I came to Swaziland in 2010 to find where our organization could be of service through God for the Swazi people; this was my third trip. After that trip I went home and developed programs and a website and tried to get people involved. When nothing seemed to happen I got discouraged because I knew God had told me to begin this nonprofit. I prayed and prayed and prayed about this and at God's perfect timing He told me to toss the programs away, take down the website and just go and make it more personal, He told me to go and love them as if they are my own children because they are His. I did this and God has blessed me with this trip here in Swaziland and He has been working everything out miraculously to help the people. We are also conducting a bible study for women called "Empowering Women Through Jesus Christ". Many women live in severe oppression and many are abused by their husbands, through this study women will learn their worth in Christ and learn to pray for and love their husbands to Christ. We see a strong hold on the men here by the enemy and God has shown us a book called Winning Spiritual Warfare that we are giving to the Swazi people. It is a small pocket book filled with much information about how to claim God's promises for our lives. We pray God's Will will be done in all of this and especially for the property in Bhunya. God has shown us this property and the story behind how He showed us He wanted us to do something there is amazing and I would love to share it with you.
We have been attending the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Manzini and one Sunday one of the Associate Pastors, Pastor George, came to us and began telling us about this land he owned in Bhunya that he has given to God. He told us that he told God He could use the land for whatever he saw fit. He had been praying about it and hadn't received all of what God had wanted it to be but asked if we would pray too. We were amazed by his story and his humble way. He asked if we would be willing to go look at the property the next day and we agreed. We were to meet at Emafini Christian Conference Center at 11:00. We had to go into town that morning to get some things printed, while there it took longer than we had expected and I had forgotten my phone back at the conference center/hotel so I couldn't call Pastor George to let him know we were running late. I left the materials at the printers along with a book about praying God's Word for the attendant to write a few of the prayers for her personal use. We were late in getting back to Emafini and Pastor George had already traveled onto Mbabane as he had some errands to run there. We called him and set out to meet with him in Mbabane to travel together to Bhunya. We were having difficulty in connecting with him and when we finally did we had realized that we were previously parked right next to him but God had us park across town and walk to where he was. It was like God was stalling our steps for a reason and we were soon to find out. As we were standing in the parking lot talking to Pastor George, deciding which car to take to see the land in Bhunya the Chief for that area pulled in right next to us. We were all amazed as we needed her approval on this project and she was leaving for the States the next day and we would not have gotten her go ahead on this project. Out of all places and times for her to show up, we knew this was a divine meeting. Pastor George introduced her as Chief Wisdom Thembie Zwane. It occurred to me later that I had prayed for wisdom that morning, I had to chuckle as I could see God's work all over our meeting, His sense of humor in my prayer and how he stalled our steps so we would be in the right place at the right time to meet the Chief. We talked to her about what we had received in prayer; the Lord told me this land would be a place of refuge that people would come from all over to seek spiritual healing, He said there would be abundant food (gardens) and water, Sifiso, the cook at Emafini is a godly man that has partnered with our ministry and he also prayed and received a vision from the Lord that it would be streams of living water. We parted ways with the Chief as she left us with her blessing and was quite pleased with what God had given us. We received a call from the printer that the machine stopped working because it needed time to cool off so we couldn't go get the materials yet, the attendant mentioned that it pleased her because it gave her a chance to write more of the prayers out of the book she borrowed from me.
As we traveled to this mountainous area, Tammy, my colleague and best friend that started this nonprofit with me who also has a big heart for the people of Swaziland, had said that God had just given her a revelation that this land would be a place that people would flee to from all over to seek refuge. When we arrived we were in awe of God’s creation, the beauty of this large valley and mountainous region and the living water of the beautiful river. We smiled as we stood at the river as both Sifiso and myself had received water in our vision from the Lord. We spent much time in prayer over the land and we felt God’s peace there. We knew He had big plans for this tranquil place and we prayed that people would come and receive what God had planned for this. We were all amazed at God's hand on this project.
It was one of the midweek lousy days at my job at the local printing establishments and this woman came in for copies. She had a book about prayers and needed a bible study called "Empowering Women Through Jesus Christ" printed so I went about making her copies, but the nature of the book caught my attention! It was a prayer book and most of what was written there was something I needed, as I was fighting a war, spiritually.
ReplyDeleteI asked her if I could write some of what was in the book for myself and she agreed. She introduced herself as Teresa Vaughn and told me she was with Through His Eyes Africa, a small nonprofit from the U.S. that came to help the Swazi people. She agreed to allow me to write some of the prayers out of the book. But before that, she said that God had told her that He had called me into ministry. I told her, yes, I know of my calling. But I didn't elaborate, especially because she was a customer who was there for copies and probably not returning as she was from the States. We were having trouble with the printer so her copies weren't ready so she decided to leave and come back later, she left the book claiming she had to rush somewhere and she said she'll come back for it when she picked up her copies.
Later that day she came for the copies and she brought me a picture of Jesus and told me about a book about a little boy named Colten who died and went to heaven and came back to tell about it. She said the book was called "Jesus is for Real" and by the sounds of it, it sounded like a really good book, one to which I'd like to read. I put the picture of Jesus on my computer...(and its still there!!). After she told me the story she re-started the "calling" conversation. Again I was very minimal with information. She paid for her copies and left. Days later she came in again, and funny enough, my colleagues didn't want to attend to her and said "here's your customer". Well I did attend to her....and again, she brought up the "calling issue". This time around I thought..."ok, let me give her an ear". And so I did. She told me that God said that I would be the one who helped these women with the Empowerment behind the bible study, "Empowering of Women Through Jesus Christ," and I asked why? She said she didn't know, but God told her I was the one for the program. I had to chuckle as she got me on this one. I never told her before this, but my ministry is bringing hope to the bruised, dejected souls, especially women!! And if its not on women's conferences where I speak, it is through the music I'm in as a gospel singer!!
And I told her, without elaborating on some of the things I've seen and heard pertaining to how much women need to be empowered one way or the other through Jesus Christ, especially where culture is concerned. From there, we clicked! Exchanged numbers and we began to communicate more frequently.
One day we had lunch and I poured out my heart to Teresa about the abuse I lived through, my calling, my ministry and just life in general, we talked alot about God and His ways. We spoke at length about Empowering women and she told me God was developing a program through her about women who live in abusive situations, I gave her a demo of my music which had one of my favorite tracks on it, "My Potion", which I told her is a song I wrote whilst going through my wilderness. I told her of my "molding" season, which brought forth this song, and basically told her that its going to bring back hope to those women out there who feel that they are no longer worthy or taken seriously.
So when she told me in detail of the Through His Eyes Africa project, I was a bit perplexed, but eventually jumped into its passion.
The rest, as they say, is history..........