The Power of God

In one of the villages where we went for our community check I met a man who should not be there. He is a pastor in a small Ikoma village out by the Serengeti. His church is small (see the above picture) and yet God’s power is evident there. He participated in one of the checks we held for Luke 6 & 7 where he, along with a group of other Ikoma speakers, patiently answered all our questions about those chapters.

Afterwards we went to his house where we ate lunch. During the meal he shared the story of how he preached against the local gods, called ‘machaba’. When he first arrived in this village, he began preaching about the true God and that it was not right to worship the machaba. Of course the people who worshipped the machaba were not happy with this and demanded that he leave. These people included the very powerful leaders of the village. However instead of giving in to their pressure he followed the leading of the Holy Spirit and went the area where they performed their rituals for the machaba. There he spent some time praying to God. Now, remember that although the machaba are man-made idols, there is a very real, very evil power behind them and so this threat was not something he faced lightly.

The day came that was his deadline for leaving but he was still there. The leaders of the village showed up at his house, taking him away and telling him they would see who was more powerful, their gods or his God. As they reached the road near his house the leader of that group fell over and died! Clearly the pastor's God was more powerful so they let him go.

On another day the leaders regrouped to discuss how to make this pastor leave. It was early in the morning, around 5am and the pastor was at home. They had gathered under a tree, where they usually met for these matters, probably a sacred place for the machaba. Suddenly out of nowhere fierce men in white armed with long knives of some type came and chased them all away! They didn’t recognize those men and still don’t know who they were. One of the leaders who was there later explained this all to the pastor. After that incident they realized that the God of the pastor was powerful and did not want them to chase the pastor out. So they let him live there in peace. To this day that pastor lives in that village and has a small church he leads, preaching every Sunday about the true God.

It is an amazing thing to witness the power of God. I have seen God’s power demonstrated before but as the pastor shared these stories I saw the reality of the battle that is going on in a whole new way. This is the power that is available to each of us. That pastor is just an ordinary man who listened to God and was willing to obey. Each of us has the same opportunity but are we willing take it?

This pastor is eagerly waiting for the Ikoma translation to be done. He wants the people to have God’s word in their own language so they won’t be deceived by the evil spirits anymore. He wants God’s truth to speak to the hearts of people so it changes their lives. I hope that God will use my small part in the translation process to reveal His power in the lives of those Ikoma people.