Nponda’s Prayer Journey

Hello, my name is Nponda Nadjombe, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank every person reading this blog. I also thank the Lord Jesus Christ for the privilege to share with you all on how I started my prayer journey. A little background about me. I am originally from Togo, located in West Africa. I was born into a Christian family, and I am fortunate enough that my parents were Christians before they gave birth to me. So, I can say that I have been grounded in the Lord my entire life. My father played a huge role in that. Just FYI, ‘Nponda’ in my native language means El-Shaddai, so every time you say my name, you are calling the power of God all over me :). I currently live in Minneapolis, MN and I am pursuing a Doctorate in Occupational Therapy at the University of Minnesota.

I love to pray. At one point in my life, I considered prayer as being one of my favorite hobbies. My father highly influenced my interest in Prayer. Growing up, my Dad always woke up at midnight to pray. As a young girl in her prime who would rather enjoy her sleep and snooze, I couldn’t understand why he will put himself through that. I was quite fascinated to the point that I started joining him in prayer sometimes. When I was around 18 years old, something significant happened in my life. I had a group of friends, all girls, and we started to deliberate on the awesomeness of this God that we serve. During one of our discussions, we read and talked about Moses and his intimate relationship with God and we eagerly desired that kind of relationship. We started praying and fasting regularly, asking God to give us more of Him. Through our church, we got a chance to go to a youth convention and it was during one of our prayers before bedtime at the convention that we encountered the Holy spirit. He literally showed up and we were all slayed under His power. I guess we had prayed together so much so that it created an altar that opened the portal for the Holy Spirit to start flowing whenever we were together in prayer. It was crazy scary. Just picture a group of teenagers manifesting under the power of the Holy Spirit for the first time?

Unfortunately for us, the Pastor of our church at that time on hearing reports of what had happened to us, could not discern and he told us it was the devil manifesting instead. He then proceeded to break up our prayer group. My Dad being a God-fearing man and an Evangelist himself, encouraged us and even further took me and another girl in the group, Cecile, to a prayer camp to stay secluded for a week and truly inquire from the Lord on what His purposes were for us. During our time there, Cecile, who was the main one who seemed to have powerfully connected with the Holy Spirit than me, received a message from the Lord. She reported that God was not happy about the fact that His presence was compared or given to the devil. So, we both fasted some more and repented. Cecile also inquired about my purpose from the Lord and the Lord told her that I was just in training in getting to know Him. Three (3) days later, we left the prayer camp, returned home and we continued to pray and fast on our journey to carry the presence of God.

My prayer was mainly focused on moving from a “trainee” to really understanding the fullness of God. Consistent prayer started opening my spirit up to powerful and vivid dreams and visions that seem to play out in the physical realm. One of those dreams was when I had to come to the United States for school. God revealed the names of my host family and even their faces, long before the school connected with them. These are usually random searches on the part of the school for a family for an international student like myself, but the result their search yielded was the exact family God had shown me in my vision.

There have been so many other encounters since and one of them included my baptism of the Holy spirit, which was actually with me alone in my closet. I sometimes tried to follow the masses on different prayer strategies and platforms but God will distinctively speak to me to get back to a place of one-on-one prayer with Him. I’d like to conclude that the Holy Spirit is the one who guides your prayer life as you consistently spend time to seek the face of God. Once you have the desire and hunger to pursue Him, He will manifest Himself through you. I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit alone in my closet but that can be different for someone else. The key is for you to consistently stay in prayer. You will be transformed through prayer and the presence of God will come. No need to copycat others or duplicate what someone else is doing. Stay on effective prayer and God will direct you on how He wants to communicate with you.

I hope this encourages you to not be frustrated with your prayer life but instead, make it an enjoyable time of intimacy with God.

Be blessed and stay safe this week and let prayer guide you into all things.

XO,

Nponda Nadjombe.