Kenya

What an experience, I got to see God move in incredible ways. Healings, salvations, great communities, and baptisms!

When we got to Kenya I was still sick, and even went to the hospital several more times. It would have been so easy to be discouraged about not being healed, but we serve a God who times things perfectly! It was hard to not be able to join my team for ministry all the time, but what I was able to do was awesome. I went to different church members houses for house visits, joined the church services, traveled hours to a different city to work at a different church, and prayed over patients in the hospital!

The house visits were great (as always, they’re my favorite ministry). My team and I would arrive, give a short message, give another word of encouragement, maybe share a testimony, then we would enjoy amazing food. The food in Kenya is definitely the best I’ve had since leaving home (sorry Thailand). But it’s not the food that made the house visits great, it was the people. It is so encouraging to travel all over the world and just be around other believers. God isn’t just in the US, He’s moving here in Africa too!

When my team and I were able to go to a local hospital, we prayed over every single patient inside of it! God was really moving during our time there. Five different people accepted Jesus for the first time!!! Five more first time salvations! We were able to preach the gospel and show them the love of God! There was a man in there that I felt led to share my testimony with. I thought I would just be encouraging him with what I’ve been through, but I was the one who walked away being more encouraged. After sharing my testimony, Samuel asked if he could share his with me. In the span of a week, he survived two accident (one on a motorcycle and one in a car) that should’ve killed him. He had some knee damage that was supposed to take months to heal, but he had a dream that God performed surgery on him and healed him. Instead of a 3-4 month recovery, Samuel was healed in just 4 days!! God is so good!

The people in Kenya (really all of Africa that I’ve seen) LOVE to worship the Lord. Church services are full of life and energy. They have no problem keeping the services going for hours. It was normal to be at church anywhere from 3-5 hours every week! My friend Michael and I had an incredible opportunity to travel several hours to go to a different city and help run their church service! We didn’t know exactly what we were going to do once we got there, how exciting! We were both given an opportunity to preach, and have an hour long lesson with the youth! Outside of the church service we didn’t more house visits. When we were on our way to a members house, there was a man who wanted to hear the gospel. We were able to preach it, and he accepted Jesus!!! Another salvation!!

Like I mentioned earlier, I was still very sick when we got to Kenya. One of the girls on the squad got a picture from God that I would be healed after baptizing someone. I had also had an image of me baptizing someone for months at this point, I just didn’t know that I’d be healed when it happened. So I started looking for every chance to baptize someone. When Michael and I went to the other city, baptisms were supposed to be part of what we were doing. I was so excited to do the thing I had been picturing for so long, and was ready to be healed. But when we got there we were told that the pool that was rented was now being used for something else. No baptisms. And the funny part about that is back where the rest of our team was there were baptisms happening. It was like God was telling me that “yes, I will heal you after a baptism, but it’s not time yet.” Just a few days later I got a call from Sarah. She said that she wanted to get baptized at our squad debrief, and that I had been highlighted to her to do it. Immediately I said yes, no doubt about it I wanted to. I felt very honored to be asked to be part of something so impactful. So after waiting just a few more weeks, we were at our debrief. If you know me you probably know that I don’t really like going in bodies of water, in fact I’ve been scared of them. But God helped me overcome that fear, He helped me walk out into what He was calling me to do. Sunday, September 21 I baptized Sarah. And as we were walking out of the water, Areonah was walking in and asked me to baptize her. After thinking about it for a long time (less than half a second) I said I would love to! So we went back out into the deep and Areonah was baptized too! And since that incredible morning, I have not been sick! No more dizziness, no more headache, no more stomach pain, no more sickness! God healed me! Completely and wholly healed! Praise God!!

A few weeks before I was healed, I had some pretty wild dreams. I dreamt that satan was talking to me, and he showed me that he was the one making me sick. I saw a giant syringe stuck into my back and it withdrew my strength from me. After that was removed, a different syringe was stuck in. This one injected all the sickness that I had been dealing with. satan said to me something along the lines of how can I expect to do anything when he could so easily inflict me with all of these things.

But in the book of Job we read about Satan inflicting things on Job. The only power the enemy had over Job was what God allowed him to have. The only reason Satan was able to inflict me with this sickness is because God allowed it. And when the time was right, God put a stop to it! Praise God!

My 10 weeks of being sick were the best part of the race so far! It was hard for sure, but I saw God do amazing things. I met people I wouldn’t have met, and grew closer to people that I didn’t know as well. In the middle of my trial, God blessed me!

God is good all the time! And all the time God is good!

Job 42:5

“My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”