Spiritual Warfare, the Unseen Obstacle
The note below comes from Norival Trindade, one of the international staff guys with ILI. He is reporting a remarkably suspicious chain disruptions in the International Leadersip Institute (ILI) in Africa.
It has all the markings of spiritual warfare. The evil one must be getting nervous.
In Malawi, the venue contracted for the National Conference next week cancelled their reservation four days ago forcing our team to find a suitable place in less than one week. Last month in Zambia, the retreat center director announced that our History Makers participants had to vacate the premises one day before the contracted date and conclude the conference somewhere else. One week ago in Kenya, the vehicle that transported the ILI team was vandalized during the Mombasa National Conference. Almost every conference has one or more last minute cancellations due to unforseen circumstances. We could go on and on describing incidents that threaten to derail ILI conferences everywhere in the world.
Most people call this Murphy's Law. If something can go wrong, it will. For us the reality of Spiritual opposition is stronger than the random troubles we all face. ILI is in the cutting edge of accelerating the spread of the Gospel and our leaders are on the front lines of the battle for the souls of the lost all over the planet. As such, we should expect the enemy to oppose us with everything he has.
This is why we need your prayers. We need partners who will commit to fasting and praying on behalf of the four History Makers alumni who are currently in prison for their faith in an undisclosed nation. We need intercessors who will pray daily for Yaqub Masih, who is preparing to lead a National Conference in Pakistan, where religious intolerance and the threat of suicide bombings is a daily matter. We need to bring before God the many leaders who will travel the treacherous roads of Pakistan to attend this conference, for safety during the event, and for Rev. Mike Goodyear, Orangevale, CA, who is traveling to Pakistan to support Yaqub.
Oftentimes, obastacles come from our poor preparation, lack of forsight, of just plain circumstances. (Yes, "circumstances" are sometimes just circumstances.) Other times it is demonic. In all of it, our primary response is prayer. Pray for the work as Norival requests. The Lord is on the move.
Kyle Phillips
