Africa- Installment 4

What day are we on now? Right. Friday. Friday I saw a little girl (maybe 5 or 6) manifest a demon. She fell down and started screaming and writhing on the floor. It's bad enough to see an adult who's tormented by a demon, but when it's a child, oh.. that's just not acceptable. The pastor and I prayed for God's peace for the girl and the demon immediately shut up and the girl was normal again. The girl's mother was some sort of leader in the church and we prayed with her for the girl to be free from the demon.

One of the craziest things of the entire trip for me happened that afternoon. It still baffles me. I was talking with a woman and the conversation seemed to be going well. There were no translators nearby but that turned out not to be a problem because she apparently spoke English, perfect English. We had been talking for a while when suddenly nothing I said seemed to make sense to her anymore. She then looked up at me, apparently very confused, and said, in perfect English, "I speak only Swahili. I don't speak English. You are speaking to me in Swahili". Crazy, huh? Unfortunately after that we were unable to communicate at all. She then talked with one of the men from the church for a little while and they both seemed contented and moved on. I don't know what exactly happened or what God did with her, but I would like to think that God did something with that conversation. Perhaps we lost our understanding of each other because the conversation had gone as far as it needed to, I don't know. Anyway, it was crazy.

We had one more day of the conference, in which I don't remember anything too terribly exciting happening. Well, at least not any major healings though certainly there were people who got healed and people who gave their lives to Christ, which is exciting enough right?

The following day we headed off for Ngorongoro for a few (awesome) days of safari before leaving Tanzania. Basically, the trip rocked (in case you hadn't gotten that already); lots of healings (each day we had people dancing on stage who had previously been unable to walk), lots of salvations, and lots of lives touched by God.

Africa- Installment 3

After a rather lengthy break in my storytelling I shall continue with Wednesday.

Wednesday was the beginning of the conference we were working with (the Call Africa). The conference consisted of a pastors' meeting in the morning and a rally for anyone in the area who wanted to come in the afternoon. There were 4 different locations in and around Moshi and each team went to a different location each day.

There isn't much to say about Wednesday. It was a good day, but a day in which very little that was particularly memorable occured (to me at least, that's not to say the rest of the team didn't have memorable experiences that day). There is one person who sticks out in my mind from that day. A man who's right arm and leg were paralyzed. I prayed for him and the moment I had finished speaking he started, slowly, to move his arm, then his leg, and as he did so his face lit up with the biggest grin I think it could contain.

Thursday, in comparison, was very exciting. First we were unexpectedly joined by a group of high school students from New Zealand who had apparently been invited by one of the local pastors. They could not minister with us becuase only people who are with GMA are allowed to minister at their conferences (after all, they don't want people who's intentions and training they don't know being associated with them) but they performed the songs they had prepared (the national anthem of New Zealand and a maori war dance) which were met by the assembled crowd with great appreciation.

Anyway, on to the real stories. During ministry time after our pastor's sermon one of my teammates and I prayed for a young woman with a demon. The demon left her (hallelujah!) and then she asked us to pray for her feet. We looked and saw nothing wrong with her feet. She explained that she had club feet but as she looked at her feet a sheepish smile cam over her face- she hadn't noticed till that moment that she ahd been healed. God had healed her feet at the same time as setting her free from that demon!

I saw a lot of people healed that evening and there were a lot of people set free from demons, but that story is the one that really sticks out.

Africa- Installment 2

Tues July 7
I have to admit, I had not been very excited for our activities this day. This was our Bless Africa day when we broke into small groups and went to various places in and around Moshi to minister. Some people went to orphanages, some to a blind school, some to a deaf school, some to other interesting places, and I was to go to with two other women to a widow's group. Widows? What do i have in common with widows? How much cooler to go pray for some deaf or blind kids! But no, widows. It actually turned out to be really cool. All the women there were so blessed to have us with them. Each of the three of us got a chance to get up and speak to them and share God's heart with them. One of my biggest fears going on this trip was the fear that I would have to do just that- get up in front of a crowd of spiritually hungry Africans and say something meaningful- and those of you who know me well-or at all really- will realize that public speaking is not exactly my forte nor something I enjoy- but this I enjoyed. God told me just what he wanted to share with these beautiful women and they were touched by it- they had tears in their eyes. I find it truly amazing that God could use me to so deeply touch these women.

We were then whisked away to visit a women's dairy co-op. What the purpose of this visit was, I have no idea, but they certainly seemed to enjoy it. Our visit consisted mainly of being carted around the entire mountain village in the back of a standing-room-only pick-up truck with a group of joyous and constantly singing women to each of their three milk coolers. Did I mention this is Africa, and it's in the mountains, and the roads are- well- exciting? Yep, good times, good times (and I mean that, I'm not just being sarcastic, it was fun). AFter serving us an extraodinary meal, they presented us with gifts. A traditional wrap skirt for each of us, which they wrapped around us themselves with much song and dance (During this ceremony we got a call from one of the group leaders asking if we would be on time to be picked up. To this Ann replied "I have to go, they're dressing us").

Africa- Finally!

Today I have a treat for all you wonderful patient people- I am finally going to carry through with my promise to share with you all my stories from Tanzania! Exciting, no? So here it is- relief from your long months of agony (to be completed in a few installments)!

Sunday July 5
This was our first official day of ministry. We were broken up into groups of two or three to go minister at various churches within the vicinity of Moshi (the city we were in, in case you hadn't gathered that). The plan was to go to our churches and then come back to the hotels and have the rest of the day to recoup. That is not at all the way my day actually went. The pastor of the church I went to wanted to to take me and the guy I was with to a rally that the local pastors had put together and we, being the intrepid team that we were, agreed. So, after a rather adventurous lunch at the pastor's home, we made our way to Machengo field where we found an already enormous crowd awaiting us. The alter call that night brought forward 700 people. Even more came forward wanting physical healing. And so it was that I- tired and overwhelmed and hungry, having never seen anyone actually healed when I prayed for them- was released into the oncoming crowd to minister. And you know what? God is really awesome. When you step out and do something crazy he backs you up. I stepped out into that crowd not feeling the least bit brave and he used me. The first woman I prayed for that night had failing sight and hearing and she was healed. After that I found myself surrounded by people wanting prayer, most of whom were children with vision problems and God healed each one of them.

Monday July 6
I went into town with another member of our group and spent the day wandering around doing street ministry. We ended up with a young man- a street vendor- named Kelvin translating for us. He stopped to translate for the first man we prayed for and then accompanied us for the rest of the day. As we were walking we ran into another street vendor (a rather obnoxious one if I may say so). Upon learning that we were there to pray for people he gave up on his attempts to sell us his wares and led us to a man he thought we should pray for. THis man was an old, crippled beggar. He couldn't stand and his fingers were gnarled and deformed- as though he had leprosy. His fingers didn't grow back out (how awesome would that have been?!) but he was able to get up and walk when we finished praying for him. Kelvin was deeply touched that a man who hadn't been able to walk for years would be able to get up and walk after we prayed for him. I kept telling him that he could do the same thing- pray for people and see them healed- and that he could do far more than we could do becuase he lives there and speaks the language. I hope he took it to heart. Our street vendor friend then led us on to pray for another person, a elderly muslim man with bad knees. We prayed for him and he slowly stood up, stomped one foot then the other, looked up with a huge smile and started jumping around. By that time we had a whole group of street vendors surrounding us. They can be extremely obnoxious at first, but once they see you praying for people and talking about God, they forget all about selling anything and follow you around just wanting to hear everything you have to say. (The muslim man's son also followed us for a while, but only because he wanted to trade with me for my shiny purple GMA bracelet- the bracelet which I couldn't trade because it marked me as a member of the ministry team.) I think the thing I found most touching about that day was Kelvin. He never once tried to sell us anything (he, in fact, saved us from an argument with some other street vendors), he struck me as being a very honorable young man, and he was so hungry for God. Before going back to the hotel we bought him a Bible.

So, there is installment one, installment two will hopefully be posted tomorrow.

*SIGH*

So remember how I was going to always plan my use of frozen chicken ahead of time? I fail. As a result I now have an addition to make to my list of cooking lessons: always take your own advise. On Tuesday I got home, wanted to make chicken fried rice, remembered that the chicken was still frozen and decided to blaze on ahead anyway. Bad choice. I ended up with something strangely akin to rubber, sponge, and chicken all at once. I had already made a terrible choice in deciding to re-freeze this chicken and then I just added on to it. I couldn't even pry the chicken out of the tray, much less pry the two breasts apart- so I ran hot water over it- a great idea, had I put the chicken in a plastic bag first.

Mealgonewrong and Other Delicacies

College is a time of learning many things- specifically today I would like to address one lesson in particular which is of the utmost importance- how to, and NOT to cook.

Once you leave your parents' house and have a kitchen of your own you find yourself- gasp- having to prepare ALL of your own meals. This can be a challenging and exciting affair and leads to many new and interesting discoveries. You very quickly learn many lessons on how NOT to cook.

Lesson #1: Always check inside the oven BEFORE turning it on lest something flammable be stored within unbeknownst to you.

Lesson#2: Always be sure that you have burners on "low" when planning on simmering something like, oh, say, pasta sauce- lest you end up with a blackened brick rather than the delicious dinner you had planned.

Lesson #3: While freezing things like pasta sauce and chicken is a great idea, always be sure you plan which night you are actually going to use said ingredient. Otherwise you may think to yourself one night, "hey, I think i'll make something delicious out of that chicken i have", only to discover that, no-no you won't- that chicken is still in the freezer, frozen solid.

Lesson #4: When making something you've never made before, always be sure you really DO know what your doing before embarking upon the creation of said dish. It is not enough to say," I've seen my mother make this before, it's easy". When that is your thought process, you may be sure that disaster is all but inevitable.

When disaster strikes, however, all is not necessarily lost. Just when things seem bleakest and dinner a shattered dream there is the greatest potential for greatness. As proof of this, I would like to tell you of the creation of mealgonewrong (said in a French accent, of course). It was a Monday evening. We had chicken (not frozen), ground beef, and potatoes. We had planned on caramalizing the potatoes, but I, having not retreived the actual recipe from my mother, had simply guessed how to make them. The caramel, well i'm not sure what it did, but it wasn't what it was supposed to do. The caramelizing failed. So we threw all the ingredients into a skillet together with some herbs. It was missing something- so we added some onion. Still, it lacked something, so we dug through the refrigerator and pulled out some cheese. That was it! It was perfect, simple but perfect! Out of the ashes of cooking failure we had made something amazing- we had made Mealgonewrong!

"Nasty Uncomfortable Things"

I know it's been a while since I've posted. Part of this, of course is that I was out of the country and had much better things to attend to than blogging, but part of it also is that I am sure that I should say a few words about my trip, but after being part of something so amazing summing it all up on an online blog seems somehow sacrilege (let me clarify in case anyone has been out of the loop, I was in Moshi, Tanzania for two weeks).

Nonetheless, I must say something about it. I cannot very well tell each and every one of my many tales on this page but I will try to do justice to my experiences. To put it simply: God did amazing things; He touched many people in profound ways and I got to be part of it.

En route to Tanzania I began reading the Hobbit for the second time- it seemed a fitting book to read. Starting off on my adventure I didn't feel much different than Bilbo did starting on his: small and insignificant and not very excited about my adventure ( "Nasty uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!). I was late for dinner (and other meals) many times, and quite often was a little uncomfortable but God used me to do great things and brought out more of the courage that He gave me (just like Bilbo's adventures brought out his brave side). Maybe that's the most amazing part; there's nothing in particular that I have to offer that such a great God could need but He took me all the way to Tanzania and let me be a part of the things He's doing there. I will tell you a bit about what it was He, and we, did. A small group from my church along with approximately 70 other people were with Leif Hetland's ministry Global Mission Awareness. We worked with a conference called the African Call during which we had pastor's conferences, women's conferences and rallies. During the conference God moved in power. He healed people of blindness, deafness, deformities, paralysis and any number of other ailments serious or otherwise when we prayed for them (or in many cases when we hadn't prayed for them). We also cast out demons from many people by God's power and authority. We saw one girl who was healed of a severe physical deformity when we cast a demon out of her. We had people dancing wildly who minutes before had barely been able to walk. People who's failing eyesight or hearing was restored. People healed in the conferences and people healed on the streets. I saw demons manifest in people for the first time- and thereafter cast them out for the first time. Almost everyone I prayed for was healed. It was thoroughly amazing to say the least.

The hardest part is figuring out how to minister here in the same way that we ministered there- but I know God will teach how to do it. I know he has even greater things in store for me and I cannot wait for the adventures that He'll take me on next- nasty uncomfortable things though they be.