Jumbled mysticism

On Thursday Peter and I had quite the experience.  Along with Pastor Hafermann and Luka, 5 other pastors, 2 other evangelists, an elder and a prophet we rode for 4 hours to a far off Masai village.  This village recently experienced the death of their spiritual leader who was a heavy drinker and deeply involved in magic.  Things that I would be and am very skeptical about seem to abound here.  Things like magic and prophets and possessions.  It is hard right now because I am not sure what to think. We have seen and heard some strange things.  There is something odd in the world.  Ok.  The prophet that traveled with us is from Kenya.  As soon as we met with the other travelers we could tell who the prophet was.  He had deep distant eyes full of both mysticism and welcome.  He claims to have visions of Jesus.  The first one told him to go to his people (Masai) in Kenya to tell them about the love that they can experience in Christianity.  Then Jesus told him to come to TZ.  He is very well respected and not at all legalistic.  His message, while convicting, is full of grace and peace.  He always says that he comes expecting to gain nothing, he simply wants to help the people and has been led by Jesus.  At first I was worried to hear about the leaving of traditional magic.  But there are very practical reasons to leave it for Christianity.  For instance, the magicians often curse people and try to hurt them with religion. They steal cattle to perform curses and they treat the women negatively.  Anyway, what had happened with the death and the spiritual leader was that the prophet, one year ago, had told the village that if they do not leave black magic and if the leader does not stop drinking in order to do magic, the leader will not live to see the long rains.  He died of liver failure two weeks before the rains began.  So this visit was one of reconcilation, to be sure that the people know that the prophet didn't cause the death. The prophet gave a 3 hour message letting the people know that there is love and peace in God.  And he warned against drunkenness and spoke about respecting elders.  We realized that he is very much like an old testament prophet.  He simply speaks truth to power.  The OT prophets would say "If you don't stop doing destructive and oppressive things you will be destroyed."  Well, of course.  If you keep up oppression there will be an uprising or if you continue poor relations with other nations you will go to war.  Our prophet says "If you do not stop stealing and drinking, you will die and you will die soon."  There is a mysticism about his accuracy but really the messages make sense.  I was really something.  He was very well received and many people were baptized who could not be baptized but wanted to when the laibon was alive.  I will write more when it really sinks in.  I don't know what to think.  Odd things happened and happen all the time.  It is an exciting time to be here.  We have not seen them but there have been many demon possessions and laibons conducting destructive religious rituals are softening, some tribes are on the edge of war and there is much hostility toward the Masai from local farmers.  There is so much happening.  Something good needs to happen for these people.  There is still much hope though and they want peace.  We shall see.  I will be writing a lot about it in the future.  Especially concerning the recent murders and animosity surrounding displacement, magic and cattle thievery.  This is jumbled but there is a definite connection between the way the Masai are treated and the way the Native American is treated.  They are pushed off their land, made to fend for themselves but still idealized in some ways.  Ok. More later when it all sinks in.