It’s been a week.

A week ago from today we had just got back from Cairo. Fun was had, memories were made, and God moved.  We had a vbs planned, prayer times at the Cairo house of prayer, bible studies, and time to hang out with the children and people of Cairo. We arrived in Cairo and I’ll be honest, my head and heart weren’t in it.  I had been so excited about coming and in the matter of a day or two, my spirits were low.

 

Cairo, IL, borders Missouri and Kentucky, and is separated by the Ohio and Mississippi River. It is an abandoned town, with about 3000 people, many of which live below the poverty line. Even driving down the streets I could sense that there was a hopelessness, a sadness for a town that used to be vibrant in it’s day.

It was the last stop on the underground railroad to the north, the first place in the north where African Americans could be free. As time went on during the time of the civil rights movements, a seemingly vital town started to disinegrate with “white flight,” and riots.  Presently this city consists of buildings that are destroyed down to nothing but piles on the ground, project housing and poverty that runs rampant through the town.

 

I had never really understood or truly experienced spiritual warfare. Something changed in me when I entered Cairo. The spirit of hopelessness, oppression and darkness filled that place and…I felt it. “What do i do with this Lord? How do I come against this?” It was weighing me down, I felt distracted, I felt heavy. It was as if everything I carried even to the littlest bit, whether it had been struggles in my own life personally or with other people were magnified. I felt all those feelings to the extreme and they were distracting me from the puprose we had going into this thing. Not not to mention the weight of sadness and hopelessness of this town. I got to talk to and pray with some of the people in the high rise apartments and see that they felt this is their station in life and that there is no lasting hope, no change coming and it was really heartbreaking.

 

The Cairo house of prayer. This was a very important part of our stay in Cairo. Two of our leaders had been apart of this house of prayer in past years. We would gather with those on staff with this ministry and pray for this city. I soon learned that the climate of this town was everything that I had picked up from being here. I realized that our weapon against this hopelessness, this despair and this sadness was prayer. And pray is what we did. We prayed at the schools, the park, and the streets. I was surrounded by some prayer warriors for this town. It was encouraging, it ignited me. The Lord layed Ephesians on my heart and I read of God’s promises for me: “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,”  “….that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”