Pray first, think later

Since my stay away from home, I have been avidly in the word. Two times I came across one verse, but skipped over its message. Every other verse I had encountered up to that point had great application for me to use. One night during “feedback” (a time where our groups get together to praise and encourage each other on what we noticed through out the day), the Fruit’s team leader told me that same verse, and applied it to my life that day. The verse, 2 Timothy 1:7 says, “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” Justin kindly explained to me that fear is of the Devil himself, God simply did not give me a spirit of fear. I held back tears as I could definitely feel God speaking to me through Justin. The night before, I had prayed that my time left here at the orphanage would be filled with God speaking to me and that I wouldn’t be focused on getting or being home with my family and friends. At that moment, I knew I was going to grow a tremendous amount before I left.

Over the next week, I encountered fear quite a bit. For stories sake, I will give you a glimpse of what’s been going on here at El Shaddai. Each weekday we wake up and work while the kids are at school, serving in whatever ways the orphanage needs at the current time. Monday morning all 16 of us went to do “fire breaks” which means we light the tall dead grass that covers all these mountains on fire in a thick path around the orphanage, in hopes that if there ever was a fire that got out of control, it would stop at that line and not approach the ministry buildings and houses.  What happens is, we light a section on fire and take freshly chopped branches to beat out the flames and keep it under control. We went halfway around the mountain and stopped for lunch. Everything went wonderfully! The rest of the afternoon was too windy to continue on, so we moved onto a new project. Tuesday we were told we would do more fire breaks, finishing the mountain. We had a rather thin patch of burnt grass in comparison to the day before and not all of us were able to get in to help with the flames. As a result, 6 of us stayed behind (myself included) to thicken the strip as everyone else moved on.

We were doing great when all the sudden a random and huge gust of wind swept the flames into the grass we didn’t want to burn. This caused the six of us to have an intense amount of heat and smoke thrust right into our faces, which resulted in us backing up. There was absolutely NOTHING we could do but watch the flames get bigger and bigger, spiraling out of control. We were screaming for help before it got too close to the church and the baby house (kitchen and sleep area for kids 1-3). Nobody could hear us. Within 60 seconds the flames were within the fences around El Shaddai, creeping closer and closer to the baby house. Justin ran to get the rest of our group to come help, and they arrived within 5 minutes or so. At this point our branches were either burnt completely or had no more leaves to help put out the flames. As some stayed to beat the flames, others ran to find any containers possible to fill with water from the goose pond (they have a limited amount of water and the faucets don’t fill quickly) to run and pour either on the flames itself or to make a barrier in front of the buildings. So which group did I go in? Neither. The altitude here, the intense amount of smoke, the running up/down/side to side the mountain to help others, and a history of exercise-induced asthma was not a good combination. I attempted to keep the babies safe and encourage my team, all the while trying to control my breathing and stop coughing.

By 10:30 all the flames were out and we continued to douse the hillside and fence posts in water incase the flames started up again. The end result was astounding… the flames stopped in a straight line 6 feet away from the baby house and 2 feet away from the church. If that isn’t the hand of God protecting his ministry, I don’t know what is. We were given the rest of the day off to rest and cough all the smoke out of our bodies.

One other moment of fear (short version!) included a late night worship session and the presence of dark spirits and then angels (this intense evening was filled with physical shaking of cabinets, prayer for casting away demons, and the arrival of a few angels… I had never experienced something like this before and it scared me at first).

After these things had occurred, I finally understood 2 Timothy 1:7. In order to understand what fear is, specifically the fear of God versus fear of the devil, you have to encounter it. Not only that, but the Lord has to bring you through it. The night of intense worship, the only thing that gave me peace in the darkness was reading God’s Word; I had to run to Him. Each and every time I felt better, I stopped reading to try to pray or worship and my mind would wander and instantly my peace would leave and fear would re-enter. After I had fully been filled with peace, then I knew the spirit of the Lord was near, that was when the angels appeared.

The rest of this week has been so incredible. God has poured into my heart, mind, and soul in amazing ways. He has shown me so many new verses of his promises, desires, and love for me. He has given me new goals and desires, too. The latest of these is to seek God first (Psalm 37:4, Deuteronomy 4:4, Jeremiah 29:13, Matthew 7:7-8). The past week during the fire, I had great examples on my team who shouted to me that I needed to pray and who screamed prayers out loud to Jesus for help. I was downcast the rest of the day because of this. Even when she reminded me to pray first, it was so hard for me to stop myself from thinking about what to do in order to pray. Rachel has given me inspiration to seek first the Lord through this experience, as well as through many others.