My ministry this morning was a home visit to a woman who lives at the bottom of the mountain; her name is Alexzina. When we arrived we climbed under the fence to her house. We came with food and soap for her. Alexzina was burned by a fire 4 years ago. She is burned down to the bone. To cover the hole in her leg she wraps it. She walks with a limp, the pain evident of her face as she moves. I noticed that her leg was twice the size of the other one. I can’t imagine being burned to where you can see the bone and survive. She walks with a cane but she can walk! I talked with her through a translator and she explained her pain. The night before, she didn’t sleep because of the pain. When I looked at her, her face told a sad story. Her eyes sunk into her head like they were trying to escape and not see the pains of the world. She was also humble, I listed to her speak of the pain her neighbours are inducing. She spoke of a friend who is mentally ill and the pain that caused her, she spoke of the man down the path who’s suffering from TB. Her world seemed to revolve around hardship. I read some verses about suffering and peace in hopes of relieving some of her burden. We then gathered around and put hands on her. As we all prayed I prayed in tongues. As a child I was blessed with this gift. Being here, I have really seen God work through this gift. I don’t speak the language and sometimes I don’t know a name or know whats wrong with a person, but God has given me the ability to pray for exactly what they need without knowing what that is. I always got the impression that tongues was a very personal thing, but now I think it is a gift that allows your lips to speak understanding and truth into a situation. I may be clueless but our God is not.
After we had finished, Alexzina asked if we would go and pray for her friend with TB. We walked the way to his house and was greeted by two woman dressed in tradition swazi clothes. They invited us in and layed mats on the ground for us to sit. Then a man appeared in the door way. The room was immediately filled with an oder of sickness. He was the same man we prayed for when we came down the mountain. He had much trouble sitting down. His body resembled a skeleton. His face hollow and lifeless. He looked defeated. This world had taken his hope away. He was just plain sad. He went on to talk about the pain in his chest and the coughing. He said that doctors don’t know how to fix him. He’s been getting worse. He’s had TB since he was a child. Still holding on after 30 years of this life-taking disease. He looked thinner than the last time I saw him. He said he has sores on his lungs and they can’t fix him; as he spoke he coughed horribly. I sat there wanting to fix everything but having absolutely no way of doing that. The only thing I could do was pray. I know prayer is a powerful thing, but it’s not something you see. It’s spoken word built on faith. And it’s hard knowing the only thing you can do is something he can’t see. While we prayed, I opened my eyes and looked at his face. It was beautifully contorted. His eyes scrunched and face softened. You could see the faith in his heart. He was praying just as hard as we were.
My heart now feels as if it were left with those people below the mountain.
