Exodus 14:14

Woman at church reading her Bible

The Redeemed Tree

Today was a great day in Africa!!! I feel so special that God has chosen me to be here! So last night I woke up with a bad dream. I was seeing the pictures of the children in Uganda going over and over in my dream. My family knows that when I have bad dreams, I cast out the devil. I believe that bad dreams only come from the devil, so I cast him out, and never have the dreams come back that night. This was the case last night too. You will later understand why I had this dream. It took me until 2pm to figure it out.

We left this morning and took an hour drive to the village of Bakka to attend their church. Wow! On the drive there, I was explained the history of this village. This village is huge into witchcraft. There are few Christians in this Muslim and witchcraft village. Child sacrafices, and human mutilation still occur. The land on which the church is located was bought from a witch doctor. The presence from the devil is heavy in Bakka. However, the presence of the LORD is HEAVIER! There is a tree that sits right outside the church. It is the hugest, most beautiful tree in the entire area. This tree is where the evil spirits lived. Drums call from the tree to beckon the people to come and worship the evil spirits. They come. This is just like the devil. He pretends to be beautiful just to lure us in. This tree has been redeemed! The village is being redeemed too!!!

Each of us was asked to preach (share a word) during the church service today (which was 3 hours by the way). I prayed many times this morning for God to tell me what he wanted me to say. I felt like I was to talk about how Jesus said "let the little children come to me". I know that it is the children of this village that will change the future of this village. The children come when their parents won't. So right before I was to share, I felt very strongly that God was saying "No, I have something else for you to say." I was to share about how in Exodus 14, when the Hebrews had left Egypt, and Pharoah was in pursuit of them, they were scared. Exodus 14:14 says "The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still." I told them that I knew of the spiritual warfare there, and that they are persevering. They have been praying for their village for years. I told them that God is persevering, and fighting for them. They are not alone. He will win the battle!!! The cool thing is that each of us had similiar messages from God, even down to the Hebrew's exodus from Egypt. None of us had spoken before about what God was calling us to say. Many of us knew God was calling us from our original idea of what we were to share, and knew we were to say something else! We were obedient, and wow, we could see God's power!

I now know why I had the bad dream last night. The devil was already at work trying to keep us from coming to Bakka. He was working even last night. But God fought for us, and all we had to do was to be still!!! Praise God!

I overwhelmingly felt God's presence today. All that I could pray during the mass prayer time is "Lord you are HOLY!, I am unworthy!"

Thank you for praying for us! We needed it today more than ever. We encountered God today, and he clearly fought the devil today, and won! Praise God

Love you lots!

Julie