"One for Oby"

My life has been crazy the past few weeks.
I sit here exhausted, worn down, and super tender towards the Lord. His heart for us is so beautiful ya know? The way He loves us, the way He desires to take us deeper, and the way that if everything that was dear to us was taken away tomorrow His Love, His presence.. it would truly be enough (but that is another blog for another time).. tonight I am taken back by one sweet little boy my friends and I met in Haiti in June.. His name is Oby..

We had traveled to a village outside of Port Au Prince to go check out a ministry site and see if we could learn a thing or two.. fair enough right?

So as my team quickly found out after we got into Haiti I am a wanderer! Tours are fun, and in moments very intriguing..but not nearly as intriguing as the children that we are passing as our very kind guide is giving us the down low about the village that we are now immersed in..so I have a tendency to disappear a bit.. and this day was really no different..

At one point we came to the side of the river where our guide was met by a very naked Haitian 5 year old who we would soon learn was a sweet little soul named "Oby".  All of us who were slightly distracted before during our tour were completely keyed in for the next several minutes. Our guide began to describe this precious child as animalistic and mute, the list went on. He didn't mean it negatively he just assumed he was giving us the facts, but all our spirit's saw was opportunity!

As he continued to fill us in on how this child was viewed in the community Oby became very drawn to David and quickly went to him, our guide began to say "notice who he went too, he typically will only go to Haitians" translation: David is dark skinned therefore he looks a little bit more Haitian than the rest of us therefore Oby felt comfortable falling into his arms..but not before he could finish his sentence Oby was now falling in my arms.. and I'm not sure if you have ever seen me before but I am WHITE! The guide was quite stunned, already the Lord was shifting His vision, shifting things in the atmosphere..and the Kingdom of Heaven was quickly invading earth! 

So the hour went on and Oby never left our side, and we had no desire for him too. If he wasn't holding hands with one of us, he was holding hands with another one of us..but typically he liked to be in between two individuals loving on him at the same time.

At one point he found himself between Christina and I our team was pretty far ahead of us and Christina could hardly take it:

C: We have to pray over him, like seriously, like now!
B: Let's do it!
C: What about our team?
B: I'm honestly not sure what came out of my mouth at this point but let's just say I wasn't all that concerned;)

So we stopped right there and we began to ask God to do what He loves to do and perform a miracle in this little boy's life! Oby never spoke.. he was "mute" remember, and at this point pretty much the whole village had out caste him due to his mental illness claiming he was demonized and had animalistic  characteristics..which to be honest I was sick of hearing about. He is a CHILD created by the Maker of the Universe..so that was enough for the both of us to have some fun speaking some life over him. So we began to ask the Lord to move in his body and mind and we just began declaring freedom and life.  After we prayed we continued walking with him and continued praying calling forth his voice! Giving this little one permission to speak! Permission to open his mouth.. and what do ya know he began making sounds. You should have seen the look of mystery in our eyes! We knew God was just getting started and for that we were getting excited!

We finally made it back to where our team had landed and we were still praying and I sensed in my spirit that he needed male figures to come into agreement with us over his life so we pulled in David and Patrick and again we prayed! This time David led the way and Patrick began prophesying..this was getting really really fun! As David was praying I kid you not his body went limp and fell straight into Christina's arms. Call it what you want but he was just baptized in the Holy Spirit right in the midst of us! What an honor! What a joy! That little boys eyes began to get clearer and he began to look around as though he was seeing the world in a brand new way and he was just SO peaceful. We sat there for probably a good 40 or so minutes continuing to pray and love on him until David came over and scooped this naked baby in his arms to go find him some clothes so that he could go to his feeding program.

We were overwhelmed with the goodness of the Lord and hurried to get into the feeding program ourselves to hang out with some more precious kiddos. What seemed like an eternity later David finally arrives walking in with his head held high like a proud dad! "Wait til you see how Oby looks!" he kept telling us! We were READY!

Oby finally made it in fully clothed and took a seat at one of the tables. Patrick was sitting across from him with a big grin on his face just watching him; soon after I couldn't take it anymore and had to go join them. Before I got over there though the girls working there came and sat Oby's food in front of him addressed Patrick and said, "you are probably going to have to help feed him, he doesn't normally do to well" Patrick just chuckled (silently i'm sure) and just began to watch him. Too make a long story short Oby ate all his food with no problem and fed HIMSELF! We began to tell some of the volunteers, as they continued to discuss with us his animalistic characteristics, that they should begin to expect this from Oby that this would become his new normal and to do their best to speak life over him! Tell me the Lord isn't a MIRACLE MAKER! Even if you tried to tell me He wasn't I wouldn't believe you, because I have seen it with my own eyes, experienced it with my own heart! His heart for His children is so pure and so full of love! Tell me being in the army of the Lord isn't awesome! He is so good!

and to think.. this was only the start of our time in Haiti..

#ImME