Wednesday, November 13 – Côte d’Ivoire

Our team of 8 was made complete when Andy joined us in Yamoussokro this morning! We were welcomed to Kingdom Bible School with upbeat African worship that had us dancing as we set up for the day. Once more Pastor Mary Pat taught about the benefits of salvation and adoption into His family, but today we were able to take it into deeper areas. Josh demonstrated how anger, fear, offense, and all other sin can weigh us down even once we have given our life to Christ, unless we release it all to Him. Pastor Mary Pat prayed over the group, asking Holy Spirit to reveal to us if we were carrying any of these burdens. The participants seemed to really engage with the prayer. We then went into the importance of humility and the armor of God. Each team member also shared how we can see ourselves as the lions that God has created us to be (in His image, as the Lion of Judah), rather than a powerless kitty cat. To conclude the session, we had all of the participants stand up and gave a mighty ROAR!!

After lunch, our team piled into the bus and headed out to Djassanou, the village that Pastor Elijah is from. He specifically asked us to take the 2 hour trek there because his grandfather is the chief of the village, and he wanted everyone there to hear the Good News! The bumpy roads that lead us there reminded us of an amusement park ride, and when we arrived, we felt like celebrities, as it seemed like the whole village had gathered to welcome us. The chief was happy to meet Pastor Bill and Pastor Mary Pat and demonstrated his gratitude. We did a drama and Pastor Bill jumped right into a message of God’s great love for the people and His plan of salvation through Jesus. About 60 individuals, including Chief Kofi, prayed to declare Jesus as the Lord of their lives! And that was just the beginning of what God had in store. Pastor Mary Pat prayed for healing, and the chief shared that he had knee pain and he was losing his eyesight. He couldn’t see out of one eye at all and could barely see out of the other. PB & PMP began to pray for him. They tested his eyes, and he could suddenly see light out of the eye that had been completely blind! As they continued to pray, he shared that he had also suffered from deafness (couldn’t hear out of one ear at all & barely out of the other), but that God completely opened his ears when Pastor Bill was sharing so he could clearly hear and pray out the Gospel message! Another woman testified that this happened to her as well. Chief Kofi declared that he knew God was healing him and would complete the work! With this, he got up to test his knees. He was able to walk better than before and began stomping his feet to demonstrate it. They continued to pray for his eyes, and his grand-daughter also came forward for prayer, as she was also very close to losing her vision. After prayer, she also began to see light and movement! Josh and Andy then released joy and baptism of the Holy Spirit over the crowd, and some people received a spiritual language. We checked the chief’s eyes one more time, and he could now see the number of fingers that were held up in front of him! We encouraged him that God would complete this good work that he started. The chief and the villagers were all smiles as we said “Au revoir,” and loaded the bus to depart. We were all in awe of what God had done, and much of the long ride home was spent worshipping and praying to express gratitude to our great God!