For the First Time

Renewed.  What does that actually mean?  It’s not just refreshed, or rebuilt, or replenished, or reordered, or redone.  They’re all great, but renewed.  To become new again.  It sounds simple, but it’s actually impossible.  Or is it?  A couple who’s been married for seventeen years and signing the divorce papers because the husband is narcissistic and the wife is tired and unforgiving.  Is there a chance they can love each other newly?  A child who’s been discarded by his parents and sees adults as targets for rebellion.  Is there a chance he can see adults through new eyes?  A mother whose child has turned away from her love and throws it back in her face again and again and again.  Can the mother hold fast to a new hope?  Growing up in the same small town, driving down the same street with one stoplight, passing the same farm on the corner, seeing the same people at church, and feeling like the best thing in life is getting out of that town forever. Can the teenager wake up the next morning and smile newly at the blessings of an intimate one-stoplight town? 

Renewed.  I boarded the shuttlebus from Johannesburg in route to Swaziland, just as I had done countless times.  This time I had new music from my brother on my friend’s iPhone and a set of Wisconsin Badger headphones from another friend.  It was the same, long, five-hour ride.  The same stop halfway through the trip at a “petrol port,” a gas station with some shops for eating.  I bought my last muffin at Mug and Bean and a mocha frappe, knowing it will be awhile before having that again.  It was the same, long, winding road… but those mountains… WOW!  The scenery, WOW!  I couldn’t stop smiling.  I was dreary with jetlag but I couldn’t keep my eyes closed.  My eyes enjoyed the seemingly newness of what was around me.  Those mountains touching the clouds, the shadowed valleys, the houses on the hills, the huts, the potholes.  I loved it all.  Like I was seeing it for the first time. 

When our car pulled around the corner, turning onto the dirt road that marked the girls home, my heart raced with anticipation.  I felt as if I had been gone an entire year, when I had only been on leave for a month.  I heard the screams up the hill before I saw anyone appear.  Then Bongekile led the charge, sprinting down that dirt road in her bare feet, and then a crew of the girls to follow, with Benji bringing up the rear.  Oh what joy!  Oh what reunion! 

It wasn’t long before I shared with the girls during devotion one night about how I felt so empty and how my dad told me, “You can’t fill empty cups from an empty jug.”  And how while being home I was filled and overflowing with the love of Jesus and how I wanted desperately to pour into the girls again.  I apologized for being so dry.  For, I really did see how my own emptiness had taken its toll on them. 

Throughout that first week, I realized that joy was a real battle.  I thought joy was just a feeling that comes and goes, but no… if you want joy, you gotta fight for it!  I was so committed to being joyful that it completely renewed my vision of the girls, the house, the cock-roach inhabited room, etc.  I was careful with my words and how I said things when the girls annoyed me or asked me a million questions at once.  I saw the way they responded to my newfound attitude and it gave me an even deeper joy. 

I am basking in the goodness of God.  I surrendered my dreams, my will, my attitude, and he gave me in return gifts of inner peace and satisfaction that nothing and no one in this world can offer. 

My friend, Rachael, sent me this message concerning developments in our ministry on the field: “God asked you to give up everything you knew and trust Him only to give it back to you pressed down, shaken together, and running over.  He is always good.” 

Amen.

“He fills your days with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.” –Ps 103:5

This is my War Cry

“All the nations surrounded me; in the Lord’s name I crushed them.  They surrounded me on every side; in the Lord’s name I crushed them.  They surrounded me like bees; they blazed like fire among thorns; in the Lord’s name I crushed them.  I was hard-pressed and falling, but the LORD came to my help.  

The Lord, my strength and might, came to me as Savior.” 

-Psalm 118:10-14

This is my war cry.  After a month of recovering and renewal, I am ready for the battlefield!  Like the speaker in Psalm 118, I was hard-pressed and falling, feeling lifeless in the battle, but I had an army at home to serve me all month long and pick me back up.  It’s good to be in God’s army.  I am so full of an unexplainable joy!  Of course, though, that doesn’t mean I won’t have heartache or pain or frustration or failure.  After all, I know that I am returning to the war.  But this time, I am ready.  I am equipped with “The joy of the Lord is my strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10)

The enemy, the prince of darkness, had attacked mercilessly this past year, seizing numerous opportunities to overtake our girls and make it clear he did not want me in Swaziland.  He knows my wounded girls are an easy target.  He knows his entry points.  He knows a girl without Christ who’s just been raped is the best entry point because she lives lifeless, worthless, believing that now she’s “useless.”  Daniel Walker says sexual abuse "strips them of their heart and soul.  It murders the person, but leaves the body alive."  There's not a better target for Satan than this.  In fact, sex in general, and the abuse of sex, continues to be Satan's greatest stronghold in our world.  Specifically in Swaziland, there are thousands and thousands of these women in this tiny country (1 in every 3) who've been sexually abused.  Like walking zombies with no life or purpose, they wander aimlessly back to the streets, living as prostitutes, tempted by and then enslaved by darkness.  A cult that beckons these girls with lies like, “If you worship the seven-headed snake, you’ll be rich!” or "You'll find a husband!"  or "If you kill your baby, you can be a princess!”  Satan has been raising up an army in Swaziland, but we are willing to fight, and that’s why this past year has been the most difficult year of my life.  

Three years ago (2013) we formed our army.  Two years ago (2014), we stabilized our army.  This past year (2015) we attacked with our army.  We went to the streets.  We marched into the darkness with prayer.  With the blessing of having two men volunteers for a month, we were able to hit the streets at night, to give rides home to prostitutes, to pray for them, to pray for physical strongholds in town where satan worship takes place, to pray for specific girls and specific victories.  We attacked, though, without knowing how our enemy would counterattack.  Satan comes to “steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10). His purpose is not complicated, his mission is no secret.  Yet, we let him wear us down, like warriors in continuous battle.  He can’t win, he can’t take us, but he can wear us down and wear us down until we give up.  Too many victories are lost because Christians simply give up.  Especially in prayer.  

September is a month I will never forget.  Our prayer and street nights shattered the enemies strongholds and it paved the way for spiritual victories, but it didn’t come without an all-out war.  *Maria, a girl from my earlier blog about her mission to kill me, (she had returned to her cult and said she was lying that she “loves Jesus”) appeared a week after we had begun street night and had begun praying specifically for her.  God’s timing is perfect, as we were equipped with an army of seven other women from the World Race, who stayed with us for the month. (They were a tremendous army for me personally and for the mission!)  Soon after Maria came to us, the team organized a day long devotion called Beauty from Ashes.  It was a devotion meant to give girls a voice, to dig up the ugly—their pain and abuse—and turn it into something beautiful.  During the morning sessions, the girls were asked to draw a picture of their view of God, to draw their relationship with God, and to draw how they think God sees them.  Two girls (Maria was one of them) drew intensely dark images, both with the theme of being trapped and bound in the “underground,” which is the term they used to signify the devil. They wanted freedom but were under an immense satanic stronghold.  As the day continued, the evil spirits manifested, and the path to freedom lasted until the following morning.  

As the days unfolded, we discovered Satan’s entry point into the two girls’ lives—Maria still was bound to her satanic cult though she claimed she wanted to go back to God; the other girl who had transformed in the past year from an atheist to a believer, repeated over and over again the lie that tortured her, “God doesn’t love me.”   We learned that we can keep setting these girls free in Jesus’ name, but it’s up to them to remain free.  They must choose Him for themselves; we can’t choose Him for them.  I wrestled with this and cried about this, because I wanted them so badly to be free but had no authority to choose it for them, though I wished I could.  The same goes for some of my old students or kids in the States that I've prayed for unceasingly, wishing they would just listen to me. Unfortunately, as Neal Lozano says, some only “look for a formula for freedom and not a relationship,” and a relationship is necessary.  But you can’t have a relationship if you don’t understand God’s love.  Although Maria took off again and the other girl struggled with dark moments, there was great rejoicing.   As the one girl wrestled her way through an intense scriptural reading of Acts (a recommendation from our connecting pastor), she shattered the darkness that bound her and is regaining her identity in Christ.  She still struggles with God’s love and love for herself at times, but she has made great strides, and is working towards complete forgiveness of her mother, who has been a source of pain and hatred—satan’s stronghold—for years.  Additionally, Maria returned several times the next couple months to “say hi” to me.  The last time I saw her, though, she came to the girls home to gather everyone and apologize.  She said she had finally surrendered her life to Jesus through the help of a pastor and the pastor told her to go and reconcile with all whom she had wronged.  Though she does not live at the house anymore, our home was one of her first moments of reconciliation.  Praise God!  

Demon manifestations are not uncommon in a culture that has deep roots in the occult.  But I’ve learned that they deserve no such attention or fear.   In his book about deliverance, called Unbound, Neal Lozano reminds us that deliverance is less about demons and more about “removing obstacles so we may, in Christ, receive the Father’s blessing.”  Satan loves fear and loves attention because he distracts us from who we are in Christ.  He loves that America romanticizes, fictionalizes, and fantasizes demons – in movies, TV series, celebrities, gossip, greed, etc.  But hardly anyone takes the time to see where Satan has seized a stronghold in their own lives.  There’s no reason to give him and his legion attention, but it is extremely important to know the enemy, to know his tactics, to identify his lies and combat them with Truth, to renounce sin, to forgive others, and to verbally command him to leave in the name of Jesus Christ. (Read Unbound)  

I’ve learned so much about spiritual warfare, and I am ready to keep battling for the lives of these girls that Satan has seized and attempted to bind in his army.  Lozano encourages us to be on the offense and defense: “Every time territory is taken for the Kingdom of God you will have to hold it, defend it.  It may be a day, a week, six months, but you will have to hold it.” A pastor reminded me that the reason I’ve seen and experienced so much spiritual warfare is that these girls are finally receiving and wanting Jesus!  These girls, whom Satan thought would be easy targets to enslave, are now living examples that Jesus sets us free; He breaks every chain.  “He has rescued us from darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of Light!” (Col 1:13)  As I return to the battlefield, as we return to the streets, as we continue to attack and take back kingdom that belongs to the Lord, please pray unceasingly for us.  Through prayer, we are taking the very people that Satan thought he could use to build his army and we are bringing them to the Kingdom of Light!  Our commander says this: “Rescue those who are being dragged to death...” (Prov 24:11)   This is our battle.  This is our war.  This is our cry:

(Listen to Jeremy Camp’s song here and check out his lyrics below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InsifiZxVXU)

“I can see the waters raging at my feet

I can feel the breath of those surrounding me

I can hear the sound of nations rising up

We will not be overtaken, we will not be overcome

I can walk down this dark and painful road

I can face every fear of the unknown

I can hear all God’s children singing out…

We will not be overtaken, we will not be overcome.

The same power that rose Jesus from the grave

The same power that commands the dead to wake

Lives in us, lives in us

The same power that moves mountains when he speaks

The same power that can calm a raging sea

lives in us, lives in us, He lives in us, lives in us

We have hope that his promises are true

in his strength there is nothing we can’t do

yes we know there are greater things in store

we will not be overtaken, we will not be overcome

The same power…

Greater is he that is living in me

he has conquered our enemy

no power of darkness, no weapon prevails

we stand here in victory

So, let us stand together in Christ’s unending Victory!  Let us put on our war paint—covering ourselves with the Blood of the Lamb.  Please continue to join me hand in hand, arm in arm, united in prayer—as we rejoice over Jesus breaking every chain and turning all of our ashes into something beautiful.