From the beginning, my team has faced opposition to coming
on outreach, and it hasn’t stopped since being here. While in Kona, we faced various issues with
getting our Indian visas for the first part of our trip. Then that created issues in getting our
Bangladeshi visas ahead of time because we ran out of time before leaving, so
that then changed our arrival plans into Bangladesh. Once we arrived in India, starting from day
2, someone on our team has been sick.
The sickness comes in various forms- diarrhea, vomiting, stabbing
stomach pains, headaches, dizziness, blacking-out, flu, etc.- and it keeps
coming. In Kona, we received various
words during prayer about sickness in our team, and it hasn’t stopped.
The week we spent going to Kolkata, applying for our
Bangladeshi visas at the High Commission there, various people sick at
different times, and then arranging travel into Bangladesh, was one of the most
stressful weeks of my life. India is a
hard place to be spiritually and you feel attacked on every level. I seriously
hated India at that point and couldn’t wait to get out. Then
we finally made it to Bangladesh and we were excited, but the sickness only
seemed to continue and intensify.
We were staying in a pastor’s house and it was awesome, very
comfortable-including mattresses, running water & semi-regular
electricity. Plus we had a place to meet
as a team, and access to a kitchen to make our own food and not have to eat
rice & dahl all the time. But as a
few days passed on, and people kept getting more and more sick, I began to
wonder how we were ever going to be able to do ministry. We went ahead and made plans to move on to a
different part of the country for a while, and were trying to get everything in
order for that to happen. One of the
last mornings we were at the pastor’s house, he asked me if people on the team
were sick. I told him yes, that
different ones of us were sick with different things, and he said he hoped it
wasn’t the house and that other teams who had come to stay also had gotten
sick. I tried to assure him it wasn’t
his house, that we loved it there.
Afterwards though, I began to think about it and realized what was going
on.
The house is right next door
to a Muslim learning center.
Night and day you can hear Muslim men reading out the Quran and chanting
out various different things. About the
only time it stops is somewhere between midnight-4am, otherwise you hear
them. It’s never ending. I jokingly nick-named it Satan’s Lair, but in
a way, it kind of was. The enemy hasn’t
wanted us to come from day one, so the spiritual battle has been ongoing. And now we were living right next door to a
place where men went to become a better Muslim.
Hmm. It’s like we’re living right
next to the enemy’s camp. And if you
take into account of what the pastor said about all the teams who have stayed
there got sick, and how it was even challenging for him & his sons to live
there, it makes sense that we would be
facing opposition too.
As we moved on to our new location, it’s not as heavy
spiritually, and we are getting better, but we are still struggling with
sickness. We’ve realized how important
prayer is, and how worship is key to pushing back the enemy. Please join in praying for health for my
team; for endurance; and a sensitivity to the Spirit to be able to fight the
enemy. For the battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the dark
forces of this world (Eph. 6: 12-18).
Stand with me in this battle!
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