Testimonies from 2011

Mission to Mission–July 2011

As I looked back through my testimony archives, I realized I didn’t have a testimony for 2011. Yet I recall some very powerful things I was a part of in 2011 that I forgot to write about! I’ll do my best here to share what I remember.

I was a youth ministry intern at a church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We took our youth out to Mission, South Daktoa to the the Native American Rosebud Reservation in July and we were joined by some evangelists from International House of Prayer in Kansas City as well as some youth from at least one other location in the state.

It was hot and most of our intentional outreach happened in the evening. I still remember watching Lori, one of the evangelists, speak words of knowledge for one man as we ministered to him in an alley. She shared some specific things that the man had sadly experienced in his childhood, and the man confirmed that she was correct and asked, “Wait, how did you know that?” She shared that God has shown her and she was trying to get this man to see that God had seen his whole life.

During this exchange, another man who was apparently the “medicine man” or an assistant to him was trying to distract us. I remember him saying, “I’d go to heaven, I’d go to heaven.” Lori turned and looked at him and said, “No you wouldn’t because you have not repented for your sins!” Intense! Talk about Spiritual Warfare…

I don’t recall all else we talked about with the guy who we were talking with before we were interrupted. I seem to remember sharing the gospel with him, though I don’t know if it was me, Lori, or one of our students sharing. I do know that sadly, he could not come to faith in Jesus Christ. After more conversation with him, it became apparent that it was because of the spiritual oppression he was under from the medicine man. I think I remember thinking the verse of Scripture that says, “This kind only comes out by prayer and fasting…”

Later, before we left, the medicine man tried to speak curses over our youth, but Lori began to speak back to him in tongues. We found out that she had spoke in tongues in Lakota, the native language on the reservation. I don’t remember how we knew this other than one of the Native Americans must have told us.

This trip was intense and showed me how real the spiritual world and spiritual warfare is. We must pray for those under the oppression of the enemy. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. ⁴ The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

May God’s light shine through the darkness at Rosebud!