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Walls Collapse This is the story of a move of God that we’ll never forget for the rest of our lives. It all began the day we made an historical visit to the Bishop over the Church of Uganda. His warm welcome was another demonstration of more religious walls crashing down. Soon we made our way further up the mountain to briefly visit a church where people had waited three hours for us. Gathered there were the leaders of seven churches who had waged a vicious war against each other that thrust both the believers and the unsaved of their villages into horrible confusion. This hatred began when the mother church split and seven bitterly divided churches were established. Yet now for the first time they were together in this place because they came to forgive one another. They wanted to end all the bitterness and embrace the message of love and unity that we were bringing to their mountain. Later we discovered that these breakthroughs actually began after several of these pastors returned from the seminar at our compound. When this group of leaders reconciled in that humble mud-walled church, the foundation increased for the visitation from God that was just ahead of us. By now it was dark. Our vehicle made its way slowly up a treacherous mountain road that was dangerously slippery due to recent torrential rains. I held my breath when the driver rushed the vehicle across a rickety bridge while water surged underneath us. Moments later we arrived at another church where the people had waited six hours. By now the darkness was so black it was difficult to distinguish anyone’s face. But here another miracle took place. After the seminar in our compound the main pastor took his people to a nearby church where a violent rift had separated them. He pleaded for the hatred to stop so that they could love each other. “I’ve learned from Papa Barry and Mama Ruth, we can’t continue to live like this,” this pastor stood up and told them that momentous day. “So I beg of you to forgive me and my church for all the hurts and let us now love one another.” “We all hugged and cried together for the longest time,” Pastor Ben explained as he sat next to us that unforgettable night. “Since then there is love between our churches. These same people waited all these hours to welcome you because you are the ones who taught us a truth that is affecting the whole mountain.” When it came time for us to speak we stood before them broken. Our voices were choked up by the tears that flowed down our cheeks. Finally we attempted to express our overwhelming gratitude that they had waited six hours for us and had shown us so much kindness. We could only stay a short time because the journey down the mountain was already hazardous. If the heavy rain began again, it would be even more dangerous. The next day Barry’s teaching on marriage went right into their hearts of the people. What he spoke touched every family and every marriage in that place. Due to the resources for us to go to Mt. Elgon coming to us at the last possible moment, word didn’t get out to most of the people that we arrived until Friday. Yet as soon as they heard this news they left whatever they were doing and came. Consequently Pastor Stephen’s church Friday night was full. Then at the end of the night no one wanted to leave. They stayed and stayed even though to get back home they had to walk many miles in the dark on dangerous mountain roads that were slick from the rains. “This just never happens,” Pastor Stephen later explained to us. “Even in the area of the tents where your team is staying everyone who comes to this place can feel the presence of God. The love of this family touches all who visit here. My people know how you are so simple and humble. For years they’ve watched you live below many of our people and far below any white missionaries they’ve ever known. Yet you are so happy and contented with very little. This example is affecting the people and changing them. Then everywhere you go they can sense God’s presence on you. It’s like Peter’s shadow in the Book of Acts. Many even ask us after you pass by, ‘What must I do to be born again?’ They see the love you walk in and are that moved by it.” Our team was speechless when we went to our tents that night. By Sunday the temporary shelter outside the church was filled with people from three hundred churches. Most of them were strategic leaders of their regions who had come from as far away as Kenya and Sudan. We all sensed that God was going to come that night in an unprecedented way. “When we came in 2006,” I stood up and explained during this final session, “God had me prophesy that this is no longer the mountain that is ruled by the evil of the demons. This is now Mt. Zion where the glory of the Lord dwells. You were all excited. The pastors began to teach in their churches about revival. But two years have passed by and the fullness of what God declared about this mountain has not happened. Many of you have focused only on the excitement about revival. You have mainly spoken about how God said he is going to mightily use you. But there was something missing in all this talk of revival and what was missing stopped that move of God from overtaking the mountain.” I paused and peered intently into the eyes of the people. After a sobering silence I then proceeded… “You can’t have revival without being willing to pay the price for such a move of God. That cost is always a dying to self with such abandonment that there is a death to everything that kills love and unity. In every move of God there is this depth of humbling before a holy God. Leaders especially must become so broken that God can trust them to lead what He is doing without the pride, ambition and jealousies that drive away His presence and destroy all hope of revival.” “They knew you were speaking with the authority of God, Ruth,” Pastor Stephen later shared. “Never have we seen such authority on the mountain. Everyone realized your words were coming directly from heaven and they instantly fell into the mud and water and began to weep with repentance. But what you don’t realize is when men cry in our culture like they did, something very big has happened. For even when someone they love with all their heart dies, they don’t cry. The tears stay in the men. They don’t come out. So it is a miracle they openly wept. But something else unheard of took place. None of these people ever humble themselves before God on their knees. Even on the best surfaces they refuse to do this. They also fear the rain and when the wind blew it on the people during the meeting they jumped up and ran away rather than get wet. Yet the presence of God came down so strong that those same people fell to the ground in the water and mud. They were that broken before the Lord. All this about my people makes all this happening so much greater.” This descent from heaven of the glory of the Lord cascaded across the mountain in a blaze of breathtaking miracles. For those who were there, it was a visitation that still defies human terms. While Mt. Elgon was enveloped in this consuming fire, a young boy appeared who affected all our lives forever. His mother was a despised Karamajong warrior. When she died and the father neglected him, everyone including the Christians turned on this child. Wherever he went he was severely beaten. After years of this violent abuse he was so deformed he couldn’t speak or walk normal. Yet underneath his marred body and tragically misshapen face was a heart that hurt with the same horrendous pain any child feels who is cruelly mistreated and has no one to love him. On Friday night this strange looking boy appeared from nowhere and sat down near the harp. He looked up at me with pleading, tormented eyes as if he was saying, “Please don’t send me away.” When I looked down at him, the years of suffering I saw on his face shattered my heart. Through my tears I motioned for him to stay. But when I began to worship I felt the unspeakable depth of the Father’s grief over this child. While I was teaching the final thoughts about loving each other, there he was again sitting in the aisle at my feet looking up at me with those same imploring eyes. I knelt down in front of him, put my hand on his shoulder and smiled to reassure him while I told the people in almost a whisper…
“This love we talk about isn’t just for Yet later I learned how several men kept treating him worse than an animal. They brutally dragged him away from where people were fellowshipping and beat him. But he didn’t give up. Instead this boy kept coming back. Each time the people stood up to greet one another, he reached out with both of his arms and moaned as he desperately begged for someone to also love him. At times he let out a heartbreaking wail when everyone shunned him. Several times the people were served food. He was terribly hungry and stared longingly at everyone eating. But no one would feed him. Our ministry team saw what was happening and brought the boy a meal. From that point they also wouldn’t allow anyone to hit him. Later Joseph shared with the team… One of the moments that affected me the most, was when Mum drew that boy close to her at the end of the last session. The people stared at her like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. He was caked with years of filth. His clothes had never been cleaned and the only bath he’d ever had was the rain falling on him. He smelled of urine and human feces. That smell was worse than the most horrible African latrine. Flies and maggots and disease were clearly all over him. Yet Mum wrapped him in her arms and held him. This was a picture of God’s love that the people on the mountain will never be able to forget.” The team sat in a somber silence after Joseph ended this story. All we could do is quietly cry and hurt for this lost child. Then Pastor Stephen added… For me one of the most impacting moments of the week is when Mum asked the leaders to stand in a circle. When they faced each other for the very first time, it deeply affected them. They’ve never done this before. And when she spoke these words it was so powerful…
Then Mum stood in the center of the circle and asked the leaders to go to one another. Instantly
the big and the small among them became one family. They even went to their worst enemies and
publicly said, ‘I’m sorry.’
Baba Mungut, Kaetabon.
These miracles restored the joy we had when salvation first came to the mountain in 1992. That is
why everyone was crying. This is what we lost when the jealousies and divisions destroyed the
churches. |
