Discipleship at Fourwire

A team of three gave a discipleship weekend, from 7^th to 9^th December 2007, at Fourwire, in Hurungwe. (The name ‘Fourwire’ comes from when there used to be a game reserve in that area and part of it was fenced with eight wires while another part was fenced with four wires.) The team was Mr Shadreck Makore (leader), Manners Sheshe, and Catherine Maisiri.

Due to funerals in some places, a small group of just over 20 people attended, coming from seven different places. However, it was a Spirit-filled weekend with everyone very much involved. The team gave teachings on private, personal prayer, praise, nine ministerial gifts of the Holy Spirit, tongues, prophecy, and singing ministry.

Mr Makore reports that Manners is a good teacher who teaches with strength and authority; Catherine is also a good teacher though she moves into a preaching style when she gets going.

In discipleship, a practice session always follows the teachings, and we often find that the Lord works in the group according to the subject matter. Manners gave the teaching on the nine ministerial gifts of the Holy Spirit, and one of these gifts is the gift of miracles.

In the group, there was a woman with a problem. She had already shared with Catherine that for three years her breasts had been running continually with milk and even with blood, since the time she had weaned her child. She had been to clinics and to herbalists, to diviners and to independent apostolic churches but had found no help. She had also attended various Pentecostal churches, but her problem persisted.

In the practice session of this teaching, the discipleship group prayed for her as part of the practice. She then went outside with Catherine who confirmed that the flow of milk had dried up. In the evening of that day and at the end of the weekend, she testified again that she was having no problem at all.

There was also a man who had bought a car in the 1980s. The first time he had driven this car, he was suddenly afflicted with a pain in his leg, right up to the hip, and was unable to continue driving. He also had looked everywhere for help without finding any.

When the group prayed for him, he became possessed and began to contort his face, manifesting various creatures, which indicated a number of spirits within him. When the group prayed for deliverance and these evil spirits left him, he found that the problem he had borne all these years had disappeared.

At the house where they held the discipleship, one of the sons and his wife were sitting in the kitchen not taking part because they thought it was not for them since they attended an independent apostolic church. However, the ministry going on in the lounge affected this man and an evil spirit began to afflict him. Mr Makore said he must join the group, not sit in the kitchen. The group prayed for him and set him free. He stayed for the rest of the weekend and said afterwards that he wanted to be there next time they came.

The Lord’s work may sound good in the telling of it, but in the doing of it, it is hard work. Even afterwards, on the return journey, the team had to wait four hours in rainy weather for a bus without seeing one, and then had to take an expensive lift to Banket and boarded a bus for Harare from there, arriving late on Sunday evening. In spite of all this, we thank God for this good weekend.