We have had several Prayer Circles Rides since our last letter, Yong has joined them all and earlier this month both of us were able to join the team to ride up to the north east of Cambodia. Throughout these rides, we experienced God’s protection and blessing, His directing us to places and people and His growing of our faith and speaking out of our faith.
Healing: dependent on faith? Do we expect God to answer?
The latest Prayer Circles ride spanned 5 days, 10 Cambodian provinces and over 1400 km. We encountered herds of water buffalo, red dusty roads, Mission partners doing church discipleship and agricultural mentoring, border crossings, waterfalls where countries meet and much more. Yet the spiritual journey God is leading us on is the bigger adventure. One of a short meetings we had was with a lady in the town of Anlong Veng (where Wendy used to live), in far north Cambodia. We were led to her house via a Fijian mission partner, who knew her through the church and wanted us to pray with her since she had been quite sick for several weeks. We spent a few minutes with her; she appeared underweight, fatigued, sweating but she spoke gently and there seemed to be a spirit of peace around her. We had spent a few minutes praying with her when some younger members of her family joined us. One of them asked her: And after they prayed what did you feel? To which she answered: I stopped sweating. Indeed, her skin was dry.
Later at our group talk together over dinner, debriefing our day, giving thanks and sharing our thoughts together. I (Wendy) shared my own thoughts about the situation with this lady. My immediate reaction to the question of ‘what did you feel’ was that this was a wrong question, creating expectation that the lady would feel pressure to answer, perhaps even to make something up about her sickness.
However, I felt that God checked my spirit and that this was wrong of me- that it was an expectation in the family that God is full of power and miracles and that He will heal. The woman’s own answer was evidence for the effect of the prayer. Her sickness was not healed but she did stop sweating.
As a team, we had some discussion about the circumstances for healing- is it dependent on our faith, the faith of family members or something else? The Bible shows us examples where the faith of family is key to healing- the 4 friends who brought the paralysed man, breaking through the roof to get to Jesus. But also the faith of the individual is key- the woman who reached out to touch Jesus’ robe and be healed. And when God does not heal- is it about our lack of faith or immaturity as believers? Yet we also know the timing of God’s healing is about the display of God’s power, as in John 9. Maybe you have a thoughts about this that you would like to share with us?
Can motorbike oil be used to consecrate the ground?
Whilst in the border crossing of Osmach, I (Wendy) also felt God prompting me to sprinkle Holy Oil on the ground, to pray for cleansing and consecration of the ground to God. I have never felt this idea or prompting before and I do not carry oil for blessing with me. But I felt I should mention this to the team and they suggested I anoint the ground with… motorbike oil! Feeling slightly bashful, but also wanting to obey any prompting of God’s Spirit, I took out the dipstick from my motorbike and flicked it on the ground, praying God would indeed make the ground Holy, for His purposes. Reflecting on this, I am glad we did this and that the team supported this idea- I believe it is in such ways that we grow in faith and learn more about being God’s disciples. As you read this, maybe you have something in mind where God prompted you to act in an unexpected way? We would love to hear from you.
For additional photos, here’s the whole album.