Philip Pretorius: An Unexpected Adventure: July 2013

10 Day Elevation (Every Nation Youth) Mission to Botswana 2013!

During the June/July school Holiday I took a team of 19 youth on a Mission to Botswana, serving with Word to Africa (who is in partnership with Every Nation) at Lobatse and Moralane. Due to cultural differences we were restricted in taking photos of people within the village. But fortunately some pictures could be taken to give a good idea of the environment. From removing a steel structure, to digging, to fencing, there were a lot of work to be done in Moralane. And on a spiritual level, we had people coming to salvation, being discipled, being baptised in the Holy Spirit, being baptised in water and even had the blessing of seeing the blind receiving sight by the power of Jesus Christ! All glory and honour to Jesus!

I want to specifically share some more detail on the blind woman receiving sight and then I will share some photo’s to do the rest of the talking!

The first day that I took the whole team into the village to go and pray for people or share the gospel to those willing to listen, we arrived at the water point, where the main tap was that the whole village gets their water from.

As we got there, chaos broke out. Some men started to scream at each other, and soon fists were flying around! I just made sure my team was at a safe distance, while some of our bigger guys on the team went out to try and go make peace. While those guys were breaking up the fight (which took place because someone jumped the line for water), a group of young people brought a blind woman to me and the rest of our team. She heard we were missionaries and she heard of Jesus once when she was younger and knew that Jesus was known for doing miraculous healing. And then our translator told us that she wanted us to pray for the healing of her sight. And as it goes everyone looked at me…

I truly believe that at that moment I was blessed with the supernatural gift of faith by the power of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:9). The Holy Spirit also reminded me, that by his power we can do even greater things than Jesus (John 14:12). The Holy Spirit also reminded me that we are called to go and make disciples and that all authority in heaven and on earth is with Jesus (Matt. 28:18-19). The Holy Spirit also reminded me of the Scriptures sharing how Jesus did not pray lengthy prayers asking the Father for healing, but rather asked if the person had faith in God as healer and He then sometimes commanded the person to stand up/see/hear etc. (Matt. 9:6, 29) (He healed many other ways, these are just to name a few).

So I simply asked the woman if she believes that Jesus can heal her. Her answer was ‘yes’. For some reason, I then decided to put my fingers on her eyes, and then said, ‘Open your eyes and see’. As I removed my fingers, she opened her eyes and by the grace of God she could see!

She started going crazy of excitement and started describing everything she could see and even grabbed my hands and started to kiss it. I quickly stopped her and clearly explained to her that it is not by my power she was healed, but by the power of Jesus.

After this many others came to get prayed for and many wanted to hear who this Jesus is. People got saved and the most wonderful thing of all is the fact that we could connect them with people who will be staying there on a longer term that can walk with them in a discipleship relationship!

Maybe this testimony might be a little bit frightening to you? You might be asking, ‘Philip, what is this power you are speaking about’?

I recently watched the new Superman movie, Man of Steel. In it, Superman’s father tells him, ‘People are afraid of what they don’t understand’.

I can agree with this. Naturally if we don’t understand something, we start to fear it. If this testimony frightens you a bit, I want to encourage you to read one of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke or John) and see how Jesus did supernatural miracles. And then go and read the book of Acts (Handelinge in Afrikaans), and also see how normal people did miracles by the power of God all for the glory of God.

Finally, here are some of the photos that we could take on our Mission: