When i returned from the Pan African Summit 3 weeks ago our 100 Day Prayer Journey had just run for 25 days since we began on the 1st September 2013.
A number of testimonies began to stream out of individual homes and lives.
PROVISIONS IN FAMILIES
A number of people testified of God’s miraculous provision for them since they began praying, fasting and watching for 100.
SUPERNATURALY DELIVERED FROM DEMONS IS NOW FIRE FOR THE LORD
A lady by the name of Ivy has been a member of our church for sometime and all along was very passive to the things of God. When we introduced 100 day prayer journey she was among those who joined in prayer. Her husband who was a drunkard had always been refusing her to attend overnight meetings prayers would not allow her to go for such kind of prayer meetings. He wanted her baby sit their five kids, but this time he allowed her and he remained home babysitting while she was praying. When she came in the meeting Lord touched her and has since been changed. One morning while doing her early Morning Prayer watch she got delivered without any one praying for her. She started vomiting and had her throat released from a spirit had been trying to strangle her each time she started to pray. Since then she prays many hours and has been regular at every 100 day prayer journey meeting in house churches and other get together fellowships. She used to be shy and very reserved but today she bubbles with joy in the Lord. She is one of the Ladies i baptised some years ago. She is a blessing to my wife in ministry. Lady Ivy used to give many excuses before because she is poor but she has no more excuses today.
REVIVED PASSION FOR PRAYER AND FASTING IN FAMILIES
A lady from one of our house churches has transformed her family through intense prayer and fasting. As result her children aged 13 and 11 have become serious prayer warriors. They are not just shinning spiritually but academically too she has taught them the Daniel’s ten times better principle from Dan 1:20. These children are now always top of the class. This family is a light their community at the flats they live. They are also doing prayer outreach. The interesting part is that this couple are a middle class family with wonderful jobs, the husband an accountant by profession working in an oil company recently got promoted after praying for him. The wife is solicitor in big corporation. I have never seen a woman who prays and fasts the way this lady does. She has built a strong family altar and has taught her children to discover God on own their own.
WOMAN GETS A VISION OF JESUS COMFORTING HER AND SHE RECEIVES HEALING FROM WOUNDS OF BITTERNESS AFTER BEING ABANDONED BY THE FATHER HER SON
In the overnight of the 27th September 2013 just a day since returning from the CPM in Kenya a lady whose husband had abandoned her with one child attended the meeting. When i prayed for her she broke down in tears and later got filled with Holy Spirit and spoke in other tongues. Afterwards she testified how she saw Jesus Christ in vision holding her like baby and comforted her with words she could not describe while she had been sobbing in prayer. Her face shone afterwards. She testified that she was carrying the spirit of bitterness but then she can now forgive the father of her child.
PRAYER OUTREACHES IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
In our neighbourhood on the flat above ours lives a lady whose daughter has been tormented by demons. I don’t really know how to describe the situation but it is closer to the description of the boy in Luke 9:42 who was having seizures and was brought to Jesus by his parents asking him heal the boy. His disciples failed to cast demons out hi.
The night of the 16th October 2013 my wife and i were woken up by the noise coming from this flat because the 15 year old girl was being tortured by demons and was making all sorts of noise and banging her head to the wall and biting herself all night long. We prayed from our flat in the night. The following day in the evening we were driven by compassion and visited this single mother living with troubled child. All her relatives have died. When the girl saw us she charged towards me demanding for sweets. We sat down and introduced our mission that we had come to pray with them because our hearts had been touched by their situation. The woman explained that all medical tests conducted on her child came out negative and doctors ok cannot explain why the child behaves this way. She further revealed that she had been to many witchdoctors as well as many hospitals and been to many religious prophets for prayer but there is no change to the situation. That night we assured the lady about what Jesus would do if he were physically present. We assured her that Jesus wants her child to be healed and delivered from this oppression. We prayed for her child and she manifested but not violently and when we called on the peace of Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace, the girl calmed down and fell on wife’s laps smiling and rested peacefully. The girl slept peacefully that night and we are longer disturbed. We thank God for what his presence can do when call on his name. We have since assured her that we will be praying for her daughter’s total deliverance during the 100 day prayer journey. The lady sobbed and disclosed that there is a spirit of death in her family which claims lives prematurely. We prayed for her as well.
POLICEMAN GETS SAVED ON A BUS
On the 10th September as i travelled to Lusaka i sat next to a Police officer whose name is Patrick Phiri no relationship with Jacob Phiri. He was a Roman Catholic and i began to share the gospel with him before we ended our journey i led him to Christ and he prayed a beautiful sinners prayer on the bus. I shared with him about the need to be baptised i am still following him up on phone because he lives 180 KM from our city.
REPORTED ACADEMIC PROGRESS IN FAMILIES
On the 40th day of our 100 day prayer journey we received an academic breakthrough report for our first born. Our daughter was waiting for her university results to go to the 3rd year in her university degree in science. She was quiet scared before the results came out especially in Maths. When she heard that only 33% of the entire student intake had made it and 67% failed she got so scared. While we were having all night prayers i asked one of the ladies in one of the house churches to pray for her. During prayer the Lord visited her and broke the spirit of fear. Few days later she got the results and she cleared her maths go to third year. Praise God for his faithfulness.
CHANGE OF ATTITUDES BY HOSTILE BOSSES AT WORK PLACES
A teacher friend of mine had been working under very harsh and hostile environment at private school in Ndola. He was top rate performer at work, but his lady boss was not in good standing with him she always found faults in him and publicly humiliated him at times. He attempted to stop work as teacher on a number of occasions, but through encouragements he held on to his job. Since we began mobilising prayers in house churches my friend has been doing family altars accompanied by prayer, fasting and watching his relationship with his boss has totally changed. He is now receiving praises over the same things he was being castigated before. It is like he has just got a new boss and he is very happy and has been given new responsibilities something which never used to happen.
CHANGE IN HOUSE CHURCH ATTENDANCE
During this period we have recorded high member turnout in meetings at church gatherings. There has been general increase in number in our church gatherings since we began praying together.
WOMAN ABANDONS GRABBED MARRIAGE
While travelling on bus to Luaska on the 10th September 2013 I led a lady to Christ. This woman had grabbed a marriage from another woman and she was leaving with this man because he had promised to marry her. After i shared the gospel with her and she accepted Jesus Christ as her personal LORD and Saviour she got convicted by the Holy Spirit and decided to end this illegal relationship with this man. Praise God for the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
WOMAN FORGIVES A DRUNKARD HUSBAND AS SHE GETS RECONCILED TO CHRIST
When i was on a bus from Luaska on my way back home on the 14th September 2013 I sat next to a lady. It is my policy to introduce people to Jesus whenever i am to travelling. I shared the gospel with her and she accepted Christ on the bus. When i gave her chance to ask questions in relation to the gospel she asked me a tough one and said, “Is it wrong if divorced my husband?” I replied to her what do you mean? She answered that her husband had plunged her into great trouble so many times. She disclosed that he was even jailed at one time. This time she had made up her mind to divorce him because he was irresponsible and a drunkard. After counselling her she decided to forgive him and promised to reconcile with and will be praying for his salvation.
HOUSE CHURCHES AT A TECHNICAL COLLEGE
I have started a house church at technical college and another one at the student’s boarding house. The students learned from their friends that we had been recording improved academic progress reports from the members of our church as result of prayers. A number of the students have started to attend our churches as a result. We are using all sorts of hooks and nets to catch the fish.
CHURCH DONATES CLOTHES TO THE POOR COMMUNITY
Two weeks ago we donated three bags of clothes to a need community were we planted a church sometime ago. These clothes came from our members who from time to time make donations to the poor. This is being used a seed to soften the ground for preaching the gospel in rural areas.
2 LIFT OPERATORS SAVED
At our flats two of the men who operate a lift or elevators were led to Christ and one of them was beaming with joy after i shared the gospel. I found him reading an awake magazine for the Watch towers. I began sharing from one of the topics he was reading about being friends with God. What surprised me was the power of true gospel. When i found this man reading an awake magazine he was very gloomy on his face, but just after i shared with him the truth his countenance changed and two eye witnesses who were watching us shared that they were surprise at the joy that accompanied this new believer. I took away this poisonous pamphlet and promised to give him something helpful to his faith. These two new believers plus an uncle to one of these operators will be getting baptised soon. Pray for them to hold on to the faith.
REPORTED PROGRESS IN A BUSINESS WHICH HAD COLLAPSED
A lady and her husband had their business collapse. When i lead them to Christ recently i told them that God would restore their fallen business and show them how conduct business in a kingdom manner. They asked me to go and pray for their business premises and anoint the place. Few days later they reported that there has been tremendous progress in the business in spite of the tough economic situation other people are passing through. Few days ago i visited the place and i saw that a lot has changed at this place. I asked them to open up the place for bible study and commissioned them in prayer to open a house church at their shop.
What can prayer do?
My heart is so greatly drawn to evangelism and discipleship making. I dream about this and enjoy doing it. I started implementing the teachings from CPM on hearing the voice of God, Evangelism and Discipleship as well as house church planting.
Challenges
There are numerous challenges i have been facing in trying to implement the CPM in Zambia. People‘s mindset of church is all together different. Zambia is highly urbanised and so the issues of meeting places are a critical challenge to the house church paradigm. Meeting in homes is not very well received idea among Zambians. This is because there have been scandals in some church operating from homes and it has raised serious concerns with authorities. False teachers and prophets also use houses as hideouts to do their strange activities and are not accountable. This has sent a bad taste in Christian and non Christian circles.
Such negative developments make house churches questionable. Currently if you exceed 10 people by law you ought to secure a police permit because homes are not gazetted places of worship for the public. Those who meet in church buildings are easily trusted even when they are not doing credible work.
Transport to coordinate house churches is also another challenge; house churches being a “go business” is different from the traditional,” come church business”.
Because of the questionable approach of the house church it does not attract sufficient support for house church minister. Many find it easier to support the institutional church.
The house churches attract smaller numbers of people makes it more difficult to raise support and survive as minister.
Being in a weak economy numbers matter and some of the house churches are situated in impoverished areas.
The way forward if we will see sustainable impact may be a shift of the emphasis of disciple making from that of just telling the gospel to the discipleship of empowerment. The later involves telling the gospel and empowering disciples through entrepreneurship which ultimately will sustain future church planters economically. This kind of disciple will provide job creation especially for young generation church planters and this strategy can stand the Muslim challenge in Africa. We can be strong at telling the gospel, but if we are not economically empowered in the long run our disciples may fall out very quickly.
Investing in farming is another way of long term sustainability strategies. Therefore Jim’s model in Kenya was quiet impressive and also Jacob’s in Zambia.
Compiled by George Bweupe – Zambia