The Wittz End: Experiencing the Spiritual in the Physical

Dallas Cowboys house is the most recent house completed.

Last weekend it was time for another house to get its slab poured. The Witt girls and I decided to bring a mat to sit on and watch/cheer on the process. Amos and Grace and their family joined us as well as Sam and Marissa. It is amazing how fast and smooth the task got accomplished. Everyone knows what role they are working in and it makes everything run so efficiently. Jason has figured out the perfect ratio of cement, sand, water, and gravel to "a science". In the beginning it took some adjustments to know the exact amounts. Farmworkers stand in line holding wheel barrows, waiting to have the cement poured in to then be brought to where it will be poured out. Njoroge uses the machine to get all the air bubbles out. Amos and Sam help to carry buckets of rock, sand and cement. All in all it takes under 2 hours from start to finish.

Jason getting the perfect rations in the cement mixer.

Meanwhile the ladies on the mat have time for some "catching up" in between interacting with the village children. We brought a deck of cards, Spot It, Uno and some jump ropes. Grace helped translate the directions of Uno in Swahili and 3 young boys really grasped how to play which was a lot of fun. These same boys then showed us a game using a deck of cards and as much as I watched I could never understand the rules. Sooner than we realized it was time to go to the farm for lunch so we said goodbye and told the children we hoped to come back another day.

After eating lunch at the farm on a previous Saturday, Ashley, Marissa, and I got into a discussion about the trinity with the women farmworkers. The trinity is a complicated concept to explain when everyone speaks the same language and attends the same Christian circles. You can imagine how difficult it is to find the right words when it's not in English and with Muslims who don't read the Bible and don't agree to call God as our Father and Jesus is our Savior. I don't know if I would say we all were able to successfully communicate clearly but at the end of the day I definitely saw how the Holy Spirit was moving and working in so many different ways. For one, this was the first time I witnessed the opportunity to talk so freely with the women farmworkers. They were eager to listen and not defensive or argumentative. Secondly it was a beautiful portrayal of Ashley, Marissa and I being unified in Christ and each of us being able to use our strengths and stepping in for one another in our weaknesses. I truly praise God getting to minister together.

A few days after this one of the woman farmworkers, Sad!@, had some kind of "strange episode ". She seemed to pass out and couldn't walk or talk, or wake up from a trance. There is one farmworker known as the spiritual leader, called Sheik, of the village. He was asked to read the Quran to Sad!@. He refused to do so saying he has read the Quran to her in the past when she has had this kind of episode and it wasn't resolved. Jason challenged him asking if the Quran doesn't have the power to combat these types of problems then what do they do in this situation. There really was no response. What we came to realize is that there is definitely a battle going on in the spiritual world and Satan can feel threatened when truth is being proclaimed- like it was that Saturday afternoon. The enemy will want to do what he can to discourage biblical discussions and attack people physically or even mentally. We thank Jesus this woman farmworker recovered by the afternoon. Our team has gotten to prayerfully be asking God for protection for people against the enemies schemes. Please lift this up with us and even be aware in your own life. We know the devil comes to kill, steal and destroy. But just as Elisha told his servant "Don't be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them." Found in 2 Kings 6:16. We also believe what 1 John 4:4 says "You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the One who is with you is greater than the one who is in the world. "