Toward that end He gave
me the privilege to catch a glimpse of how He is doing that by ministering
to four churches on the island nation of Mauritius. The people of this island
are absolutely awesome. The Christians I met were not much different from
other Christians around the world, but I have to admit these folks had the
fire of God burning on the inside of them in a very refreshing way. Let me
share with you the awesome way in which the Lord revealed His word to His
people and one of the reasons why I believe He has chosen this nation (and
others) as a prototype for what He wants to do worldwide. The host pastor
(Pastors Devin and Simla Rajiah, Bambous Assembly of God) contacted the ministry
and extended an invitation. I would also like to thank the President of the
Assemblies of God for the nation, Pastor Blackburn for allowing me to come;
and Pastor Roland Beugue (Assembly of God Church-Helvethia), Pastor Bibi Dorasawmy
(Assembly of God of Vacoas) and Pastor Martea (Plaissance Assembly of God).
All of them allowed me the opportunity to minister Christ to their congregations.
They are truly doing an apostolic work in their nation and in other nations
that they travel to. As I prepared to leave, I discovered that the island
of Mauritius is considered an African nation, even though it is not located
on the continent itself but in the middle of the Indian Ocean. As I prayed
concerning what God would say to His people in Mauritius, He kept showing
me the English flag. In fact, it got so intense, that I actually had to look
up the history behind the flag to begin to search out what God was saying.
In a nutshell, the Lord said that He wanted to send the nations through this
tiny island, but that a spirit of conquest and a spirit of division had been
unleashed by the British in the 1800s and that before God could do what He
wanted to do, the healing had to begin. That one word from God opened spiritual
insight to me that still causes me to marvel over who God is. I started to
do the research on this tiny, but mighty island. I discovered that the Arabs
visited it in the 10th century (giving some Mauritians Arab-like features---I'll
explain the significance of the facial features shortly). The Malaysians and
the Portuguese visited in the early 1500s (giving some Mauritians Oriental
and Spanish features). In 1598 it was occupied by the Dutch who named it in
honor of Maurice of Nassau, a stadtholder in the Netherlands, who was a Calvinist;
and who incidentally, through a spirit of division, had a 'rival' Christian
murdered because of his Armenian beliefs (Barneveldt in 1619). The Dutch abandoned
the island in 1710 and five years later the French took possession, renaming
it Ile de France (Which name, by the way, never took; it's still named Mauritius
after Maurice of Nassau). The French imported African slave labor (giving
many Mauritians African features). The island was captured by the British
in 1810 during the Napoleonic Wars and in 1814 it was formally ceded to Great
Britain. Through Christian efforts (and signed treaties) the British abolished
slavery in their empire. To offset the acute labor shortage arising out of
the abolition of slavery, the British government allowed the plantation owners
of the island to import indentured laborers from India. Since 1861 the population
carries primarily Indian features with many Mauritians also looking European.
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Pastor-Beugue-&-Family
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Pastor
Dorasawmy's Wife & Intecessor
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Pastors-Devin-&-Simla-Rajia
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After this research, I
queried the Lord as to why this island should be any different from other
places in the world where similar histories can be told. He plainly said to
me that these principalities that were present now had been unleashed by the
Christian authority over the island. To fight over Calvinistic and Armenian
view points is a unique Christian problem. To desire more and more to build
up your name under the guise of promoting Christ's kingdom is definitely a
human trait. I didn't find this any more unusual than what we see in the rest
of the world. It was the constant sight of the British flag, though that kept
me asking God what He was trying to show me. Everywhere I turned during that
period of time I would see a photo of it. When the Lord did speak, this is
what He showed me: The island was named after a Christian who had his fellow
Christian beheaded, largely because of religious beliefs. As a part of conquest
Napoleon populated the island and a stronghold of conquest was strengthened
(See Ezekiel 28:16). Now Britain, as a Christian nation got the island and
released the slaves. You would think there would have been a release in the
spiritual realm also. But the Lord showed me that as a Christian nation Britain
was obliged to follow the word of God. If they needed to import servants,
they should have done so according to the Scriptures. According to Leviticus
25 and 26 a servant was not to worship an idol or to be joined to the house
of a believer as long as they worshiped an idol. These indentured servants
brought the idols of India with them. Britain reached out to a principality
from another region of the world to solve their problem instead of trusting
in God. This has resulted in most of the island serving one of the many gods
of India (49% are Hindu). Furthermore, I had some suspicions that the indentured
part of this service was not always honest and fair to the Hindu, Tamil and
other religious Indians that came to work. I had, as yet, to talk to the host
pastor about all of this and God was not done yet surprising me with His word.
You see, I have Dutch, English, Irish, Scottish and Polish blood flowing in
me---and it just so happened that I was going to get four hours of stop over
time in a country that I spent three years of my childhood trying to learn
the language. If you guessed that country was France, you guessed right. I
began to see a set up by the Holy Ghost, and He did not disappoint. He let
me know that before any other word could be given to the Mauritian Christians
that He wanted me to stand and apologize for what my ancestors had done to
them and unleashed among them. That was why He gave me no other word until
I got that one word right.
After that the Lord started
to show me that worship in the form of sacrifice was what He wanted preached
and He started to show me that 'offerings made by fire' was my initial focus
and afterwards various teachings on Davidic worship in warfare. He wanted
them to know that the King was coming to visit them. I did not realize yet
that most of the Christians had come from Hindu and Tamil backgrounds in which
rituals by fire sacrifice are commonly performed and that the host church
and the street I would be staying at were on Royal Road! The Lord highlighted
the gods of Babylon to me and the Assyrian bull gods. In my research I discovered
that this is one of the islands in which they still walk on fire coals as
worship. Many of the people came from India and all of the Indian gods came
from Zoroastrian worship, which had originated in the Babylonian (and Persian)
region of the world. I was actually going to visit people that may have had
the same blood flowing through them as the Magi who came from the east to
worship the Christ child. When the Muslims invaded what is now modern Iran
and Iraq they basically kicked out the Zoroastrians, who fled to India. These
Zoroastrians were astronomers (as well as astrologers and sorcerers). Zoroaster
was influenced in his teachings by the preaching of Isaiah. His followers
were also influenced by Ezekiel and Jeremiah. It is believed by many that
the Jews who went to Babylon and Persia during the captivity and stayed after
they were released told many of these Zoroastrians about Messiah and the Scriptures
pertaining to Him. There is also an ancient text in which it is believed that
Zoroaster prophesied the visit of the Magi to the Christ child. Here were
people directly descended from those that read the stars and planets in the
heavens. I don't doubt that they had the occasion to know about Psalm 19:
"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of
his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display
knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom
coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing
is hidden from its heat. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts
of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are
radiant, giving light to the eyes." (See Psalm 19:1-8, NIV; Isaiah 61:
10, 11; John 3:22-29).
What grieves my heart
in all of this is to realize that these Zoroastrians came so close to knowing
the Gospel. One of the words used in the New Testament for the word sin is
the Greek word hamartia. It carries the connotation of archery, or missing
the mark or missing the bull's eye. How sad it was to know that by such a
seemingly small sin of missing Isaiah's true preaching that literally millions
of people were trapped in hell as a result of Zoroaster's teachings. It's
easy to understand the zeal and desire of the Christians of this island to
see their fellow neighbors set free. There was also another interesting piece
of history I felt added some more confirmation to what I thought the Lord
wanted shared. Two weeks before I left, our local PBS station aired a show
on the geography of the Seychelles Islands. The theory that many geologists
propose is that at one time the world was one large land mass (of course reading
the Bible might have told them that). Up until this point I had no idea that
Mauritius is in the area of the Seychelles chain. As I'm watching the program
they put up a graphic that proposed that Africa and India were sort of folded
close to the Saudi Arabia/Iran area. As Africa broke off, pieces of land also
broke off thus creating Madagascar and the Seychelles Island chains. This
was all still theory for me until after I landed on the island and talked
with the pastors, then some things started to make sense.
I landed on one of the
most pristine tropical islands that you can imagine. The people were warm
and friendly. The police carried no guns because crime is so low. Because
it broke off from many of the other Seychelles Islands, it had many features
the others did not have. This was the home of the Dodo bird (The bird's extinction
was caused by my 'sweet' and hungry Dutch ancestors). It had dormant volcanoes
that were breathtakingly beautiful and a place where seven different kinds
of soils were found in one location and nowhere else on earth. It also had
no snakes. For me, as a woman on a tropical island, that was heaven enough!
The host pastor confirmed that it was very hard for Christians of different
denominations to fellowship and join together to win the island. After I landed
I also discovered one of the rarest traits that I have ever seen. Because
of the many different ethnic cultures that inhabited the island at different
times, people took on the facial features of their ancestors. That's not what
shocked me. What shocked me was that two people who had Oriental or Malaysian
features could marry and have one child that looked Indian, one that looked
African and another that might look European! One parent might look African,
one might look European, yet the children may all look Indian. There could
be no prejudice based on facial appearances here, for the feature you might
not like, you might reproduce in your children! Truly God had done an awesome
work among them. Yet there were still religious strongholds as well as an
attitude of persecution against the Christians which hindered them from building
churches. For those of you that have read the book Beyond Strongholds, you
know I talk about religious spirits gaining a foothold through judgment against
women (Eve) especially by controlling them and refusing to receive the mind
of Christ in this area. This, in turn, reproduces judgment against the ethnic
races because Eve was the mother of all the living. On an island where there
was no racial prejudice based on ethnic features, how did religious strongholds
based on religious views gain such strength? While the offense from the British
was an obvious source, what was not so obvious was the judgment against the
women. There was some freedom in Christian circles but in the Hindu and Muslim
circles the oppression was obvious. For many centuries in India it was quite
common to kill a female child. It wasn't until Christian missionaries stopped
the practice that it ceased. The Muslim women on the island are treated like
Muslim women are elsewhere.
After I shared with some
of the pastors God's desire to bring the nations through the island, Pastor
Beugue drove me past a construction project which was going to house a multi-nation
work force. The government was building a cyber city modeled after Silicon
Valley. It all started to make sense. The churches on this island had done
a monumental job in reaching the lost, but there was an even greater job ahead
for them. Reaching out to heal the wounds of the past would free them up for
their future. If the theory of the land mass breaking up like it did was somewhat
correct, this island could very well have come from the region near the Garden
of Eden. While that is speculation, it is a fact that God allowed the island
to be populated by a multi-ethnic people, probably descended from the Magi
and descended by other original, first-nation people so that they in turn
could minister Christ to the nations. I wound up staying a block away from
a Tamil fire temple and a Hindu temple with an Assyrian bull god (as the photos
on this page depict). Of course I didn't know this until after I shared with
them where these practices originated from and how satan was able to trap
them in this sin. That's when one of the intercessors walked me past the temples
and I was able to take these photos.
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Hindu
Temple with Assyrian Bullgod
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Tamil
Fire Temple
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At some point in time all the nations will go up to the New Jerusalem to worship
the Lord, as it says in Micah 4: 1, 2: "In the last days the mountain of
the Lord's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will
be raised above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will
come and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house
of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.'"
Could it be that God is giving us a dress rehearsal for the gathering of the
nations? Most of these churches are heavily involved in deliverance, but the
idea of inner healing, especially as a group is not as dominant a theme. The
church has to be whole before it can attempt to minister to the nations. The
book of Revelation tells us that the leaves of the tree of life are for the
healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2-4). "No longer will there be any
curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants
will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads."
Oh, what a day that will be! My question is do we have to wait? Yes, this is
in the future, but can't we begin to proclaim healing through the word of God,
walk in it and see it in our midst? I believe we can. Please keep this nation
and its churches in prayer. If you would like to send support to them in any
way, shape or form, contact us and we will do that.
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Before
Early AM Prayer Sunday
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Before
Evening Deleverance Service
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