Testimonies

I guess it is time for some testimonies.

Papi is a man in his late thirties notorious for his drunkenness. He has such a bad reputation that he has never been able to find anyone willing to marry him. Somehow he found out about us and showed up at church one Sunday in Shituru. God just got a hold of him and he realized his life was messed up and he could change. He came again the next week and declared to us that he was giving up drinking and the Holy Spirit helped him and he hasn’t had a drink since that day! The next week he came he laid his whole life before Jesus and declared he wasn’t going to live for himself any more but would live for God. He said he hated his sins and was leaving them behind. He was just so passionate and serious. Everyone who knew him dropped their jaws. It isn’t just some emotional experience it has been over a month now and he is still following Jesus ready to serve in any capacity we ask him too!

I was walking around like I always do and we went to a new house I had never been too. Grace, a total stranger to me and my team, had requested that we show up so we did. She introduced us to her 2 daughters and then began to tell us her story. When she was in high school she met a boy who said he would marry her even though he refused to meet her parents or do anything formally that would imply such. As soon as she got pregnant he took off leaving her with a baby and stopping her chance at an education. To make matters worse her daughter has some sort of mental disorder. So a few years go by and she starts up an affair with a married man and gets pregnant again. He denies everything and refuses to take care of his daughter much less her and her other daughter. She looks at us with eyes filled with shame and says “I know I sinned and I need to repent.” So Pastor Kabamba asked her what she wanted from us. I was expecting her to say money for her kids but she looked at us and said “I heard that people who meet with you can change their lives and get a second chance. I heard people who meet with her get healed.” It is such a privilege to represent Jesus and to know that my work here is giving Him the reputation he deserves to have. She got saved right then and there and is ready for her second chance this time as a child of God.

Seven months ago Phani’s husband out of the blue wrote down on a piece of scrap paper we are divorced and handed the paper to her. She was crushed and the marriage was over. He then kicked her and her children out of his house in Lubumbashi and she moved to a cousin’s house in Likasi. He had a girl friend and they started making plans to get married. I was in the US at the time but Pastor Kabamba knew her and began to encourage her. She started coming to our church. She first talked to me about her situation in August. She said she needed a miracle. She needed a huband to support her but if she remarried her new husband wouldn’t accept her children and they would always suffer. We told her she was in luck because we actual serve a miracle working God. We all began to pray several times a week. Phani was always in church and eager to learn anything she could. Last week I went to her cousin’s house to visit and she told me her ex-husband left his girlfriend came crawling back and begged her to forgive him and come back. I was skeptical at first and wondered if she should give him a second chance but when he came to talk to her it became obvious he had repented and was changing his life. In all the months I’ve known Phani I’ve never seen her so happy! She says she prayed and God gave her a miracle against all odds. Now her and her kids will be taken care of and the God of restoration prevails again.

Divine is a 5 year old girl who is all about being the center of attention. But when I saw her one day she wouldn’t come near me or anyone else. She bad a terrible fever and just wanted to be held by her mom as she cried softly to herself because of the headache and stomachache and body aches. She had malaria. I’ve had malaria 8 times so I knew just how much she was hurting even if she hadn’t been crying. We gathered around her and cried out for God to touch her. She stopped crying while we were praying but the fever was still present. We got word the next day that she was much better! Yes she was also taking malaria medicine but the recovery was much quicker than usual. Although malaria is common and curable people die from it all the time. I just saw her today and she was dancing around her living room competing with her little brother for my attention talking about how excited she was to go to church tomorrow and pray!

I went into a Belgian grocery store in Lubumbashi and the owner happened to be there. He asked me what I was doing in Congo (thankfully he spoke English because although my Swahili is getting better by the day my French is rusty). I told him I help orphans and he loaded me up with food for them. So this Saturday I got the 60 orphans we are trying to help in Shituru together and taught them some praise songs (a lot of these kids have never been to church) then taught them a lesson from the Bible and gave them some food. You could tell those kids felt so special. Normally if they are ever singled out it is because they get less than the other kids. Now I have no doubt they all know just how much they mean to Jesus. I am looking forward to helping them more in the future. Please pray for everything to go well as I continue to search for information and government approvals to help those kids.