The Evils of Allergies

There we were celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary watching the sunset over Lake Turkana.  We had a wonderful day enjoying God's creation and now we were enjoying His grand finale, one of the most beautiful sunsets imaginable.  All of a sudden the wind changed directions and  something set Holly into one spectacular sneeze fest.  After each sneeze a local Turkana man would shout out Kape! really loud, which literally means GO AWAY!  We couldn't believe how rude he was, but to keep our testimony we pretended it wasn't happening. Finally after 4 or 5 times, I said why do you want her to go away?  It is just allergies; to which he then laughed as she sneezed again and said "Kape Ekipe" (Go Away Evil). You see, just a few hours earlier, we had a chance to talk to this man about Christ.  He had a basic understanding of God's Word and claimed to have a relationship with our Savior, yet here he was convinced that Holly's allergies were nothing less then a brutal attack from the devil himself.  I have always believed ragweed was wicked, but I think that might be taking it to the extreme.

Wow, what a reminder of the culture we are living in.  The enemy has such a grip on this people that they are kept in absolute fear.  Thank God we do not have to live a life of fear, our enemy has already been defeated, not by us, or even Benadryl, but by the wonderful and matchless grace of our Savior. One area of Spiritual Warfare we have seen inside the church here in Kenya, is how every believer feels like anytime something bad happens it is the work of the devil.  Often there is so much attention given to Satan and the powers of evil, that Christ and His grace are never mentioned.  Thank God, He loves us and cares for us.  Satan doesn't care how much trash talking we do, or what we call him, he is only focused on distracting us from the work of sharing the Gospel.  Will you please pray right now, that God, through His grace, will enable the Turkana and Toposa people to understand the battle has already been won. Our debts have all been paid in full on the cross of calvary and now love, hope and peace can replace that fear which so easily entangles and distracts all too often.