Since our first weekend here in Uganda we met Beatrice in the neerby town of Karuma (where we walk 7miles to get our food for every week)...Jesus basically shined a light on her, not in a literal way for clarification, but in that she is one of the few people in the town that can fluently speak English. Getting to know Beatrice over the past 3 months led us to meeting and becoming friends with her sister, Agnus, who lives in the same town. Agnus has led us to several people who needed prayer for healing so we have gotten to do that with her over the course of our time! She had invited us to go "pray with her" at her church for several weeks but always deferred the offer until this last week. We walked the distance early Sunday morning and entered the village consumed by the booming sound of African voices in passionate, powerful prayer! It was awesome! Almost scary because it was so driven....anyways it turned out to be our friend Agnus, who basically is one of the heads of her church. She led us in prayer for Uganda, for the redemption of Karuma, for the eradication of witchcraft in Karuma and for the healing of the parts of the body that are sick. From there we went into worship, which Agnus also led, and it was then that the girl infront of me and Macy and another girl a few seats to the right of us started convulsing. From my OneThing and WorldMandate experiences I obviously assumed these people were jerking in the Spirit (which was so tangibly there) and maybe just being filled. Then the convulsions started, the girls fell back onto the floor and started kicking and screaming at the top of their lungs. This obviously wasn't normal for my Baptist, Waco, Tx background and Macy's Southern Baptist, Henderson, Tx background... so we started stepping back from the event to keep from being hurt by they girls flailing limbs. The Ugandans weren't the slightest disturbed...they were keeping with the rhythm of the drums as they danced and sang the songs while they stacked up chairs and tied the girls legs together to keep from injuring themselves! Again...it was ridiculous! Macy and I were literally staring in awe of what was taking place before us...but no one else seemed to be bothered. The church began casting out the demons that were manifesting in these girls, still keeping rhythm mind you, and the girls were carried outside to finish the process while we continued worship. Things became humorous to us by this point! Minutes later they came back inside, dusting themselves off and sat right back down as if nothing had happened. By the end of the service the pastor called out those who have been fighting demons to come to the front and get delivered. This process was as common to the Africans as the alter call for Americans! Obviously as they, it was three girls getting prayed for at his pointnow, were getting prayed over for deliverance they began to manifest the demon. Again the convulsions, the tieing of the legs was happening (if you have ever seen a rodeo where they rope the calfs...its basically the same process) and by the end these girls were delivered! They stood up at the front and gave their testimonies...all three of them didnt know of Jesus, didnt know how they even got to the church... even one of them said that she contracted the demon a few months ago while she was getting water at the well, because the demon had been living in the water. Praise Jesus, by the end of the service they all gave their lives to Jesus!! And it doesn't even stop there... as we left the church to get our weekly Coke at a gas station/ bar/ restaurant a friend, named Herbert, we have made who works at the shop came and sat down with us to tell us that he has noticed something different in us. He has been between Islam and Catholicism his whole life and has never been able to stick with either one so he had given up until the week before when we invited him to our church at Restoration Gateway and he had come. It was his first time to a protestant church and he proceeded to ask us about who Jesus was and what made us different and how he can see God as a Comforter but didnt know where his place was in Christianity because he was never very good at following those other paths of faith. We got to share the heart of God with him and that what he sees in us is the joy of Christ and how he desires so much to have relationship with each one of us....and basically the Gospel...it was glorious! We are meeting with him this upcoming week to answer questions he has and talk with him more about who Jesus is and what he came to do! So please please pray for our time coming up with him!
Great Great Great things are happening here! We have seen healings, demons casted out and lives transformed....and its only been three months! God is moving here in a powerful way....the beautiful thing about Africa is that the Holy Spirit is so much more understandable and received than it is in the States....so spiritual warfare is all over this place! Its a battle field and its a glorious day getting to be in the midst of it when you know that you are on the winning side! Literally! Its unreal! Would we be a people who walk in the Spirit who truly live out Love and who speak Life over ourselves instead of rationalizing evil in this world! Let us walk out harmoniously in the love of God! Be encouraged by the work that is going on here! Please pray for us and for the people of Karuma!
Lubanga Ber (God is Good)
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