A few weeks ago a good friend of mine told me that he honestly was worried for me the first time I went to Africa… to quote him “I never thought you’d survive.” I just smiled and explained “that’s the life transforming power of Jesus Christ.” He agreed. I look back at how far the Lord has brought me and I shake my head in amazement. So many things that I never thought I’d do or experience…
If anyone knows anything about me it is that I have to have a clean bathroom and kitchen. We’ll leave the bathrooms untouched as some of them are… well not necessarily formal bathrooms… let’s just leave it at that.
To the kitchens…
One of my missionary rules (I’ll need to publish the full set) is to Never Ever look in a kitchen while on the missions field… You’ll never eat…
It was a struggle when I first began. Smells, not really clean cooking surfaces, no refrigeration, let’s not forget our little cockroach friends who like to dine with us and the list can go on… So instead of spending time in a kitchen, we went to the market for ministry.
One group immediately crossed the road to another section of more housing. I went with P. Love and two other team members straight into the market. After a few minutes, the two who were with me had to leave. One of them was getting sick and they decided to walk back to the house and rest… P. Love and I continued on in the market. We ministered there for over an hour. It was a sheer delight. Over 100 received Jesus as Lord. It was beautiful.
At the scheduled time, the other group came back and would not cross the road. I waved them over to stand in the shade but they would not.
Finally one came over and asked me how’d I do it? I was confused and they explained to me that the smell from the market was so bad that they could not get close to it.
They just could not believe it and said it truly had to be a miracle…. as I look back at the whole of it, yes indeed, I know that God has given me divine noseplugs as I smelled flowers that had the most delicate smells that have been created and the aroma of coffee in the morning… To me it is obvious that the prayers of all of you back here to remove hinderances are working.. Thank you and keep it up, your prayers have assisted in transforming my life…
Photos of the market below…
Oh yeah, some of the first timers want me to amend the rule to “Never look at a market, you’ll never eat”.
