Demon chasing!!! Fire spitting!!! life changing Mission!!!
24th April to 4th May 2011
Village xmass is an amazing event, I watched in amazement as the crew danced and made us laugh, It was so captivating that when my phone rung, I knew the time had come, but I didnt want to answer it, when I looked at the screen,the caller ID was My HapYness, well...cant not pick that one, so I did and spoke in hushed tones, he was insistent that I should get out and come for our final prayer before getting into the bus, I reluctantly nudged chero who was sitted right beside me and announced that the time had come, she whispered to her hubby and we all walked out, I walked out of the dome faster and my mind was filled with thoughts, first of village easter and how I should make sure I audition for village xmass, and then my mind wandered to the trip we were about to take, Katsangani was our destination, our mission was to take the gospel of Christ, our passion was to see salvation, our purpose was to speak the truth in the holyspirit and leave the results to Christ, we were to honour our leaders and well....expect mosquitos and make sure we have taken our malaria tablets
we stood in a circle at the creche(children church...small tent) and started singing ramdom sunday school songs, it was fun, we did father abraham, we did 'am a soldier in the army'...then Pastor Muriithi came and blessed us and sent us on our way.
The bus had arrived and the excitement could be felt everywhere, people were hurring towards teenz connect where we had left our bags and guys were rushing to book the most comfortable seats.
We took off around 9pm and arrived in mombasa at 3am, we stopped for a while then continued to watamu, we arrived at 5am, we got out of the bus, it started raining heavily,we settled in a nursery school and had our breakfast there, we left at 9am and drove to katsangani in minibuses, it took us like 3 more hours, after passing salt ponds and salt hills(small hills of salt that is harvested from the ponds)
we got on the dusty road and drove for one more hour, no houses in sight, the 2 minibuses stopped and let us out
we unpacked our bags, sleeping bags, tents and sling bags, the 3rd minibus had had a puncture, so we sat in a shade and waited for them, it took them an hour to get to us
after being debriefed we put the bags on our shoulders and walked for 3 hours to katsangani
Needless to say, we were tired,thirsty,hungry, hot and sweaty, moody, and basically going through a minor cultural shock, we were met by villagers who took our bags and clapped for us...it was a historic moment
we sat under a tree as our leaders strategised where to pitch our tents, they separated ladies and gents tents and they pitched them not very far from each other
The church compound is big enough for our tents, we pitched the ladies tents on the right side, and the guys tents on the left side right behind the church, our meeting joint was under a tree beside the ladies tent, our crusade area was right infront of the church
the church is grass thatched(nyakatsi) its still under contruction, half of it is thatched, the other half isnt, but it has thick pieces of branches crisscrossing each other with spaces in between for mud which acts as cement or bricks
on the other side of the church there is a kitchen, its thatched, next to it is another thatched small place, unfinished, we later discovered its a toilet, but it didnt have any hole or anything, and the walls had not been put in place so if one person stood on one side, you could have a conversation with the guy on the other side, very comfortable facing each other, the branches had huge spaces between them to be later filled with mud and soil(which we did :)
we sat under a tree near the ladies tent while the guys pitched our tents
Day 1
Kagenza, Christabelle, Jerry Rawlings(am wondering how the katsangani people will pronounce his name and paula, gave us a brief on how our ten days will be like, day 1, on our way to the beach we are to go house to house inviting the people of katsangani to the crusade we are preparing for that night, which we were told is a few minutes from our camp
the pastors came and introduced themselves, they were about 8 of them and we sat in a circle on some mats and everyone said their name, Genza did his customary...my name is Genza and I want to marry that girl over there!!!i blushed from here till timbuktu and ofcourse the interns made kissing noises while the pastors of katsangani looked at us with disaproving glances lol
after the introdutions were finished, we were told to head to the beach, lunch was not ready yet, so we set off, I had my very long skirt on, (by this time we had shed our trousers and they were hidden deep in our luggages, we had changed where the minibuses left us,out in the open, with very little branches and bushes to cover us :)
we walked and walked and walked, and after 30 minutes we saw our very first house we slowed down and said a short prayer asking God to give us favour, we had been divided into groups of 6 people with 2 natives, we stopped at the thatched house, the natives did the greetings, and we announced our reason for being there...we have a crusade tonight, we will be honoured to have you attend...the natives agreed and asked the time and it was agreed they will be there at 4pm, we continued our walk, the sun was high, it was around 2pm, it was extremely hot aproximately 38 degrees celsius, and we were walking on sand which slows you down to the point you feel like you are walking backwards, we walked for 2 more hours to the beach, we invited all the houses we came across, by the time we were at the beach, we had been sunburned, we were thirsty, we were exhausted, we crawled to the water and swam in our clothes, fully dressed, partly because we didnt have any swimsuits and partly because we do not understand what the culture is, being very far from civilisation, we are not sure swimsuits can be accepted or even seen as normal clothing.
Walking back from the beach took us another 1 and a half hours since we were not stopping to invite the natives
when we reached the camp, it was around 5pm, we ate our lunch in a hurry and started setting up for the crusade, we had a Jesus movie that was to be shown, we had our worship team ready and our prayer team to intercede as the spirit leads
at around 6pm mosquitos attacked, they bite,sting and whiz like they are on a roll!!! it was like they had been released from a hive,little did they know, we were ready!!! everyone rushed into their tents, put on mosquito repellant and walked back in confidence...a few seconds later, mosquitos were very diligently biting and chilling on my hands, feet...they were using the repellant as starters!!! infact they stuck nicely even if u shook them off, no results, the repellant worked in their favour!!
After a while people started coming, we set mats for the kids to sit at the front and some few chairs at the back, but most of the people were standing, paula and the tech team were running with the projector which was kinda giving them problems, the comp hung at some point, there was need of serious prayers, I went to the praying side, and found intercessors already at work, I joined them and we prayed until the projector started working, everything was going wrong, the Jesus movie refused to play and we showed them a nigerian movie....lol this is funny, but only the spirit of God can use a nigerian movie to move the hearts of people to salvation, after the movie there was an alter call and many people came to the front, we prayed for them for healing, there was a small girl by the name franchesca who had evil spirits, at night she sees people and cant sleep, her dad has to stare at her until she sleeps, and sometimes she wakes up and sees the people beside her mat/bed, so we prayed for her, pastor Rogo placed his hands on her and prayed for her, we sourrounded her and prayed along
Day 2, day 3, day 4
We did door to door evangelism and prayed for people in their houses, in the farms in the forests, and at the end of the day we gathered back into the camp and set up for the crusades, one night as we prayed after a crusade, a woman brought her two children to the front, when I asked them their names, they just shook their heads, so I asked their mum and she said they are deaf and dumb, I called Christabelle, paula, humphrey and we prayed, Humphrey annointed their mouths and ears using cooking oil, we prayed for them until baraka, the boy, threw up, meanwhile I had moved on to praying with their mom, we prayed for her, when Ben touched her, she was filled by the holy spirit and I felt her slowly falling, I panicked...but then remembered it was ok, so I placed her on the ground and went back to pray for rehema and baraka, I found Rehema had started speaking, she could say baba, mama and Yesu ameniponya
Miracles that were happening in that place were beyond anything I have ever seen or heard or even experienced...Jesus showed up and their was a show down!! people fell, people gave their lives to Christ, a muslim man came and told us he knew the deaf and dumb kids and if we could do this, can we pray for his son who has been sick for so long, he got saved and wanted to change his name, people were delivered from evil spirits, most were making random funny voices, Jesus used us to we cast out demons and at the end of the day, we were so exhausted and shocked beyond anything
after some time we experienced attacks, I started seeing snakes at night, and it greatly disturbed our prayers, so we developed a 24 hr prayer chain, every hour someone was praying and covering us with prayers, when you finished your hour you tag the next person, it was amazing!!!
Tony Koros the very first day, got a vision of children who are identical rising from the salt ponds we had left miles away and walking towards to camp, this was translated as attacks from the evil one and we prayed ceaselessly
Anne Marie had a vision that it will rain, this was before our departure, she asked us to carry raicoats, which we greatly needed, it rained like 3 times, very heavily, sometimes you would feel like the tent is going to be uprooted by the winds
once in a while we started the crusade with a skit, that we acted and had someone explain what was going down, it was fun
sometimes we all were in the worship team just before the crusade
on friday we had a women session and men went to play football, where around16 people gave their lives to Christ
the session we had, was engineered towards teaching the women about sanitation and how to treat their daughters, but it ended up becoming a delivering session, they told us about the rapes that are so rampant and about the way incest is an every day thing, an example of a man who had gotten his daughter pregnant and was defiling the younger daughter as well, the older daughter got married but the father went and brought her back!
We prayed with the women especially about bitterness and anger, Joy picked out one 14 year old girl who later confessed to having been raped by her uncle. We prayed and women were filled by the holyspirit, one woman was possessed and while she was being prayed for she started making strange sounds, paula, anne marie, karen and some other ladies took her on the side and prayed with her, she continued making random noises for so long, the delivrance sessions took almost 2 hours, they prayed until she got delivered and the demon got out. Another woman was being prayed for by Lucy and some other ladies, she also sounded like she was possessed but after a while she started crying and then she went quiet
God had a love for this people, the things He was doing, were not ordinary on any level
On saturday we had a church conference where we explained about the marathon and how it works, we did a skit on the marathon for better and deeper understanding
Then we built the church together, the ladies mixed and put the mud on the toilet while the men went on the roof and did the thatching, there was another group in charge of getting the grass to be used for thatching and another was bringing logs that will be used for crisscrossing, we worked together as a team, the katsangani pastors and the mavuno interns
Mixing mud became my speciality, we started calling ourselves mud engineers, we would mix the soil with water, and then roll it in your hands, like how you knead flour for chapati, but you make huge balls, and then place them between the crisscrossed logs and branches, we finished, but the church still had a long way to go
in the evening we went to fetch water at the well!!! mosquitos would have their field day with us and the water was brown, it was filled with sand and logs, and sometimes if you are not so tired, you would use a leso to sieve it to remove the big particles
day 1 and 2 we showered outside, by the 3rd day, they had built us a make shift bathroom that had four thatched walls and no roof, so if it rains and u r in the bathroom...lol you get showered
there was always a queue so sometimes I would look at the queue and just wait for dark to fall and shower behind a bush
we did not have toilets, so we went to the bush, with a jembe, we called it 'the jembe ministries', its quite simple, you dig a hole, do your business and cover the hole with sand, but you have got to be very careful not to go to a place that has been used.
jembe ministries was at first very arkward and It took me 3 days to finally go and try it out
at night when we went to sleep, we found the tent filled with sand, the sleeping bag wasnt doing much to soften the ground, I had brought a yoga mat, but it didnt soften the ground either, I could feel my bones touch the ground, those who were endowed slept on their backs, some of us it was all the same,back..front...sideways the impact of your body on the ground left you feeling very awake
by day 3, I was so exhausted by evening that I slept like a baby, I would remove the sand off my sleeping bag and then fall ontop and into a deep sleep!!
God was doing mighty things through us, He was showing us miracles day and night,when the projector refused to work, people still got healed, delivered and saved.
When we prayed, the spirit came down and performed miracles, no one got sick, we were covered, we had minor cuts and heat rush, some guys sprained their legs during football but nuthing too serious
God was with us, He went before us like a cloud of fire to light the way, to guide us
We saw visions, we spoke into each others lives, we stood with each other, we prayed with each other
One morning while we were doing our morning prayers, between 6-7am we heard a scream and a few of us walked towards it, it was coming from the well, we went and found a woman doubled over in pain and screaming and speaking things we cdnt understand, Mark, Humphrey,Mwarvs,Christabelle and I prayed with her, we cast out the demon and Mwarvs discovered something that she wore as a bangle on her hand, it was black, when he removed it, she went quiet, Christabelle was standing infront of her using a bible verse to cast out the demon, it went silent, but hadnt come out
That is the night I got attacked by snakes. The first snake came towards where our makeshift bathroom was, it was slithering towwards me, it passed Koros and it aimed for my leg, I cdnt stand still so I kept moving and stoped guys from praying, I told them about the snake and we started praying, the snake was spiritual, cdnt be seen with mere eyes, they prayed for me, and for the next one hour, different kind of snakes kept creeping towards me, one was a cobra yellow and black, I walked towards it and pointed a finger at it and shouted blood of Jesus, it shattered in small particles...glass particles, Jeff,Koros,Genza, and Karen cdnt see the snakes, am the only one who was seeing them...
the next day they did a delivering prayer for me, from 5 am till like 8am, from fear, snakes, cars...dogs, they prayed over me and covered me with angels
Every evening God showed up and stuff happened, God spoke to Agie about our attitudes, Chero had a baby in her arms everyday, different baby...the natives loved her, its like God had filled her with His love for the Katsangani people, she hugged them and spent most of the time with the women.
Sunday we had two services, in 2 different churches, we broke into 2 groups, the first group was to remain and serve in pastor John Thoya's c hurch while the second group we walked to pastor luke's church 30 minutes away
church was great, we did praise and worship then did a skit on how Jesus came and took our diseases and our sins to the cross, Genza was Jesus, he was at the front of the church. we had a vomiter, a cougher, a headache, a lame person one by one we walked into the room with our diseases and walked out without the diseases, then Jesus contracted all our diseases and he went to the front wall of the church and lay on the cross(the crisscrossing logs acted like a makeshift cross)
then we had Mark preach, I was in the prayer team, and so I had to walk out and intercede coz there was a heavyness in the church, I fell asleep on my feet, Paula came to give me back up, we prayed until Mark finished his sermon, there was an alter call, everyone came to the front and we prayed for them. Church was over and Pastor Luke asked us to go to His house, we walked there, another 20 minutes.
Pastor luke's place is not your ordinary Katsangani homestead, it has a small thatched shop and he has a coconut farm and cashewnut trees, we went and sat under a cashewnut tree, while they got all of us a coconut, which they shaved experly and cut a hole at the top, then u put your mouth on the hole that has been cut and drink the cool coconut juice, it was such a special moment,after a heavy sermon and walking on hot sand, this was heavenly, we had become such natives we were sitted under a cashewnut tree, drinking coconut juice, then the coconut would be broken into half and u use a small stick to scrape the coconut and eat it, Genza had a pen knife, at this point we had no use for our hand sanitiser's
sunday afternoon was spent on the beach baptising all the people who had accepted Christ as their personal saviour...Kirigo and Jack also got baptised in the indian ocean, we all got into the water and stood around them, Mark and Mike would wait for a huge wave then use it for baptism, it was a day for celebration
In the evening we had a bornfire and entertainment, people said what they had learned abt each other, the night before we had had a dance competition between Kirigo,Agie,Chrisabelle and I, christabelle won, we had had a stand up comedian competition between Humphrey and Olele...both won, we had Koros do a nigerian pastor accent
we even released two songs, one by agie 'Agnes' is the name of the song and another by all of us called ' we were babies and now we are grown' main singer is christabelle it featured a kastangani baby, being held by one of us!
Am kinda tired and fallin asleep
To be continued......
24th April to 4th May 2011
Village xmass is an amazing event, I watched in amazement as the crew danced and made us laugh, It was so captivating that when my phone rung, I knew the time had come, but I didnt want to answer it, when I looked at the screen,the caller ID was My HapYness, well...cant not pick that one, so I did and spoke in hushed tones, he was insistent that I should get out and come for our final prayer before getting into the bus, I reluctantly nudged chero who was sitted right beside me and announced that the time had come, she whispered to her hubby and we all walked out, I walked out of the dome faster and my mind was filled with thoughts, first of village easter and how I should make sure I audition for village xmass, and then my mind wandered to the trip we were about to take, Katsangani was our destination, our mission was to take the gospel of Christ, our passion was to see salvation, our purpose was to speak the truth in the holyspirit and leave the results to Christ, we were to honour our leaders and well....expect mosquitos and make sure we have taken our malaria tablets
we stood in a circle at the creche(children church...small tent) and started singing ramdom sunday school songs, it was fun, we did father abraham, we did 'am a soldier in the army'...then Pastor Muriithi came and blessed us and sent us on our way.
The bus had arrived and the excitement could be felt everywhere, people were hurring towards teenz connect where we had left our bags and guys were rushing to book the most comfortable seats.
We took off around 9pm and arrived in mombasa at 3am, we stopped for a while then continued to watamu, we arrived at 5am, we got out of the bus, it started raining heavily,we settled in a nursery school and had our breakfast there, we left at 9am and drove to katsangani in minibuses, it took us like 3 more hours, after passing salt ponds and salt hills(small hills of salt that is harvested from the ponds)
we got on the dusty road and drove for one more hour, no houses in sight, the 2 minibuses stopped and let us out
we unpacked our bags, sleeping bags, tents and sling bags, the 3rd minibus had had a puncture, so we sat in a shade and waited for them, it took them an hour to get to us
after being debriefed we put the bags on our shoulders and walked for 3 hours to katsangani
Needless to say, we were tired,thirsty,hungry, hot and sweaty, moody, and basically going through a minor cultural shock, we were met by villagers who took our bags and clapped for us...it was a historic moment
we sat under a tree as our leaders strategised where to pitch our tents, they separated ladies and gents tents and they pitched them not very far from each other
The church compound is big enough for our tents, we pitched the ladies tents on the right side, and the guys tents on the left side right behind the church, our meeting joint was under a tree beside the ladies tent, our crusade area was right infront of the church
the church is grass thatched(nyakatsi) its still under contruction, half of it is thatched, the other half isnt, but it has thick pieces of branches crisscrossing each other with spaces in between for mud which acts as cement or bricks
on the other side of the church there is a kitchen, its thatched, next to it is another thatched small place, unfinished, we later discovered its a toilet, but it didnt have any hole or anything, and the walls had not been put in place so if one person stood on one side, you could have a conversation with the guy on the other side, very comfortable facing each other, the branches had huge spaces between them to be later filled with mud and soil(which we did :)
we sat under a tree near the ladies tent while the guys pitched our tents
Day 1
Kagenza, Christabelle, Jerry Rawlings(am wondering how the katsangani people will pronounce his name and paula, gave us a brief on how our ten days will be like, day 1, on our way to the beach we are to go house to house inviting the people of katsangani to the crusade we are preparing for that night, which we were told is a few minutes from our camp
the pastors came and introduced themselves, they were about 8 of them and we sat in a circle on some mats and everyone said their name, Genza did his customary...my name is Genza and I want to marry that girl over there!!!i blushed from here till timbuktu and ofcourse the interns made kissing noises while the pastors of katsangani looked at us with disaproving glances lol
after the introdutions were finished, we were told to head to the beach, lunch was not ready yet, so we set off, I had my very long skirt on, (by this time we had shed our trousers and they were hidden deep in our luggages, we had changed where the minibuses left us,out in the open, with very little branches and bushes to cover us :)
we walked and walked and walked, and after 30 minutes we saw our very first house we slowed down and said a short prayer asking God to give us favour, we had been divided into groups of 6 people with 2 natives, we stopped at the thatched house, the natives did the greetings, and we announced our reason for being there...we have a crusade tonight, we will be honoured to have you attend...the natives agreed and asked the time and it was agreed they will be there at 4pm, we continued our walk, the sun was high, it was around 2pm, it was extremely hot aproximately 38 degrees celsius, and we were walking on sand which slows you down to the point you feel like you are walking backwards, we walked for 2 more hours to the beach, we invited all the houses we came across, by the time we were at the beach, we had been sunburned, we were thirsty, we were exhausted, we crawled to the water and swam in our clothes, fully dressed, partly because we didnt have any swimsuits and partly because we do not understand what the culture is, being very far from civilisation, we are not sure swimsuits can be accepted or even seen as normal clothing.
Walking back from the beach took us another 1 and a half hours since we were not stopping to invite the natives
when we reached the camp, it was around 5pm, we ate our lunch in a hurry and started setting up for the crusade, we had a Jesus movie that was to be shown, we had our worship team ready and our prayer team to intercede as the spirit leads
at around 6pm mosquitos attacked, they bite,sting and whiz like they are on a roll!!! it was like they had been released from a hive,little did they know, we were ready!!! everyone rushed into their tents, put on mosquito repellant and walked back in confidence...a few seconds later, mosquitos were very diligently biting and chilling on my hands, feet...they were using the repellant as starters!!! infact they stuck nicely even if u shook them off, no results, the repellant worked in their favour!!
After a while people started coming, we set mats for the kids to sit at the front and some few chairs at the back, but most of the people were standing, paula and the tech team were running with the projector which was kinda giving them problems, the comp hung at some point, there was need of serious prayers, I went to the praying side, and found intercessors already at work, I joined them and we prayed until the projector started working, everything was going wrong, the Jesus movie refused to play and we showed them a nigerian movie....lol this is funny, but only the spirit of God can use a nigerian movie to move the hearts of people to salvation, after the movie there was an alter call and many people came to the front, we prayed for them for healing, there was a small girl by the name franchesca who had evil spirits, at night she sees people and cant sleep, her dad has to stare at her until she sleeps, and sometimes she wakes up and sees the people beside her mat/bed, so we prayed for her, pastor Rogo placed his hands on her and prayed for her, we sourrounded her and prayed along
Day 2, day 3, day 4
We did door to door evangelism and prayed for people in their houses, in the farms in the forests, and at the end of the day we gathered back into the camp and set up for the crusades, one night as we prayed after a crusade, a woman brought her two children to the front, when I asked them their names, they just shook their heads, so I asked their mum and she said they are deaf and dumb, I called Christabelle, paula, humphrey and we prayed, Humphrey annointed their mouths and ears using cooking oil, we prayed for them until baraka, the boy, threw up, meanwhile I had moved on to praying with their mom, we prayed for her, when Ben touched her, she was filled by the holy spirit and I felt her slowly falling, I panicked...but then remembered it was ok, so I placed her on the ground and went back to pray for rehema and baraka, I found Rehema had started speaking, she could say baba, mama and Yesu ameniponya
Miracles that were happening in that place were beyond anything I have ever seen or heard or even experienced...Jesus showed up and their was a show down!! people fell, people gave their lives to Christ, a muslim man came and told us he knew the deaf and dumb kids and if we could do this, can we pray for his son who has been sick for so long, he got saved and wanted to change his name, people were delivered from evil spirits, most were making random funny voices, Jesus used us to we cast out demons and at the end of the day, we were so exhausted and shocked beyond anything
after some time we experienced attacks, I started seeing snakes at night, and it greatly disturbed our prayers, so we developed a 24 hr prayer chain, every hour someone was praying and covering us with prayers, when you finished your hour you tag the next person, it was amazing!!!
Tony Koros the very first day, got a vision of children who are identical rising from the salt ponds we had left miles away and walking towards to camp, this was translated as attacks from the evil one and we prayed ceaselessly
Anne Marie had a vision that it will rain, this was before our departure, she asked us to carry raicoats, which we greatly needed, it rained like 3 times, very heavily, sometimes you would feel like the tent is going to be uprooted by the winds
once in a while we started the crusade with a skit, that we acted and had someone explain what was going down, it was fun
sometimes we all were in the worship team just before the crusade
on friday we had a women session and men went to play football, where around16 people gave their lives to Christ
the session we had, was engineered towards teaching the women about sanitation and how to treat their daughters, but it ended up becoming a delivering session, they told us about the rapes that are so rampant and about the way incest is an every day thing, an example of a man who had gotten his daughter pregnant and was defiling the younger daughter as well, the older daughter got married but the father went and brought her back!
We prayed with the women especially about bitterness and anger, Joy picked out one 14 year old girl who later confessed to having been raped by her uncle. We prayed and women were filled by the holyspirit, one woman was possessed and while she was being prayed for she started making strange sounds, paula, anne marie, karen and some other ladies took her on the side and prayed with her, she continued making random noises for so long, the delivrance sessions took almost 2 hours, they prayed until she got delivered and the demon got out. Another woman was being prayed for by Lucy and some other ladies, she also sounded like she was possessed but after a while she started crying and then she went quiet
God had a love for this people, the things He was doing, were not ordinary on any level
On saturday we had a church conference where we explained about the marathon and how it works, we did a skit on the marathon for better and deeper understanding
Then we built the church together, the ladies mixed and put the mud on the toilet while the men went on the roof and did the thatching, there was another group in charge of getting the grass to be used for thatching and another was bringing logs that will be used for crisscrossing, we worked together as a team, the katsangani pastors and the mavuno interns
Mixing mud became my speciality, we started calling ourselves mud engineers, we would mix the soil with water, and then roll it in your hands, like how you knead flour for chapati, but you make huge balls, and then place them between the crisscrossed logs and branches, we finished, but the church still had a long way to go
in the evening we went to fetch water at the well!!! mosquitos would have their field day with us and the water was brown, it was filled with sand and logs, and sometimes if you are not so tired, you would use a leso to sieve it to remove the big particles
day 1 and 2 we showered outside, by the 3rd day, they had built us a make shift bathroom that had four thatched walls and no roof, so if it rains and u r in the bathroom...lol you get showered
there was always a queue so sometimes I would look at the queue and just wait for dark to fall and shower behind a bush
we did not have toilets, so we went to the bush, with a jembe, we called it 'the jembe ministries', its quite simple, you dig a hole, do your business and cover the hole with sand, but you have got to be very careful not to go to a place that has been used.
jembe ministries was at first very arkward and It took me 3 days to finally go and try it out
at night when we went to sleep, we found the tent filled with sand, the sleeping bag wasnt doing much to soften the ground, I had brought a yoga mat, but it didnt soften the ground either, I could feel my bones touch the ground, those who were endowed slept on their backs, some of us it was all the same,back..front...sideways the impact of your body on the ground left you feeling very awake
by day 3, I was so exhausted by evening that I slept like a baby, I would remove the sand off my sleeping bag and then fall ontop and into a deep sleep!!
God was doing mighty things through us, He was showing us miracles day and night,when the projector refused to work, people still got healed, delivered and saved.
When we prayed, the spirit came down and performed miracles, no one got sick, we were covered, we had minor cuts and heat rush, some guys sprained their legs during football but nuthing too serious
God was with us, He went before us like a cloud of fire to light the way, to guide us
We saw visions, we spoke into each others lives, we stood with each other, we prayed with each other
One morning while we were doing our morning prayers, between 6-7am we heard a scream and a few of us walked towards it, it was coming from the well, we went and found a woman doubled over in pain and screaming and speaking things we cdnt understand, Mark, Humphrey,Mwarvs,Christabelle and I prayed with her, we cast out the demon and Mwarvs discovered something that she wore as a bangle on her hand, it was black, when he removed it, she went quiet, Christabelle was standing infront of her using a bible verse to cast out the demon, it went silent, but hadnt come out
That is the night I got attacked by snakes. The first snake came towards where our makeshift bathroom was, it was slithering towwards me, it passed Koros and it aimed for my leg, I cdnt stand still so I kept moving and stoped guys from praying, I told them about the snake and we started praying, the snake was spiritual, cdnt be seen with mere eyes, they prayed for me, and for the next one hour, different kind of snakes kept creeping towards me, one was a cobra yellow and black, I walked towards it and pointed a finger at it and shouted blood of Jesus, it shattered in small particles...glass particles, Jeff,Koros,Genza, and Karen cdnt see the snakes, am the only one who was seeing them...
the next day they did a delivering prayer for me, from 5 am till like 8am, from fear, snakes, cars...dogs, they prayed over me and covered me with angels
Every evening God showed up and stuff happened, God spoke to Agie about our attitudes, Chero had a baby in her arms everyday, different baby...the natives loved her, its like God had filled her with His love for the Katsangani people, she hugged them and spent most of the time with the women.
Sunday we had two services, in 2 different churches, we broke into 2 groups, the first group was to remain and serve in pastor John Thoya's c hurch while the second group we walked to pastor luke's church 30 minutes away
church was great, we did praise and worship then did a skit on how Jesus came and took our diseases and our sins to the cross, Genza was Jesus, he was at the front of the church. we had a vomiter, a cougher, a headache, a lame person one by one we walked into the room with our diseases and walked out without the diseases, then Jesus contracted all our diseases and he went to the front wall of the church and lay on the cross(the crisscrossing logs acted like a makeshift cross)
then we had Mark preach, I was in the prayer team, and so I had to walk out and intercede coz there was a heavyness in the church, I fell asleep on my feet, Paula came to give me back up, we prayed until Mark finished his sermon, there was an alter call, everyone came to the front and we prayed for them. Church was over and Pastor Luke asked us to go to His house, we walked there, another 20 minutes.
Pastor luke's place is not your ordinary Katsangani homestead, it has a small thatched shop and he has a coconut farm and cashewnut trees, we went and sat under a cashewnut tree, while they got all of us a coconut, which they shaved experly and cut a hole at the top, then u put your mouth on the hole that has been cut and drink the cool coconut juice, it was such a special moment,after a heavy sermon and walking on hot sand, this was heavenly, we had become such natives we were sitted under a cashewnut tree, drinking coconut juice, then the coconut would be broken into half and u use a small stick to scrape the coconut and eat it, Genza had a pen knife, at this point we had no use for our hand sanitiser's
sunday afternoon was spent on the beach baptising all the people who had accepted Christ as their personal saviour...Kirigo and Jack also got baptised in the indian ocean, we all got into the water and stood around them, Mark and Mike would wait for a huge wave then use it for baptism, it was a day for celebration
In the evening we had a bornfire and entertainment, people said what they had learned abt each other, the night before we had had a dance competition between Kirigo,Agie,Chrisabelle and I, christabelle won, we had had a stand up comedian competition between Humphrey and Olele...both won, we had Koros do a nigerian pastor accent
we even released two songs, one by agie 'Agnes' is the name of the song and another by all of us called ' we were babies and now we are grown' main singer is christabelle it featured a kastangani baby, being held by one of us!
Am kinda tired and fallin asleep
To be continued......
