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I recieved this one from a young man in Tampa, FL. My dad is a pastor so I grew up in the church all my life. I can vaguely remember asking Jesus into my heart when I was a little kid in Sunday school, but, as I grew older I grew kind of numb to the things of God. I never did anything really bad like take drugs or anything like that, but I was living in an attitude of rebellion toward all authority in my life, and except for the grace of God I probably could have gone into those things. Into my teens my life became more and more miserable, I became so frustrated with life and so full of hate and anger I could barely stand myself at times. But within the past year God has really gotten a hold of my life and turned me around. Praise Him! One thing I had to learn was that anyone can know about God, but real change only comes when you get to know Him. Another thing God is showing me is that to serve Him you must give up yourself and all your desires and seek His will first in your life. (Galatians 2:20; Luke 14:27) This past July I was on a missions trip with my youth group to South Africa for two weeks. It was awesome! I saw God move in mighty ways. One night our team was in a town called Worcester (about 1 1\2 hours from Cape Town), and we were ministering at a place called the Kibbutz, a ministry to the community, in the township of Roodewal, a very poor section of the town. We were performing evangelistic dramas and our youth pastor gave several altar calls for people wanting salvation, healing, deliverance, etc. During one of the altar calls in which my youth pastor challenged the men to stand up to become men of God, about 15 to 20 guys came forward. As we prayed for them many were knocked down by the power of God. One guy came up to me and asked me to pray for his friend, so I did. As I prayed for Him I got the impression that he was bound, so I prayed that God would set him free. When I did that he fell to the floor and laid there for about a minute or two. After that his body began to twist and squirm like a snake. I recognized this as demonic and walked over to him and commanded the demons to come out of him. When I did this the demons became more violent twisting his body around on the floor. My youth pastor saw this and came over to help pray for him, he looked the man in the eyes and told him to confess Jesus as Lord. With some difficulty he did so, and at that moment the demons left. Praise God! Many people were set free that night as God moved powerfully in our midst. Another highlight of the trip was in Atteridgeville, a black township of Pretoria. Our team was in a squatter's camp, very poor section of the community , we performed a few dramas outdoors and then gave an altar call. A lot of people came forward for salvation, healing, deliverance, etc. Me and my friend David began to pray for this one man who had come up, he was deaf in one ear and partially deaf in the other ear so it was hard to communicate even with a translator. As we talked with him it came out that his family had been involved in witch doctors. We asked him if he had accepted Jesus, which he had, and told him to repent of his family's involvement in witchcraft and to renounce all the curses upon him. When he did this my friend laid his hands upon his ears and commanded the deaf spirit to leave him. After this we asked him if he was healed and the man began to cry. He had been healed, delivered, and SET FREE!!! Overall I can modestly say that over 100 people received salvation, and added to that the others who received healing and deliverance. This missions trip really helped increase my faith in God, and His power to set people free. OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD!!!!!!!!!!!! (Revelation 19:6) Tim Havener, you can e-mail him here. |