Saturday, March 24, 2012

Sidwell and Spiritual Warfare


This past weekend was both encouraging and exciting during our local outreach time in the township of Masiphumelele (Masi). It was encouraging because our group hasn't seen much spiritual fruit during our times walking around in Masi, and exciting because I was able to see and experience some spiritual warfare! (Picture: Me, Sidwell, Matt, Sidwell's brother, and Jay)

I had never really seen a demon manifest itself in someone until this past weekend. My friend Jay and I were walking out of Masi one day when a guy asked us for some money. We told him that we didn't have any but that we could pray for him, so we did. Right after we finished praying for him we saw a woman making a bee-line for us. She was an older woman and was kind of hunched over. When she reached us she started telling us all of her problems and the trouble she had been having with her family, her finances, and her health. After she finished talking I thought she was going to ask for money, but to my surprise she just asked us to pray for her. We happily agreed and Jay started praying for her. As he started praying I could feel her start to shake so I just figured she was getting emotional or something. She continued to shake more violently until Jay finished and I started praying. When I started praying she fell into Jay and I so that we both had to hold her up. She was still shaking pretty hard and even started foaming from her mouth so that her saliva started falling to the ground. At this point I finally realized it was probably a demon. I had no clue what to do so I just kept praying. We were praying for her on a busy sidewalk so there were lots of people looking at us not sure what was going on. There was part of me that just wanted to lay her down and run away but I knew that was foolish. After praying for a couple of minutes she stopped shaking and stood up straight(!), said thank you, and walked away. It was pretty crazy.

On that same day while walking through Masi, Jay and I bumped into a guy named Sidwell who we had ran into once before. According to some of the locals, Sidwell is one of the most dangerous guys in Masi. The first time we had met him he told us that he kills white people if he thinks they have money. So I was immediately pretty frightened when he grabbed us and told us to come to his house. He was visibly drunk and also seemed demon-possessed because he was very angry and stern with us and would occasionally go into fits of swearing. Thankfully, there were some local guys with us and they eventually convinced Sidwell that if he wanted to hang out with Jay and I that he would have to come with us to our prayer shack in Masi. I still felt pretty uneasy as us three made our way to the prayer shack. I really wasn't sure what we were gonna do when we got to the prayer shack so I prayed in my head as we walked over there. After finally arriving at the prayer shack we walked in and Sidwell's facial expression immediately changed. He went from having an angry, drunk look to a calm, peaceful look. Once we sat down we started talking with him, asking him questions about his life. He was quick in telling us that he could hear demons, and my first thought was "oh great, why does he have to have demons?!" But thankfully, God really gave me a peace as he reminded me that he is control and that with the power of the Holy Spirit we have authority over the demons. So after he finished speaking, Jay and I started praying. I prayed with my eyes open because I was worried that he might pull a knife or that his demons would start manifesting themselves. Thankfully, nothing crazy happened and we ended up just praying over him for about 10 minutes. Afterwards he told us that he felt the demons fleeing while we prayed! He went onto tell us that he could see a light in us that he really wanted for himself. I was shocked. It was such an awesome display of God's power by producing such a radical change in him in such a short time! When it was time for us to leave, he kept asking when we could get together again. As of now, we have hung out with him around 4 times in the past week and he is so hungry for the Lord! He hasn't drank or smoked in the last week and he hasn't had any demonic oppression either. We have just been praying and reading through the Bible with him and he is just drinking it in. After one night of hanging with him I started feeling convicted because I don't know if I have ever hungered for the Word of God like Sidwell, even though I need God just as much as Sidwell does. We are going to continue discipling and empowering Sidwell until he feels ready to start sharing the Gospel in Masi.

I am so thankful that God has allowed me to be part of Sidwell's story, because it has built up my faith so much in the reality of how God can change lives. Sidwell saw God's light and wanted it, and now he has been completely transformed by God's love. Crazy stuff.

On a different note, Louisville upset Michigan State yesterday so I was super pumped about that. I have never picked the correct winner on my March Madness bracket, so maybe this is my year. Hopefully they can hold off the Gators in a few hours to get that Final Four berth!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Zambia?!

I'm not expecting to get much sleep this weekend since I might be pulling a few all-nighters to watch the NCAA Basketball tourney and to get score updates on the NCAA Wrestling Tournament. I went out on a limb this year with my March Madness picks by picking a 4 seed, Louisville, to win it all. Thus naming my bracket Greeno's Pitino's (Louisville's head coach is Rick Pitino). So yeah, I'm pretty excited for a crazy, sports filled weekend!

In class this week are talking about leadership in the church and what that should look like. It has been pretty interesting, but the main thing I want to write about is the two month outreach we will be starting in mid-April. The outreach locations were announced last week. The options were: India, Madagascar, Zambia, Malawi, and staying local working in the townships that we are currently working in. We then turned in our top two choices to the leaders. Mine were: #1 India, #2 Zambia. I wanted India mainly because it was the farthest thing away from an African village. I chose Zambia as #2 mainly because it is close to Victoria Falls which is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World! Well, I ended up getting chosen to go on the Zambia trip which will be as African village-y as it gets. We will be sleeping in tents and there will be no electricity or water. A little rewind on my life quick. Ever since I've been young, one of the last places on Earth I wanted to go would be an African village. When African missionaries would come to our church when I was younger, I would be so adamant that I would never go to an African village because it looked pretty awful. So God had to give me a major change of heart just to come out to South Africa. So when I found out I was going to Zambia I'm ashamed to admit that I had a little pity party. I figured that since God had me put running on hold for awhile, then why not drag me out to the last place on Earth I want to go (I feel awful writing this, but this is how I initially felt). Then I figured things would just continue to get worse. I would probably end up moving to a village in the Congo for the rest of my life where no one speaks English, where I would be sleeping in a mud puddle, eating grass, feeding ostriches for a living (I hate ostriches), married to a woman I'm not attracted to, and would never run another step in my life.

I had this lie in my head that God was just out to make my life miserable. But thankfully, like always, God showed His amazing grace by placing some extremely uplifting and encouraging people in my path throughout the next day that helped me get my head back on straight. Both these guys are older than me and were able to share about the times in their life when they had no clue why God was calling them to sacrifice certain comforts. Eventually, they both came to realize that God worked what they thought were negative circumstances into amazing events that would change their lives for much better than if they had never sacrificed those comforts. One verse they told me which really spoke to me was Isaiah 55:8-9: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth , so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." So I guess all I need to do is trust that God is good and that he knows what he's doing.

So there are 7 total people on our team going to Zambia. I am the only American, so it will be a new challenge to live with people from all different cultures. We will leave Cape Town in a van on April 21st and probably won't get there until the 23rd. I'm not quite sure what we will be doing yet, but I think we will be working with orphans while trying to start house churches in the villages we will be working in. Apparently, there are lots of hippos, crocodiles, and snakes where we will be going which is kinda scary. I also don't have a clue whether or not I will be able to run. Thankfully, we will be driving into Livingstone on the weekends where there will be internet cafes and grocery stores. This will allow me to stay in touch with all my peeps from back home! Overall, this trip will definitely be tough, but I know it will force me to rely on God rather than my daily comforts am I used to. I'm just praying they have ice cream where we're staying...

Thanks for your continued prayers, everyone. They are very much appreciated. Go Louisville!

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

March Madness!




I was feeling a little homesick for the US this week because March is my favorite month for sports. Although I can still see scores and results online, I still feel like I will be missing out on all of the big sporting events. These include: Minnesota State HS wrestling tournament, NCAA wrestling tournament, NBA action starting to heat up (Wolves continue to roll!), NCAA conference basketball tournaments, NCAA Indoor Track, Baseball spring training, and of course, NCAA March Madness! Not to mention, there are no shamrock shakes out here...WHAT?!

Anyway, I have a few quick updates since my last blog:
  • I got re-baptized in the Indian Ocean last week! I was reading in Acts 2, and when I came to verse 38 I just felt a tug at my heart, so I decided I would get re-baptized. I was baptized when I was about 14, and though I was sincere about my decision, I don't think I understood 100% what it meant at the time. Overall, it was a great experience and I was glad to have some awesome people there to share the experience with me.
  • I have finally been able to get around to some Cape Town tourism these past 2 weeks during our days off. I hiked Chapman's Peak (pictured above) and Skeleton Gorge, and then I went and visited Boulder Beach with Matt and Jay yesterday. All three of them were pretty awesome. Skeleton Gorge had a blood-red lake on top of it which we swam in. Boulder Beach had a ton of penguins which was cool to see, although I didn't like them too much. Sadly, I don't have much of a soft spot for animals in my heart.
  • I ran a half marathon this past weekend. A few of the guys from our CPX group were doing it, and since it had prize money, I figured I'd give it a shot. This was probably the first time in 6 years that I've raced while not in race shape, so I had no clue what to expect. With no workouts since Club Cross Nationals in December, I decided just to race for the win and not for time. I felt pretty awkward the first 10k, even though the pace was pretty slow at a little over 34 minutes. At this point I decided to pick it up. I ran some 5:10's and got the lead pack down to four guys- me and three Africans. With about 2 miles to go, the lead biker took a wrong turn that ended up taking me out of the lead. I ended up pressing pretty hard to catch the leaders, but just jogged it in the last mile when I realized I wouldn't catch them. So I ended up 4th in 1:10:38. I was definitely bummed since, a. I lost, b. I was 4+ minutes off a PR, and c. I ran a similar time 6 years ago just after graduating from high school. There was one encouraging thing from the race. I was very surprised with myself by how positive my attitude was. I used to be one of the worst sports out there, so it was cool to see how far God has brought me in this area over the past few years!
This past week's theme was discipleship. Some of the main topics were characteristics of a disciple, how to make disciples, and the importance of having discipling relationships. I was convicted when they talked about the importance of having discipling relationships with people more spiritually advanced, with people at similar spiritual levels, and with those not as spiritually mature as you are. I have 3-4 "accountability partners" that are at a similar level spiritually, but I am not being discipled by someone more advanced, and I'm not really discipling anyone either. Both of those are something I'm currently working on.

The main thing the Lord has been working on my heart lately is learning to completely surrender to the Lord's will. I had a close friend say that he could tell I was very hungry for God, but he didn't feel like I was completely surrendering to God's will. As hard as it was to admit, he was completely right. I have been very hungry and excited to learn what God's will is for my life these past few months. But I haven't surrendered a few things. One of those things is where I will live. I have been telling God lately that I will be on fire for Him and do what He wants me to do as long as I end up back in the Twin Cities. But I have felt very strongly that He wants me to surrender that and be open to wherever He leads me to. To be honest, overseas missions scares the heck out of me. But it is something that I am at least trying to be open to.

Thanks again to everyone who has been so supportive financially, prayerfully, and encouragingly. I am so grateful for all of you!