly (me) got voted on to preach. Talk about major nervous! And so I got to preach the first ever Sunday sermon at the police training camp in South Sudan! Haha! Yay God!!!
The message was a call to follow Jesus, not just receive Him as Savior, but now follow Him. They loved it because I talked about my military background and how theirs sets them up to be in God’s army. At the end, I stood at attention and said in my best drill command voice, “OOH-RAH Yeshua!”. They asked what it meant and I told them that it was what the US Marines say when they are in unity about a thing. They asked if I would say it again so that they could say it back. How cool to hear 500 Sudanese men yelling OOH-RAH Yeshua!! Haha!! Yay God again!
I have been showing the children, all ages, and the mamas, Cecille B. DeMilles Ten Commandments movie which was made in the 1950’s. The one with Charleton Heston. I showed it in three parts because it is very long. They simply loved this movie. They clapped when the Israelites walked out of Egypt. They clapped and cheered when God parted the sea. They praised God as they walked back to their dorms for the night. It never ceases to amaze me how much they love God. They don’t have much influence from the world and so their love is so pure and devoted. It always makes me smile.
Late this afternoon, two of our girls decided to run away, for different problems, not related to each other. And they went separate ways. This never happens, especially two unrelated cases within the same hour. Then one of our babies had to go to the children’s clinic over night. And another baby just came back after spending a week there. We have been doing daily ministry and we have daily been destroying the works of the devil and so I think it is warfare. The devil usually attacks when he feels threatened. And so we are just going to worship God more and bring more of His Presence on our compound. Take that you devil!
Last Friday night was our first meeting for the Friday Night Furnace. God put this on my heart to do when I was at International House of Prayer in December. We meet from 8:00 pm to midnight and we pray and worship and declare things for this nation and the church and families. I hung solar powered lights up in the rafters of the church and had my speakers with iPod playing soaking and worship music and had scripture on big sheets of paper taped to the wall and we have flags that we use for worship and had grass mats all over the floor. This was the first time anyone here has ever done this type of intercession. I felt like I was plowing hard ground all night to get people to pray out loud and dance and not just sit there and observe,
I was told the next day that the youth said it was fantastic and could we do this every week! I am thrilled and am going to now raise up a youth team to lead some nights and so they are learning the “harp and bowl” type of worship and intercession that IHOP does. My strength is renewed again as I rested a bit yesterday and I am excited to see what this new week brings.
And in the midst of all of this I have been working on getting my book in the correct format for final submission so that the editing phase can begins. I have submitted it today! And so it should take about seven months before it hits the streets. I am so praying that it goes quickly, only so that I can come home when it is WARM for the book signing sessions!!! I do not like the cold. It is now in the 115’s during the day and gets down to 70 at night and even that 45 degree drop has me wearing a sweater in the mornings. I laugh now because I used to love 70 degrees!
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