Saturday night the pioneer61 team and I went out on the streets here in Tete to minister to prostitutes and share the love of Jesus with them. We had no idea what it was going to look like, we had no plan, we just heard the voice of God and did what He said. Before we left, we prayed together and asked God for clues as to where we were supposed to go and details about the women we were supposed to talk to. One of the things that I saw was a yellow smiley face with black eyes and a black smile. We left the house at around 10 pm and ended up in a part of the city where there is nothing but darkness. Drinking, partying, dancing, extremely loud music, girls selling themselves, ect... As soon as we got out of the car, I could literally feel the evil spirits everywhere and saw how the enemy has totally taken control of these people.
We split into two groups and walked around and stopped with different women that we felt drawn to. Many of the women were from Zimbabwe and speak english. They came here to find work and when they couldn’t find an actual job, the began selling their bodies just to have enough money to eat and to live and take care of their babies, if they had any. There were two girls that I talked to who spoke english. Minete, one of our friends that came with us, tried to talk to them first but they didn’t seem too interested so she told me to try. I just began sharing my heart with them about what I felt like Jesus wanted to tell them. They are daughters of the King...They are princesses...They are worth everything... The key to having a relationship with Jesus is knowing who you are in Him... As I was talking, I could see the change in their attitude and they began to hear and accept what I was saying. I also told them the importance of surrender and trust. They have to come to a place where they can surrender everything and place their lives in God’s hands and trust Him with it all.
After we were finished talking, we stood in a circle with our arms around each other and we prayed over them. It was the most beautiful feeling standing there in the middle of all this evil and drinking and sin, we had the honor of standing there and representing the light of Jesus in the middle of the darkness. I felt the Holy Spirit so strong standing in that circle. I have no doubt that there were seeds planted that will bear fruit in those two precious women in that moment.
The remainder of the night, we walked in and out of the baracas and stopped and prayed with different women and simply loved on them with the love from Papa God. We accepted 3 beautiful women into the Kingdom family that night. Right before we left, a drunk guy walked up to me and spoke english and said, “why do you think you can come here and talk about God and have church? I’m drinking here and don’t you see all these people drinking and doing bad things? You shouldn’t be here talking about God!” I simply replied, “Well, God told us to come here where there is darkness and He wants us to shine His light and share His love here with everyone. You don’t have to only have church in a building on Sundays... It doesn’t matter if you’re drinking and doing bad things, God loves you anyway and He wants you to stop doing these bad things. But He told us to come here and represent Him in the darkness and share His love with you.” He took a step back and said “Wow! This is the first time that I’ve heard of anyone doing this here. You’re doing a good work. God bless you!”
This totally touched my heart because we got to be the first people who ever evangelized in that area and the people recognized something different in us, other than the fact that we were the only white people there... It makes me feel so humbled and honored that I get to represent Christ in that way. Being His hands and feet in the darkness.
On our way home, we stopped on the main road in the city where there were so many prostitutes standing on the sidewalks waiting for their clients to come pick them up. We walked up and started talking about Jesus and most of them didn’t want to listen to us but one girl listened and accepted Jesus into her heart! We were sitting on some steps next to a building while we prayed about what we should do about the difficult girls who didn’t want to listen, and I looked up at the building and saw painted on the wall were tons of yellow smiley faces exactly like the ones I saw when I was praying before we left. I knew immediately that we were supposed to be there. God had a divine appointment set up right there.
Marlene took one of the girls across the street and sat with her and began talking to her. She was from Zimbabwe and spoke english. She has two children but was only able to provide for one of them when she came here so she had to leave the other one with her father in Zim. She lives alone here now with her 9 month old baby and she can’t find work anywhere except by selling her body. She wants to change. She doesn’t want to continue this life style. She really began to open up to Marlene and she said she has to make a certain amount of money every night just to provide food for her and her child. Marlene told her “Well, I think Jesus wants to buy your night today. I’ll give you this same amount of money from Jesus and I want you to go home and spend the night with Him tonight instead of another man. He will show you that you are white as snow and He sees your heart is pure.” She was blown away and we gave her a ride home.
The whole night was totally worth it even if it was just for that one precious soul.
Jesus is doing amazing things here in Tete and beginning new works and proclaiming life into the dry bones. It would be so easy to miss if we weren’t listening for His voice, trusting Him, and doing what He says.