Victories in battle

As I have sat here pondering how to even start explaining the events of the day , it finally hit me... we don't fight against flesh and blood but against the enemy in the spiritual realm. 

For the past few weeks I have been reading how when the Isrealites went in to battle ... if the LORD was on their side they were always victorious.  Even when Gideon's army was cut down from 32,000 men to 300 they still won because the LORD wanted the victory.

This post is not so much on the spiritual battle and war that is being waged over the hearts and souls of this village but on the victories that have been won today!  I will preface what I am about to say with this... spiritual battle is real and if you call yourself a Christian and have never experienced a spiritual attack or believe in spiritual battle I ask you to examine your faith.

After a couple of weeks of discouraging events... being told that I am being a distraction to the children by allowing them to play games or kick the ball around... being told that I need to stop spending time with the little brown eyed cuties so they can work... being told one thing in meetings but then the opposite taking place... and being blamed for not stepping up to do things that they were "expecting" me to do... I had just about had it and was ready to throw in the towel.  (This was exactly what the enemy wanted.) Anyway I have prayed about what God has me here for and it is these children so I am ignoring those trying to distract and focusing on what He has called me to. 

Today was to be the first Sunday of hosting children's church on the veranda outside of my apartment.  Long story short... the village church had a time for children's church but needed some assistance as the program was down to just a couple of children plus I was being a huge distraction to the entire church as the pastor felt like he had to preach to me in English leaving the others struggling to get the point of the message through a translator.  So the Pastor and I met about these things and I offered to start training some of the women in the church how to teach the children. 

So the victories of the day...

Children's church was to start at 10am... I had little ones at my window at 7am wanting my attention.  They were eager to get started andin aculture where everyone is late to have group of children ready to start before 9:45 was amazing!

We ended up having 20 children come to children's church not including those across the road slowly doing their chores of getting matoke so they could hear the bible lesson and not get in trouble for not working.

Jen (the girl from Another brown eyed cutie story)  had told me earlier in the week that her parents weren't allowing her to come because she was Catholic... she was so broken hearted about not being able to come... so yesterday Hannington and I walked to her house and talked to her dad and Jen came to tell me this morning that she will come every other Sunday to children's church here and the other Sunday's she will go to Sebanda to the Catholic Church.   She was so excited!

Hannington and I were also able to discuss with the families about why we are here as a ministry and that we as a community need to work together.  It is not my goal to distract the children from work but to encourage them to finsih their work in order to come play... the issue came down that the children weren't telling me the truth about being done with their work.  So we came up with a solution and all is good!

So I am counting these victories as blessings and reminded that spiritual battles are not fought on our feet but on our knees and that we aren't called to go into battle alone!  Thank you to the prayer warriors in my life that help in waging war!  You are appreciated!