I wish I could gather you all together and tell you about my trip face to face because I'd love to look into your eyes as I share of all that God has done... It was truly amazing, and I'm sure I shall never recover from the things He worked in me, and the miracles I saw Him bring forth in the people of South Africa. My heart was so taken by them because I've honestly never experienced a culture quite like theirs. It was SO different from our culture here in the US! The South African people are so generous, so open, and so naturally loving and free. There was such an incredible hunger there for the love and power of God... It's said quite often by believers who travel overseas that it is so much easier to minister in other countries than in the United States, and in some respects I agree with them because I saw breakthroughs, healings, and miracles in South Africa like I've NEVER seen back home. And yet at the same time, it makes my heart ache for the US even more because, all it really takes is for people to realize their need for God, to discover the hunger that resides in their spirit for relationship with Him. I think that's the biggest difference between other nations and ours- there, people have much less to insulate, medicate, and separate them from their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. There, if they don't experience the healing touch of a loving God, they'll die of AIDS or cancer. If they don't encounter His light and hope piercing their darkness, they will live lives consumed by fear, hopelessness, or depression. There, they don't have a drugstore on every corner or endless "pleasures" to pacify the pain and difficulties they experience in every day life! There is no plan B. Every human being has a question in their spirit, a heart cry that calls out for the living God. In the US, there are far too many hollow, dissonant voices that answer the cry of the heart without bringing any true worth, satisfaction or resolution. But there's something so sweet about what I saw in South Africa... A people that have the very same question resonating in their hearts, yet somehow the air is quieter there, and they can hear the voice of the Lord saying, "I shall be your God, and you shall be My people."
As you can probably tell, though several months have passed since my return, my heart remains very full with the experiences from my trip :). So many incredible things took place that it's hard to recount them all... We saw so many healings and miracles in churches and on the streets that it would take HOURS to share the bounty that God released! Blind eyes and deaf ears were opened, the lame walked, cancer was healed, depression fled, and salvation entered into the hearts of so many people! Our very first outreach day on the streets of an area called Sunnyside, a woman on the street who had arthritis in her hand (such that she couldn't close it at all-it was literally stuck open) was completely healed, and soon after was healed of blindness in her eye as well! All the people who witnessed her miracle right there on the street were ASTOUNDED, and soon a crowd of people formed to receive healing for themselves! Another woman who had no feeling in the palm of her hand received healing and could feel sensation again, and many others were powerfully touched! One member of my team was invited to go visit a young woman in the hospital who had been paralyzed from the neck down for over 6 months- she said that the moment she stepped into the young woman's room, she knew that God was going to heal her, and He did just that! As Ammi (my teammate) prayed, the young woman began to feel sensations and fire in her legs, they soon began to strengthen and the healing increased throughout her body! By the time, Ammi left, the girl could move her legs, lift her arms in the air, and was SO full of joy and hope that we have NO DOUBT she was completely healed! :)
One of the coolest things to me is when people are healed without receiving any prayer at all because they get to receive their miracle directly from God Himself :). There was one church in particular where we saw this happen ALOT, and I got to see it happen with an entire family! The father responded to a word of knowledge for pain in the ankle, and also had a cough and pain in his throat. When I checked in with him, before we'd prayed at all, he said the pain in his foot and ankle was completely gone, and so was the pain in his throat! I then found out that his wife had been suffering from a very serious and painful complication of the stomach and colon but had felt her pain and discomfort release as well! She still had a bit of a cold so I felt that as the head and covering of their family, the husband should pray over his wife :). He did, and the cold symptoms left immediately! He then prayed for his younger daughter for croup ( a serious coughing condition), and she felt the touch of God and instant improvement, and then he got to speak his blessing and love over his older daughter, with whom he'd been experiencing some difficulty and tension. It was incredible to see everything come SO EASY! God just poured out His goodness and love over them with such abundance! And what's more, I found out later that God has been doing a phenomenal healing work in their relationships as a family- just 3 months prior, the parents had been on the verge of divorce, but God completely intervened, and the father was an utterly TRANSFORMED man, now more hungry for God than ever in his life!
I could go on and on and ON with testimonies- we got to minister in SO many different venues, to churches, on the streets, in schools, in orphanages, in the mall... One of my favorite things in the world is when Jesus goes miracles and reveals His love "on the way" :). The Bible says that things took place "as the disciples went" so we should expect God to set us up with people as we're going about our normal lives! Oh man, we had some RADICAL things take place on the plane while we were on our way to South Africa! God set us up with a pair of incredibly influential South African pastors, and we were able to prophesy into their lives the word of the Lord. A woman who had broken her foot was set completely free of her pain, and totally touched by the kindness of God in my compassion toward her. A girl with severe scoliosis was radically touched by the power of God- I could spend an hour unpacking this whole testimony but in short, she and her dad were flying to Atlanta specifically to see a doctor about doing ANOTHER corrective surgery because previous attempts had failed. She and her dad were catholic but had such a sweet, pure faith toward the Lord, and the girl was very open to receiving prayer. Long story short, we stood in the galley of the plane for almost an hour, and every time we prayed, something would happen! She felt God's healing presence touching her body like warmth and fire, felt things shifting in her back, saw visible change in her rib cage coming back into alignment, began to feel herself growing taller each time she took a breath (when I followed her down the aisle to the galley at the start of our time together, she was at least two inches shorter than me, and by the end of our time praying with her she was at least an inch TALLER than me!), had an encounter with the heart of Father God and received the gift of healing, and there was even MORE! It was so crazy and good! We didn't see the full breakthrough but like I said, EVERY TIME we prayed, something positive happened so God definitely has His hand on her life to bring blessing and total transformation :).
Ok, one last in depth encounter before I wrap things up: This was probably one of the most significant encounters to me because God set me up once again with someone involved with the arts realm! He is so faithful! While we were stopped in Dakar, Senegal for refueling, we took on some new passengers, including a man named Benjamin Bezalel who filled the empty seat next to me. Earlier in the flight God had given me this two-second flash of a picture of some sort of cityscape but I didn't pay much attention to it, and it vanished as quickly as it came. But when Benjamin sat down next to me, the Lord brought the picture back to me again, and said as clearly as I've ever heard Him, "He has worlds inside of him." And I knew He was referring in some way to an incredible creative gifting that was residing inside this man. So as he slept, I drew a prophetic picture for him but I had no idea at that point how significant and frankly, awesome this encounter was going to be :). When Ben woke up, we talked a bit and introduced ourselves and I came to find that he was an artist, and had been living in Dakar for the past three months doing some commissioned murals there. He said it had been one of the most enlightening and transforming times of his life. And then God uncovered the KEY of this guy's identity: his NAME. He told me that his last name was Bezalel, and I immediately freaked out and asked him if he realized what his name meant because Bezalel was the name of the first man mentioned in the Bible to have been anointed with the Holy Spirit (in the OLD Testament no less) specifically for the purpose of designing all the artistic works in the temple. Ahem. WOW!!! I was beside myself at first, and it only increased as our connection expanded because the anointing of the Lord was so blatant on everything he did. It was absolutely astounding. Though he told me very clearly that he hated religion and all the hypocrisy and manipulation that typically comes with it, he carried and operated out of the anointing of God that his very own name declared. He had such an incredible heart of compassion toward people and SO desired to see real love operate in the world. He read some of his songs and poetry to me, and they were literally dripping with Spirit-breathed revelation- it was unreal how mightily God's creative power was upon him. By the end of our time on the plane, God had opened up so much to him just through me sharing about my relationship with God (apart from religion, hallelujah!). Time and time again, I'm blown away by how HUNGRY artists are for true freedom. The arts realm is probably the most liberal in all of our society and yet that liberality is just the manifested counterfeit of what people are really hungry for- the freedom that comes from partnering with the loving and infinitely creative God of the universe ;).
Well, I hope that gives you a glimpse of my South Africa experience! I'll have to write a sequel to this email because I didn't even touch on my personal breakthroughs (which were MANY) or our crazy SAFARI ADVENTURE! Plus, I've got tons of fun to share from the few weeks I've been home for the summer :). So it's settled, I'll probably be posting another entry tomorrow!
I love you all so dearly! Remember, everything I've shared is YOUR INHERITANCE through Jesus Christ so take EVERY testimony and breakthrough as your own! We 're a family so let's share in the goodness of our Papa!
I'll post again very soon!
Love and Blessings,
Melissa
