Darkness. Malaria. AIDS. Demonic dreams. Witch doctors. Conflict that occurs in a spiritual realm within our own.
I’m not going to sugarcoat Africa or where we live, I’m not going to lie to yall, not even to comfort my mother. Yes, it’s beautiful. More beautiful than yall can comprehend – we live on a hill that overlooks cornfields and mountains and villages with dirt paths and lake Malawi and it’s beach, where on a clear day you can see clear to Mozambique. Yes, the people are stunning, and incredible, and they’re hearts are so warm. Yes, the children are the sweetest little things in the world and when you hold one of them, you fully understand why Jesus said “let the little children come to me,” and you can’t help but giggle when they try to rub the white off your skin. Yes, i would gladly go to the special needs orphanage every day just to sweep the floors because it’s such an incredible place. Yes, it’s truly a great place to be, it’s wonderful to live so simply, and to work so hard and do so much. I truly enjoy walking a mile to carry 20 liters of water home to cook and use for hygienic purposes, we have no electricity or running water, it’s humbling to wear a long skirt everyday and stay in a tent during rainy season and spend the mornings in the blazing sun shoveling dirt and have to walk everywhere when you don’t live near anything. I love how a village is like a family, I love sitting with the house mama’s and laughing because neither of us understand each other’s languages, I love my contacts and their family, I love the church services and how beautiful the sound of full voices are when lifted to the Lord, I freaking love Africa. I. Love. Africa.
There’s something more than just that, though. There’s more. In a place where God is so evident, the forces that try and work against Him are equally as evident.
Laying down at night and becoming paranoid with irrational fears of what could be outside your tent. Randomly questioning the faith you so firmly believe for no apparent reason at all. Sudden negativity about life that doesn’t make any sense.
This City on a Hill, this mission and land that the Lord has claimed as His own is also a raging battlefield between the enemy condemned and Christ on High. It’s real, its disastrous, it’s scary.
misconception about this spiritual warfare is that satan and God are evenly matched; we often perceive two inhuman beings, equally matched, one in black and one in white, sword fighting until the death. This isn’t the truth. In reality, God is an untouchable mountain hovering just above a tiny ant and could crush the aunt whenever He wanted with no battle at all. This doesn’t make the ant or the battle any less real. We’ve been given free will, because love that’s worked for and chosen means so much more. There’s just no competition between God and satan.
In the past few weeks, I’ve realized a lot of these things. In a place where God is tangible, and you literally can’t get through one day without Him, satan has also become equally as real. And he may have a hold on this area, but not for long. There's a bunch of crazy 20 year old missionary kids who burn with an unquenchable fire for the one truth there is, they live a radical life of love that doesn’t make sense to humanity, and they know firsthand the power that gives the dry bones flesh. They want to climb that mountain with their hands wide open, they pray so hard that the dark powers run and hide when their footsteps approach, each knows the process of being turned from dust into something beautiful.
It may worry and scare some people that I walk past the hut of a witch doctor when I fetch water each day, that I live in a primarily Islamic community, that there are no gates around my house and a guard who falls asleep on duty during the night.
It doesn’t worry me at all.
My God is so much bigger than all of those things.
