May 6^th 2008
Vision: The Battlefield of the Mind

The Lord is pleased with this place.  The Holy Spirit is so strong here.  The moment I close my eyes to pray the presence of the Lord pours out.  Every night I worship with my roommate and the Lord gives us vision, vision from the Heavenlies.  He has spoken to us and said He has unlocked the doors of His storehouse and given access to anything we ask for in Faith and it will be done.   Every day we are anxious for our nightly invitation and visitation with the Lord and overwhelmed that He has chosen us to have access to the Secret Place.  Humbly we sit before Him and call out for His love to pour over us as we pray for the things placed on our heart through Him.  We pray and He comes…

The first day I was here the attack began.  The battlefield of my mind saying I am not worthy to be here or to worship to the Lord, I have no purpose, what good am I, I am a stranger in a strange land where I don’t speak the language; then the night attack began, I felt like I was suffocating and could not fall asleep or I would stop breathing; and the dream, the demonic dream too horrible to tell.  In the morning I awoke and went through the day praying for the Lord to draw close, to show His face but He would not come, just silence.  Then my roommate Sasha confided in me that she experienced the same thing. 

In that moment the Lord spoke to me.  He reminded me that it is a battle of the spirit and we were under demonic attack.  “I also tell you this: if two of you agree down here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you.  For where two or three gather together because they are mine, I am there among them. (Matthew 18:19-20).  That night it became clear, the Lord had brought us here, ordained this time with Him, to strengthen us, renew us and prepare us for the work ahead and the two of us were commissioned to pray together.   So we prayed over the demonic spirit and attacks and it was gone, in the Name of Jesus.

I always find myself praying, “Lord change my mind to be like yours”.  He showed me through the battlefield of my mind I was being transformed.  “This is not a war of flesh but a war of the Spirit realm,” He said.  “I must take you through the flames of battle to recognize and discern the arrows of the enemy from the thoughts of Christ so you may know the Truth and your mind may be transformed through with my word I have placed on your heart.  You must go through the battle but you will stand strong on the pillar of my word and I will strengthen you and protect you always.  You are being built up in me for the war ahead, you must recognize this is a war of the Spirit not of the flesh.”  His words took me to Hezekiahs poem of praise in Isaiah 38:15-16 when Hezekiah stands humbly to the hand of the Lord and praises Him for His discipline that leads to life.

I praise your will and discipline Lord God.  Thank you for choosing me to be your warrior, to calling me into the front lines of battle that I may collect and lift up your children to join the war against the enemy and know your all mighty and powerful love.  I praise your Holy Name Abba Father.

May 8^th 2008

Last night the Lord showed me a battlefield.  He said it is a battle of the Spirit realm that goes on.  We are more in the Spirit realm than in the flesh.  The flesh is meaningless and will fade away.  But the battle is in the Spirit realm.  He showed me the flames and disaster of the wages of this war.  It was so heavy… so heavy.  I was scared with a fear, a fear I have never felt before.  There was a wall that was built up but not high enough to keep the war from me.  The Holy Spirit spoke to me and told me that He was interceding on my behalf during the times I sleep and the times my guard is down, but I must strengthen myself for the battle ahead.

Suddenly Sasha saw an angel of the Lord come into the room, a massive angel that stood from floor to ceiling and wall to wall.  He placed new armor on Sasha and I.  He gave us new armor, shield and a flaming sword.  The Lord said, “I am preparing you for the battle, I am renewing your weapons and strengthening your Spirit.” 

Then He spoke to me and said, “ I am sending you out to collect my Bride, to prepare my Bride for my return.  I will send an angel before you and lead you into the land I have prepared for you and you will gather my Bride.”  He showed me a giant silo and the souls of His children were filling it up quickly while His pure love lit it aglow.  He said He was building up a storehouse of His love to build up an army who will walk in faith to the battle lines and lead the way to the war front.  Then I saw the souls being filled and strengthened with His Spirit and dispersing from the silo into the battlefield.  War, flames and destruction surrounded everywhere and the lights of the souls raged forward in strength. 

Every single soul from the earth was there and the Lord spoke again, “ This is when I will return to save my Bride, to collect my Bride.  This is when I will come to save you all and bring you into my secret place.   When they have all been told, when those who have chosen to Believe have all been prepared to join into the battle.  The time is now.  The demonic force will be so strong that they can no longer take one more moment and they all cry out in Faith, “Father save us! Jesus save us!”  This is when I will return to take home my Bride.  I need all of them; I will not leave one behind.  Go and collect my Bride.”

I opened my eyes and the fear of the Lord came over me.  My flesh feared the battle ahead but my Spirit resides in peace. 

Greetings from the beautiful country of Mozambique,

I arrived at Iris Ministry and was welcomed by hundreds of children.  The base camp is situated across the road from the ocean.  The view is breathtaking, but the children are even more beautiful.  There are 250 Iris children here that have been taken in as orphans or rescued from the streets, children that where sick, dying, abused or just left behind.  Only a wall separates us from the local village to where we live so the villager kids integrate with the Iris kids.  Every day over 1,000 children get fed hot meals three times a day.  Over 700 children attend school for free because of donated money to the ministry.  There is a mission school here, housing for all the Iris children, a dining hall for the Iris kids and 4 feeding halls for the village kids, a school, mission housing and a medical clinic and offices.  The entire ministry is run on faith donations for they do not actively fund raise.  This place is a living testimony of God’s Love and Miracles.

I helped with the feeding today.  The ministry has a saying that with Jesus there is always enough.  I washed hundreds of village children’s hands today so they could eat.  Some of them as small as 3 or 4 years old will carry small plastic bags with them so they can take home half of their plate of food or whatever is left over on anyone’s plate, to help feed their family. I can’t even begin to explain how humbling and heart wrenching of an experience this was when I think that I come from a country where we have well more than enough that we throw away our leftovers.

I had my first opportunity to work in the clinic today as well.  I cleaned out my first wound here.  I have been trained in the US as an EMT and only have been able to train and watch.  I have been nervous about treating patients due to the fact that I get nauseous and dizzy at the sight of blood, but the Lord is faithful and we can know it is a miracle when we can do something not by our own strength.  Today as the doctor said the words “ does anyone want to clean out a wound?” I found myself looking around for someone to speak up, but I was it.   As I unwrapped the filthy bandage from the boy’s leg I began to pray, please Lord may it not be infected and full of puss.  And well, it was a large deep tissue burn that looked really bad that I needed to clean out, treat and rewrap.  For an instant I thought to myself I hope I don’t pass out, but before I knew it I was cleaning the wound.  By the time I was finished I was excited to see the next one and the next.  Only the Lord could have given me the strength and excitement to do what I thought I could not do, only the Lord.

Today as I worshiped in church 8 children crowded in on my pew to sit with me.  They began to fight with one another as to who would hold my hand.  One little girl from the village wrapped herself around my arm and laid down in my lap and fell asleep while the others grabbed for me to wrap my arms around them, as yet others braided my hair.  These children are starving for love and to be held.  There are just so many of them and I keep praying, “Lord let me love one more, one more and one more.”   I can only continue to pray that the Lord keeps pouring more love into me so that I can love even more, so that I can love the way Christ loves and I can heal with my hands and prayers the way Christ healed.  For today, my second day in Pemba, this is my prayer.

God Bless you all,

Anita In Africa

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“Two of the greatest gifts in this life are Love and Time.  My greatest hope is that I can capture a mlisecond of that time through my lens and see the heart of God.”  Anita Phelps 

About “Window Into Africa” Gallery « Anita In Africa’s BLOG

April 1st, 12:24 PM
Conway, NH

Greetings Everyone, 

I am going back to Africa!!  I leave on May 1st and I can’t wait!  My destination: Mozambique and Zambia.  I will be traveling to visit Pemba, Mozambique to partner with Iris Ministries, then to another Iris location further south in the country called Zimpeto.  This is such a blessed opportunity for me.  If you are not familiar with Iris Ministries founded by Heidi Baker, then please check out their website under the Blogroll link.  

I will have the opportunity to work with hundreds of children, work in the medical clinics, go on daily outreaches, hospital ministry, street ministry, garbage dump ministry to the children and even some teaching.  I am so very excited that the Lord is sending me to go and be your hands and feet! From there I travel on to Zambia to spend a week at the Overland Missions Base where I will be following up with the ministry I began last summer.  If you would like to know more about their ministry, then please check out their website as well under the Blogroll link.  So many ministry opportunities and divine appointments await…woohoo!

Last month the Lord told me to slow down and sit at His feet for a while.  He showed me that I needed to get to that quite place with Him.  That is not an easy thing to do with so much noise around all the time.  So many daily commitments and responsibilities make it even harder to ‘lay it all down’ and only seek Him.  But I must say, when the Lord tells us to do something he definitely orchestrates it to happen. 

The past month has been a great time of healing and rejuvenation in my life.  A renewed sense of His mighty presence and an energizing of my body, mind and spirit.  I realized that the Lord will take us out into the desert away from all distractions and He will speak intimately to us when we are there.  I believe we all need to get to that place from time to time.  Though it may seem impossible to get to that place, it is definitely possible and much more than just that, it is necessary. 

To hear the Lord speak to us, guide us and direct our feet will take a lot more than only faith and hope.  It will take an active participation to walk in the process.  And that takes focused effort that may mean laying it all down until He directs us to pick it up again.  While trusting that He will restore what was laid down or replace it with something better.  It is a discipline that is good for the soul and one I work on daily.

The bible says, “But then I will win her back once again.  I will lead her out into the desert and speak tenderly to her there.  I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope.” Hosea 2:14-15 

I will have limited Internet in Africa and will be posting all of my Road Journals here on this blog under the Pages link until I return to the US.  I have included some of my favorite testimonies of journeys I have been on and the divine appointments, miracles, signs and wonders that I experienced on some of the pages.  I hope you enjoy them; it was you who made them possible.

Love and God Bless,
Anita

NEW “WINDOW INTO AFRICA” PHOTO GALLERY…Enjoy! 

P.S.  I would love for you to post your comments, they are such an encouragement to me!  I will respond to as many as I can.

November 24, 2004
Orlando, Florida

I was 16 when the sickness began.  The doctors thought it was chronic bladder infections.  1-3 times a week, every week of every month for 3 and a half years, I was in and out of a doctors office, lab, pharmacy, or an emergency room.  Until the day I was diagnosed, as having a rare bladder disease that doctors knew little about.   

It was the day the specialist gave me the bad news and my options.  “It will only get worse and worse, I am so very sorry”, the doctor said.  “You have a few options, pain killers for the rest of your life, or one of my nurses can teach you to instill an industrial chemical in your bladder a few times a day that will numb the pain, or we can remove your bladder.  I am so very sorry.  You and your mother should go home and think about it and let me know your decision.”  That was the news he told me.  I was 18 and a half years old.   

I went home that day and the pain began to worsen.  I curled up in a ball on my floor and began to pray.  My family was not very religious.  At that point in my life I could only remember going to Catholic Mass when I was 6 on Easter and Christmas, and I had a baptismal certificate from when I was three years old.  My Mother use to tell me that God hears our prayers and he has angels looking over us to protect us.   

So there I rocked in my little ball in my little space on this earth and I began to pray, “God let me die so the pain will stop”, over and over and over again.  I can remember the moment right before I passed out as if I heard it now, the voice of an angel.  It said, “don’t be afraid, this too will pass”, and I blacked out.  When I awoke the next morning something was different.   I somehow knew that I knew that I knew one day I would not be sick.  It did not matter what the doctors said or what anyone believed, one day I would be healed.  I stopped going to doctors after that and started researching alternative medicine while I held on to every word I heard the angel speak to me. 

It was 12 years from when the sickness started until that very day when I was actually healed.  It was my 27^th birthday and I had just been told, by the man I was madly in love with, that he was dumping me for a “Christian girl”.  He said he had just found Christ and I did not know him myself.  My world began to crumble into rubble of self-pity and anger as I found myself lying on the floor again curled up in a little ball once more.  This time I was angry with God.  “Why did I have to suffer so much pain in my life, why can’t I be happy, why can’t I know you God?”  I began to pray again, this time a different prayer, an angry prayer, “Lord if you are real then prove it!”  I lay on the floor until I heard another voice that said, “Go to church and get baptized”.   

I thought I was losing my mind and I tried to get up and forget about what I heard and move on with my life, but the voice would not stop until the day I found myself walking into a church down the street from my house one Sunday.  That was the first day anyone had ever told me about Christ and that He can heal and take away our pain.  I gave my life to the Lord that day.  The Pastor gave me my first bible and a book on the first week of being a Christian and I went home and began to read.  A few days later I found myself sitting on my floor getting frustrated that the same story would be written over and over, I thought there must be a misprint in this bible.  Then I closed my eyes and began to pray and ask God to be real in my life. 

In that moment I saw Christ stand before me.  Everything was dark around me but Him.  He pointed to His right and a pool of water appeared with the moon shining down on it to light it.  I suddenly saw my ex boyfriend walk onto the water like it was glass.  I looked up at Jesus and asked him what he wanted me to do and He said, “ dance in the light of God.” And he handed me to him and we began to dance.  I began to laugh and suddenly, as loud as thunder, I heard Jesus say to me, “Let Go!”  I got scared, let go and looked down at my feet and began to fall into the water.  Suddenly, Jesus grabbed my hand pulled me up, stood there with me and said, “As long as you believe in me you will never fall.  I promised, this too will pass.”  In that moment I remembered the voice of the angel I heard all those years ago.  It was the same voice.  In that moment my body was completely healed and Jesus began to dance with me in the moonlight.  A moment later He was gone and I was sitting once again on my floor.

I have been miraculously healed ever since that day.  I can never deny the Miracles, Signs, Wonders, Power, Grace and Love of Christ.  I am a living testimony and I will testify all the days of my life.  That day marked the beginning of my new life, my  journey and intimate encounters with Christ that have followed ever since…

July 2007
Sibulo Village, Western Zambia

I drove in an ex German military vehicle for 12 hours to reach a village in the middle of nowhere to whom no one had ever saw a white person before or ever heard of the love of Christ.  When we arrived the villagers ran and hid in their huts from us.  There is an African legend that white men are Satanists and will steal the villagers’ children.  But after three days of intense ministry and sharing the love of Christ, I watched as the entire village gave their lives to Christ and no longer believed in that legend. 

As we were about to leave a woman walked up to me and took me by the hand and walked me to her hut.  She left me by the door as she walked in to get something.  She came out with this blue hair clip.  She apologized for not having anything to give me and she put it in my hair. I was speechless that someone with so little would give me the best thing she had.  She looked at me and asked me to not forget about her and to pray for her.  I wanted to give her something in return but I had nothing with me. Her child was standing in front of me and I noticed she was holding a broken sandal.  I took my sandals off my feet and gave them to the child and watched as she tried her best to walk in them.   

As I looked at her tiny feet in my big sandals the Lord showed me that we are all like that small child.  Christ gives each one of us his sandals to wear on our feet and it is up to us to try to walk in them.  They always seem too big for us to fill but the more we walk in them the more they will begin to fit. 

This journey the Lord has walked with me on has been a true walk of faith and trust with many times when it got hard and I wanted to give up.  But had I not walked in his shoes I would have missed meeting that woman and praying with her and her child and all the other divine appointments the Lord had sent me to reach. 

May I encourage you today to put on Christ’s shoes and walk in them, even if they seem too big for you.  Christ has a plan for each of our lives and he may give us a glimpse of that vision, but it is up to us to take it step by step, growing into his shoes until you reach the final destination. He never said the walk would be easy, but He does promise it will be greater than you ever expected.  Because you never know whom God may send you to reach with His shoes on your feet. 

May 2006
Memphis, Tennessee 

My very first Mission Trip!  I have been praying all year for this moment!  I was destined for missions, created for missions.  All the maps on my walls as a child and feeling like I needed to be somewhere else, not just boring West Allis, Wisconsin.  No I was made for more.  I was created to travel to the ends of the earth to help others!  I have been saved a year and a half now and it all makes sense to me.  Everything!!  Well maybe not everything… 

The itinerary was set, 3 countries, 4 mission organizations, 2 months.  I am destined to find my calling, my ministry.  Seek Diligently.  I won’t let God off the hook on this one until I have the answer to what I am searching for.   

Then it began, the airport in Tampa.  The team was on a different flight from myself and one other girl.  The two of us were to meet the team in Amsterdam for a day of exploration then on to Ghana.  We boarded the plane filled with excitement and then we landed in Memphis to find our connection had been canceled due to a severe rainstorm.   

Could this really be happening?  Thoughts of defeat settled in rapidly.  Everything began to go wrong.  The airline would not book us in a hotel because it was not their fault.   The lady at the counter was completely rude and unhelpful.  If the storm continued we were told the flight to Amsterdam would be canceled the next day as well.  We would miss our connection to Ghana with the team and then we would be left behind.   

We solemnly hailed a cab and went to the nearest, cheapest hotel we could find.  We were ready to give up and decide that this must be God’s sign for us to not go.  Then I called my best friend who quickly put my eyes into perspective.  She began to yell at me in the name of Jesus and tell me that He would not have brought us this far to not send us all the way to Africa.  She reminded me that the trip began the second I got on the plane and if Memphis is where the Lord needs me then Memphis is where I shall sit until it is complete.   

Wow, not the, now…now…it will all be ok, confirmation I was looking for!  At that moment I changed my attitude and perspective and began to pray with my friend for whomever the Lord has for us to reach and witness to would happen and soon.  We repented for being so self-centered and prayed all night.  The morning arrived to a call from the front desk that we would be kicked out of the hotel early due to an overbooking the night before.  “Now what” , I thought, “more bad luck”, it began to creep in again.  Then I decided that if we are going to have a divine appointment then we must be out there to do it.  We had the front desk call for a cab and we sat in the hotel lobby and waited to go to the airport early, there are a lot of people there. 

A brand new white Escalade pulled up and a very large black man in Army clothing walked out and with a serious purpose started to approach us.  Immediately I began to pray and ask God that this is not our cab, over and over.  But it was too late; the man was standing over me and said, “You called for a cab? Get in.”   My friend looked at me with fear in her eyes and I motioned to her abruptly to come on. 

The man smelled like he had just doused himself in an entire bottle of cologne.  There was an open can of beer in a paper bag on the console and I could not help but notice stuffed inside the dash two large bags of what I am guessing was marijuana.  My friend looked at me like a deer caught in the headlights.  I had to think fast.  So I began to talk to him, I began to ramble on actually, about everything in my life.  I began to ask him questions about his life and as this hard man softened up and thought about the questions I was asking, I could see he was really hurting in his life.   

He stopped answering and I got nervous again, and he told us the flights at the airport are all delayed from the storm and we would be stuck sitting there.  He then asked us if we had ever seen Graceland.  As I responded out of nervousness, no, but I would love to see it, my friend kicked me.  He took a detour and drove us past Graceland to see it from afar.  I began to talk to him more and had the chance to dig deeper in his life and share with him that we were missionaries.  He then got quiet and asked me the question, “does God hear our prayers…even the bad ones?”  I said yes, God does and then he changed the subject. 

As we drove up to the drop off at the airport something inside of me could not leave until I prayed with him.  So I asked him if we could pray with him and he paused, tears filled his eyes and he bowed his head and we prayed.  The second we stepped out of the car the rain stopped and the sun started to peer from the clouds.  He got out of the car and ran to unload our baggage.  As I paid him he looked at me with tears swelling up in his eyes and said, “Please don’t forget about Joe. That’s my name, Joe” and he gave us both a huge hug.   

We checked in and the agent was very friendly and upgraded our seat for free.  We arrived in Amsterdam just in time to meet the team and make it on the flight to Ghana. 

I truly learned that Right Now we are on the mission field, it is not a destination but it is wherever the Lord places your feet.  I learned that there are divine appointments every day that we will miss out on if we are not purposefully looking for them.  If we are truly Christians walking to be more like Him then we need to have eyes and hearts like Christ as well.  To follow where He leads us, no matter how uncomfortable or unsafe the place may seem to be.  If He says go, we must go, and trust that his amour of protection will cover us and protect us.  Or you could miss out on your divine appointment to share the love of God with Joe.

June 2006
Lake Kariba, Zambia

Throughout my missionary journeys I have witnessed many miracles, signs and wonders of God’s Abounding Love for us.  This blog is a chronicle of my journeys (in no particular order) and the divine appointments with others that the Lord has led me to.  These are the testimonies of my faith and witness of God’s Mercy, Grace, Hope and Love.  As I travel this road He consistently reminds me I am never alone, He is always by my side, teaching me, refining me, and leading the way to shape me in an image closer to that of Christ and less of my own flesh.  May these stories bring you closer to the heart of God…