Prayer for Tires

We went on a weekend away, leaving in the early morning hours. On the road our one car burst both its left back tire and the spare tire we replaced it with. We had to find a tire repair shop, so we got into the other car, leaving the rest behind, and drove to eMalahleni (witbank) to try and find a tires place. After following the gps we got to a place that was still closed. So we decided to just keep on driving. While we were driving the one oke said we should pray for help; he prayed a simple little God help us find a place prayer, to which another oke added “and let the place be right around the corner”, not knowing the implications. Twenty meters later we turned left into a petrol station, jokingly jesting that this must be the place, only to find that the very building just before it was a big tires repair shop… literally meters away from where we prayed that simple little prayer, the very next stop we could have made. From where we came, you only saw a brick wall, nothing more… no way we could have known. To top it all off - the place even opened up thirty minutes earlier than we expected.

We started talking to the person whom opened the tires shop; it was still early so he was the only employee at work. He then told us about the biblical principal of sowing and reaping, and how that he sometimes does that. He then gave us discount on the tires, with a free wheel balance, just like that. We were in awe – all of this happened so hap-hazardously, we didn’t know what to think. So we asked him if he was religious, trying not to offend; from there on out we spoke for a while about God, sharing stories.

It would seem that something that started out with a seemingly silly little prayer – God took and turned into something tangible, really tangible. For us it was a little unexpected adventure, with God shaking our idea of living a life with him.

Salvation of a Friend

One of our girlfriends moved into her own apartment with an old school friend of hers. They organized a house warming and this is where we met her for the first time.

The Monday our friend walked into our home on the verge of crying... we could see something massive had happened in her life. She sat us down and told us that the new friend we met, the house mate, tried to commit suicide. It was startling, shocking – we saw her days before!

She told us how she got home and how her friend was very tired and went to sleep, and how later on the girl’s father called asking her to check up on her. She found her lying in her bed, dying of a drug overdose; she had swallowed a whole lot of pills. They rushed her to the hospital, to intensive care.

We started interceding, praying for God to please, please take hold of this situation and turn it around! That she would not die, but surely live! That God would show Himself mightily! We had nowhere to turn nowhere to run… we needed God! We prayed boldly filled with compassion, stretching our faith.

A few days later we all went to visit her in the hospital; she had a speedy recovery and could see visitors again. Not knowing what would come of all off this we were praying even more, thanking God for rescuing her and asking Him to take control of her life.

The hospital let her go a few days later and she got booked into a recovery clinic, where our girlfriend kept visiting her. After one such visit she came home telling us how they were doing tarot card readings at the clinic (heh, apparently she was an earthworm! lol). We weren’t impressed! This clinic is known as a Christian clinic and here they have people exposing you to the demonic… It was a Friday, we decided that we would go visit and warn her, we would not let satan reign freely… he already made his intentions known… this was war! So we prayed some more. I could feel the oppression against us that whole weekend, it truly was war…

The Sunday we would go to visit her, not knowing how any of this would go. Honestly a bit intimidated (hehe). I woke up that morning feeling “What on earth are you doing, what are you going to go say to this poor girl, she has been through so much, don’t disturb even more…” I rebuked satan.

The afternoon we went over to the clinic. Again praying like crazy! It took a while to find the place she was staying. After taking a corner we saw her sitting with her family outside, we told one another: “We can’t talk about all off this in front of her family that would be weird!” Luckily we soon got a gap – we shared our testimonies and how good God is, we also shared our demon possession from Rustenburg story, because she had also been busy with tarot cards and that opened doors in her life.

The clinic let her go and she visited us over the weekend, we all had a wonderful time. Also being visited by a very inspirational man of God – he told us so many amazing stories of what God was doing in his life. So the Sunday came and we invited her to go with us to church. The whole service we were praying for her, God told me “Do you remember how I asked Peter and the others in the garden of gethsemane to pray with me? That I must pray and not fall asleep.”

That night she gave her heart to Jesus! Oh how we wept! In a moment like this you feel closer to God than your own breath. It had been a wild three weeks! But oh, OH! How good is our God! He is amazing!

Afterwards she shared with us what had happened from her side. In the Muslim faith they believe in “devil whispers” which she told us she heard whilst she was at the mosque. The Friday before she tried to commit suicide, she was praying at the mosque and heard the words “Jesus Christ is the Son of God”. She tried to block it out – thinking it was “devil whispers”, but couldn’t. She also around the same time had a dream – in the dream there was a swimming pool in front of her filled with water. Jesus and satan was fighting over her and Jesus told her to get into the water to get baptized or what she said seemed similar to baptism. She listened to Jesus. She then saw how satan was drowning another guy in the water – Jesus then told her to breathe on his (the other guy's) behalf under water, which she did. She also had another dream where little gooey bubbles popped open; she could then see all kinds of little demons coming out of those bubbles. Jesus then commanded them to leave and they all got destroyed.

Who are we? That the living God that created everything would visit us in these ways? He is GOOD!
Now we get to see how God further grows her and forms her! Exciting times ahead!

Insane "Treasure Hunt"

On Monday evening we got together as usual at the party house and 3 of us were ready to hit the streets or malls or wherever God calls us. We started to pray that God would show us a sign of where to go. So here is the list of things that came up during prayer (Very random, since normally we just get an idea of a single place, maybe 2 and we go):

• Doringkloof shopping centre
• Family house
• Top of a shopping area
• Hospital Sign
• L
• Cross
• Apple
• Water running down / falling water

We decided that we would not ignore these things in case it was really the Holy Spirit speaking to us showing us all these things. So we headed off to Doringkloof to start off, completely baffled by the random things. We started to walk around the place trying to find things that would match the list of clues that we got. After not finding much, we sat down and prayed again. This is the list of things that we got during the next prayer:

• Waitress
• Black shirt
• Name tag
• Veronica
• Jennifer
• Bird
• Green plank / sign
• Motorbike
• Toys

This just added to the confusion and now we were more lost than before. With a few giggles we kept looking for these signs, which seemed to not at all be related. We thought of going to parrots in Centurion, but realised then to rather head off to Menlyn because we felt like it and there were more people, more grace to make mistakes. We felt good about Parrots because the Bird was a confirmation. On the way to Menlyn we saw a Hospital sign, confirming our first clue. Woohoo! So we walked to parrots and saw the water feature in Parrots, with a Toy store right across it and the Apple store next to it. Very excited for all the confirmations that got we asked the people at Parrots if a waitress with the name of Veronica or Jennifer works there. There was however no one with that name. Heading off to the apple shop, we saw the Clicks pharmacy, up one level and it was the cross and it was green. So we headed up and stood around there for a bit calling out "Jennifer!?", "Veronica!?". No one however seemed to respond at these names. Realising that the confirmations we were following were all in a definite path, we had the idea that the L meant to go left (since we didn't see any other things on the list). We went left and ahead saw a picture of an Apple computer in the distance. As we got there, House of Coffees was on the Top floor, which was a confirmation for top of shopping area and for the house clue. We then saw that the waiters and waitresses were wearing black shirts and had name tags (another 3 clues, OH YEAH!!!). So we asked the one waiter whether he knew of someone there with the name of "Veronica" and he says, yeah, but she's gone home. Excited by the fact that we were lead on a definite path with all the clues and even getting the name spot on, we asked if they knew anyone with the name "Jennifer". Jennifer turned out to be the person who takes over the shift of Veronica but was not there because it was her day off. Our faith was stirred and the waitresses and waiters at House of Coffees also seemed to have gotten a faith booster by the fact that we are asking for their colleagues by name.

So out of ALL (17) clues we got, there was only one that didn’t make sense, Motorbike!?. By the end of this, we were so filled with Faith. We gave them our number and said that we'd like to come back sometime to pray for both of them. Although we did not do much evangelising, I really believe God wanted to stir our faith.

Dragon House

Monday afternoon.

We got together at the party house and prayed for God to show us where to go. During prayer, we got the conviction to go to a house in Lenchen Avenue, Centurion that has a Dragon statue / light pole in front of it. So off the 5 of us went. We stopped outside of this house and saw a man sitting on a chair in the yard. Three of us started praying over the weird dragon statue and house, whilst two of us headed off to speak to the man sitting in the yard. As we started speaking to the man, Julius, we realised that he was not very comfortable with us being there. He told us that he believes in God, but doesn’t know who Jesus is and doesn’t trust Him. After some chatting, trying to explain to him who Jesus is and what He did for us, we realised that he wasn’t listening. So we decided to leave and asked if we could pray for him before we go. He didn’t want us to pray for him either. So lastly, just before deciding to head off, we asked him if he had a bible. Julius told us that he did not have one, so we asked if we could bring him a free bible tomorrow. He told us that he doesn’t have much to eat either at the moment and asked if we could bring him some food the next day. So we told him that we would bring him a nice meal and a free bible tomorrow if we can pray for him tomorrow as well. He thought it was a good idea, so we left.

The next day, Tuesday, we brought him a bible and a nice meal. When he accepted our gift, he said we could now pray for him. After praying for him, he thanked us and said that he would like us to come back again the next day to pray again and said that he feels very dead inside his heart. We thought, no problems, we can keep coming back every afternoon as long as he keeps needing prayer.

Wednesday afternoon, we came to pray for him, but he wasn’t there. We waited for a bit and he eventually arrived. This time he had a friend with him, Bongani. He said that he told Bongani about us praying for him and about Jesus. He had been reading in Matthew last night and said he thinks he knows now who Jesus is. So both Julius and Bongani wanted prayer, so we prayed. During prayer, it was laid on our hearts to tell them about the early church in Acts and told them that if they wanted to follow Christ they needed to repent of their ways, accept Jesus as their Saviour and be baptized. They mentioned that they want to do this and also be baptised. Not long after, they jumped into our car, headed back to the party house where both of them got baptized and publicly called out to God to come and change their lives. Bongani then asked for a Bible, because he didn't have one and we told him that we don’t have one anymore bibles. He then mentioned that he would love to have a Zulu bible. Suddenly one of us realised that we do have a nice Zulu bible in in the house. We gave it to him and it was just amazing how everything worked out. They were only staying at that house where we met them until Thursday (the next day), going to a few classes and writing an exam. They were heading back to Germiston and we got to meet them just before they left.

Impossible Rain

It was very dry in this area and the mealies were suffering under the tremendous heat. They were withering away and no rain was in sight. What made matters worse was that not only was there a scorching heat, but no clouds were in sight. No rain in sight; or so I thought. Then the Lord spoke to me and said that it was going to rain tonight. I said Lord, "Really? But there are no clouds in the sky, how could this be possible?" As I discussed this with my wife that no rain was in sight, she mentioned the story of Elijah who prayed after a drought that it should rain. That afternoon we prayed for rain in the family on Saturday. Looking at the conditions I predicted that no rain was coming for the next days. The Lord again laid an impression on me that it would rain. I asked the Lord to give me 2 days for more spectrum to be right about the rain. In the evening we could not believe it, hearing thunder in the distance. I mentioned the story of a pastor in a congregation who said that "if the East Wind is blowing no praying for rain will help because It simply will NOT rain". The east wind was blowing from Swaziland. Lord could it be? Then a small band of clouds formed in the west with some lightning far away. That evening on the farm of my family it rained 73 mm. The Lord is great! It was as if the Lord said to me if I give you an impression it WILL come to pass. Share it with others without being afraid that it won't happen. The Lord is great in his deeds! He sent rain under "impossible" circumstances! We can trust him and share this with each other.