Stories

God spoke to me in a way i had never experienced before and downloaded information
i never could have known.

The story starts almost 10 years ago in Sydney Australia where I was studying at Hillsong Bible College.

I woke up from this particular dream one night very abruptly, knowing deep within me that what i had just seen and felt was not like any other dream; a creation of my imagination or subconscious, but it was something far more significant.

I had seen in my dream a scene unfold in which i was sitting in huge high rise office building and i was sitting behind a large desk on the top floor, in the sort of room a CEO might have as her/his office. And i was drawing pictures of clothing. Now since i was in my early teens i’ve always had an obsession with fashion, therefore doodling pictures of beautiful dresses and outfits was not unusual to me. In the dream however, as i was drawing these dresses i stopped and I looked to the window and there was stood my Father. Not my earthly father but a man i knew to be my heavenly Father, it was in fact God. He called me over to the window, ushering me with his hand as if he had something to show me. As i came over his gazed turned toward the window and as I followed his gaze I looked out the window to see 2 scenarios unfold. One scenario had an apartment in it, a 3 story block of flats, each with a balcony, and on the top floor was found a family, black in ethnicity but their nationality unknown. Quickly the scene was interrupted as the balconies fell quickly down to the ground taking the entire family down with it and killing them all. The scene then changed to a picture of a huge open warehouse with just a corrugated iron roof covering what appeared to be hundreds and hundreds of bodies laid next to one another, person after person, filling the entire place. Armed men with machetes and guns walked throughout the dead bodies almost as though they were keeping watch over their recent killings. I woke up alarmed and disturbed by this scene i had witnessed, but with a deep sense of knowing that this scene wasn’t fictional, it represented something taking place somewhere in the world and that my Father was showing me something that needed my attention.

I prayed into it not knowing really what this dream meant, what to do with such a dream or what my response ought to be. Turning to prayer one evening on our balcony in the suburbs of Castle Hill, NSW i saw in my Spirit a pentagonal shape sitting right in the centre of the African continent. Not knowing what this might symbolise i googled ‘map of Africa’ and looked to see if there was anything representing this shape. I quickly recognised that this shape was staring right at me, from the centre, the heart of Africa, a country with 5 sides: the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I knew nothing about this country and continued googling typing something along the lines of ‘DRC news’, and what i landed on i couldn’t believe. I had never heard of this nation yet i quickly learned that some of the world’s most horrendous atrocities had taken place in this land. Scrolling through i learned about the war, the sexual violence women had suffered as a result and the chaos of displacement and instability. I wondered – ‘is this what God was trying to show me in my dream?’

Well it seems I was to do nothing at this point as what followed was almost 10 years of silence on the matter, never mind how much i begged God to explain, to give me some sort of call to action, there was always nothing but silence. It wasn’t until 2017 when attending Alpha’s Leadership Conference in London where Marcus Mumford took the stage to interview two women who were serving in conflict zones. One in the middle east, the other in the DRC and CAR. The lady based in Africa shared stories of the things she had seen and heard, stories that make your toes curl and make you question how one human could do such a thing to another. I was impacted not just because of the stories, (i had been reading about these things for years and years) but by the fact that this situation in the DRC was being given centre stage. It is often called ‘one of the most ignored crises of our time’ and in my experience, even for someone working in the church and non-profit sector, i had seldom heard any mention of it. I felt a sense that God was starting to speak about it again to me, shedding some light on it for me and the several thousand attendees listening. What followed was a month or so of random coincidental run ins with women who had links to this country. One had been raised in DRC as a missionary’s child, another cared deeply about this nation and had a lot to share and even one lady had been a photo-journalist across DRC for the previous decade. The lady who was a photo-journalist, Hazel, was a friend of a friend and my Mom had originally encouraged me to reach out and ask for her advice, however it became unnecessary as a week later i happened to find myself around a dinner table with mutual friends chatting with her about this very topic. I shared with her my dream and my heart for the nation and rather than laughing at my naivety and what could seem like a far-fetched story she instead prayed for me. Whilst praying she shared a word with me, that God was ‘priming me for purpose’. Just like an artist primes a canvas before he paints, God was priming me and soon i would be launched into the purpose God had spoken all those years ago. I left feeling excited and unsure how this would all unfold but encouraged that someone who had witnessed the situation in that country first-hand wasn’t trying to dissuade me from doing something but was instead cheering me on.

This was in mid June last year and a few months later, through another very ‘coincidental’ turn of events i found myself on a plane headed to Africa for only the second time in my life, visiting Capetown for a weeks holiday. As soon as i landed i knew that the week would be significant and there was something this week held that might change my life completely.

Two days in i found myself at Hillsong Church in the evening service on a ‘touching heaven’ worship night. As the singing drew to a close i grabbed my bags and my travel buddy Emily and we started to head towards the exit. However, just as we were heading out, a friend of ours came over and asked if he could introduce me to a friend of his, Joël. There was definitely something suspicious going on and I could see that this friend of ours thought it might be a good idea for Joël and i to meet … for reasons more than just platonic friendship! Feeling awkward but obliging we got talking and about 5 minutes in i asked him where he was from as i was struggling to place his accent. Joël explained, ‘it’s because i’m french, i’m from the DRC’. I was slightly shocked to finally meet someone from this place i had thought and prayed about for so many years. He later asked if he could take me for dinner that week and i was keen to go and excited to ask lots of questions, and by that point it wasn’t just because of his homeland! By the end of this week i felt as though everything had changed. I knew that i needed to be on this continent. Particularly in SA as Capetown had stolen my heart with it’s beauty and complexity. I had also met someone i was excited to get to know more and felt a stirring to see God awaken this dormant dream about the DRC i had carried for so many years.

I landed home and three months later, after being granted a South African visa  I moved continent and landed in Capetown South Africa to start a new adventure, with Joël there, waiting for me at the airport!