This past week was insane in the best way! God has been doing so much here lately, and we’ve gotten to be a part of some amazing Kingdom moments.
On Monday, our ATL day in town, we decided to worship and evangelize in the park. So we put a worship set (one that was recorded at Worship Room during our time in Guatemala, actually – you can listen to it here) on a Bluetooth speaker and spent time worshiping the Lord together. As the Spirit led us, members of our squad would go out in pairs to talk with people in the park. I personally ended up staying by our things and worshiping and interceding the entire time, but in that, I got to witness our squad being super bold and stepping out in faith to talk with people as I did so – which was incredible in itself. Even more so, though, was getting to see God answer prayers almost as I was praying them! I specifically was praying that He would bring people to us that He wanted us to talk with, as well as for the light of salvation to shine in that very park. Not half an hour after praying that prayer, we had had two different people approach our group and start conversations about faith in Jesus – one of whom was a pastor at a new church in town who was encouraged by our public worship and conversation! The other gave his life to Christ that very hour!!! Ultimately two people got saved in the park on Monday morning, praise the Lord!!!, and we had the privilege of talking with them, praying for and with them, and getting them Bibles. The grace of God was so present in that park!
Then with an extra hour we had before meeting for lunch, we went off in groups of three to do street evangelism. My group ended up talking with a blind guitar player who was playing near a mall entrance. We found out he was connected with a whole group of blind people who made a living by singing siSwati worship music on the street, among other things. As one of my group members was feeling led, we ended up getting to bless them by buying lunch for their group! Witnessing their joy was priceless.
And finally, as we made our way to our lunch meeting point, we came across a lady sitting on the sidewalk reading a Bible! We sat and read with her, and as we sat there, a young lady stopped (simply because we had stopped) and asked what we were doing. So that led to a Gospel conversation with her as well! Monday was just full of seemingly small but super intentional moments that reminded us how when we give God our time, He fills it in ways we can’t imagine – all for His glory.
Then on Tuesday and Wednesday at ministry, our guys gave a couple of teachings to the older kids at the carepoint. Tanner taught on repentance and salvation, while Noah taught on baptism as the declaration of faith in Jesus. After that teaching, Noah and I got to pray for the teens who wanted to be baptized!
Then on Friday we had baptisms!!! Sixteen young men and women who come to the carepoint professed their faith in Christ and desire to live for Him! We brought a blowup pool to the carepoint and filled it with water inside the church building that’s on the same property. The pastor of the church came for the baptisms, and our squad got to witness the carepoint staff help him baptize the kids. It was incredible to see the Great Commission happening in such a real way – going, making disciples and baptizing in Jesus’ Name! And even more, it was extra sweet to see this ministry and discipleship happening not by or because of us, but through the Spirit and the local body of believers. Our prayer is that these teachings and baptisms would not end when we leave, but would be a catalyst for fiery faith to continue to spread throughout the carepoint communities and all of Eswatini!
This week in addition to everything else has also just been a testimony to the Lord’s kindness toward us. During the first few weeks here, our squad overall struggled to stay engaged in ministry and felt like it was hard to see any fruitfulness in what we were doing. It wasn’t necessarily true, and there will always be seasons where the fruit of what you do isn’t seen at all during that time, but we started feeling discouraged. When we realized it and started praying into ministry more, though, it became clear that God had a lot more in store here than we were seeing. Last week He allowed us to see so much fruit and be part of the harvest in Eswatini. What a privilege and a joy.
And now we’re down to our last week of ministry in Eswatini! It’s so crazy how fast time has gone by since we’ve gotten to Africa, and truly amazing to see all that God has done in a short time. To get to be a part of the work He’s doing is a gift beyond compare!
