Differences

The prayer room

Other side of the prayer room

Thought I'd hit you with pictures

All the locks here are big skeleton keys!

Outside of Africa House

Walking in to Africa House - the entrance

Door on the right is the kitchen, door on the left goes to the hall where bedrooms and bath rooms are

The kitchen - Mama Louisa and Sylvia are cooking something up!

Long hall with my room there at the end

Community room!

An odd picture someone took of me...not that there's any normal ones

Well, we're due for another post I think.
We're on our normal schedule now, there was kind of a lot that needed to get crammed into the first 2 weeks so we were pumping on all cylinders. It's nice to have a break. Today is Monday. We have Saturdays, Sunday afternoons and Mondays off. We "work" on Sundays. Meaning that we are in the communities talking to people and doing Bible studies because, honestly, the people who tend to not go to church tend to be the people we want to love on and point out the love of Jesus to.

Something came up the other day that really made me laugh and yet cry at the same time. A guy (I'll talk more about him later) was spoke to class about the Holy Spirit for a few days and some Americans (me included) and Africans were just talking about it all. The Americans told the Africans that there are a lot of churches and Christians who don't believe that Gods heals people any more or that the gifts of the Spirit are still active. I wish I could have taken a picture of the African's faces when they heard that. Jaws hit the ground and didn't come up for a while, they were seriously stunned that people thought that and were confused as to why they would think that AND preach against it. Things supernatural and the Holy Spirit moving - bringing healing, speaking words of knowledge, giving prophesies, giving pictures, giving supernatural protection etc etc are just a fact of life for most who call Jesus Lord here. Just saying, it was an interesting cross cultural exchange.

Now. I must apologize for not having photos of our speakers this week. I totally didn't even think to get photos of one and the other they asked us to protect his identity as much as possible.
The wee little man from Scotland, Joe Ewen, came and spoke to us concerning the Holy Spirit, His gifts and operating in them. It was a good time. Joe is a pastor of a network of churches in Scotland and also has a real prophetic anointing on him. He gave time to meet with students one on one while he was here to speak wisdom into us and give a word according to what God was saying, if that makes sense. So, for example. I signed up for a session with Joe and told him a little about what was heavy on my heart - the things that were hard for me here and my fears for life post CPx. And he just spoke to those fears and frustrations with simple, practical and Biblical wisdom and truth. As it is said, the spirit of prophesy is encouragement. As our time came to a close laid hands on me, prayed and had an encouraging/timely word that God spoke.

Our other speaker we had I'll call pastor Joshua. Joshua is seeing an insane amount of churches start then start more churches in closed countries. He had a real passion to disciple people in love into a knowledge of God's love for them gather several people like that - start a simple church from that allow those guys and gals to reach their friends with that good news and so on and so forth. Joshua was once (I should say at least once) almost executed for his love of Jesus and telling other people about it. He was speaking out against senseless killings and pillaging that his country's military was committing and made one particular high ranking officer very angry. This commander had Joshua arrested, tied up and lined up to be shot. Joshua was praying and told God that he would be fine with going home to Heaven but he wanted to save the commander first. As they were about to shoot him Joshua asked if he could talk to the commander for 5 minutes, commander said "spit out your nonsense." Joshua told commander that God created the world and man. Man sinned and lost perfect relationship with God. And God was so broken hearted over this that He couldn't stand it and came to earth as a human, lived a sinless life and was killed to atone for all sin there after for those who accept this gift. This was all so that those who believe in and follow Jesus would not have to be separated from God when they died and could have joy, hope, peace and life on earth in the mean time. And that this gift of the blood of Jesus was for commander too. Commander said "let this man go, he is insane." A few days later he came to Joshua's house and became a believer, was discipled by Joshua and his team and is now a church planter too. The Holy Spirit used that same simple story that has been told and retold for 2 millennium to burn in commander's heart and caused him to fall in love with the living Jesus.
Joshua is intense. He walks into Muslim nations where, if he was caught by the government with a Bible in hand or preaching the good news that Jesus is alive he would be killed and sees radical moves of God in those places. All of the students were really affected by Joshua's testimony, life, stories and approach to telling people about Jesus. I have been challenged to the core.

That's it for now I think. I think I'll put another post up soon to give yall a better idea of what we need prayer here for most etc. Thanks for putting up with these long posts.