God's sense of humour

Today God seemed to want to focus on people with unusual names! We were visited by Fernice, Consolata, Ephely, Leonita and Devna amongst others. When I look back to the previous week's record of who we prayed for, and see it's made up of people like Jimmy, Thomas, Ruth & Margaret, I have to wonder about God's sense of humour.

Today was busy – we had people waiting again, the first time for a while. After the customary 30 minutes at the beginning when nobody stopped, we then had an almost constant stream of people needing God's touch on their lives - more than 20 prayed for in this week's 2-hour session. It continues to amaze me how some, especially women, will share openly about what in the West would be considered very personal, and usually embarrassing. Today's list included people with stomach pain, high blood pressure, asthma, painful joints, injuries to heads and necks, menstrual problems, hearing, and eyesight. We also prayed for people's employment and their businesses.

About half way through this morning's session, a troubled young man took up residence a little way down the dirty street, speaking out loudly. Not much of what he was saying made much sense, and it appears from what others said that he has been like this since the post-election violence, in which his parents were killed. We sent Godwill to invite him for prayer but he refused and gradually moved further and further away. As he moved out of sight and sound, we prayed for deliverance and peace for him.

I also discovered this morning that a local witch doctor, Ndanu, lives within a stone's throw of our base for HotS. She walked past us a couple of times, and we invited her for prayer, but she refused our offer. In faith we bound the power that she is using to influence people in the neighbourhood, and prayed that the Holy Spirit would reveal His power to her. I was hoping and praying for an opportunity to pray with her, but she didn't reappear – maybe next week.

Last week we prayed for Godwill, who suffered from asthma and nosebleeds. He hasn't had any asthmatic symptoms since we prayed, and no nosebleeds either.