Short on time? 1 minute update:
– 3 Physical Healings. A couple instant one’s, and one that we are believing for the results to come back from the doctor as fully healed!
– We are dealing with demonic spiritual influence at the house our girls are living in due to outside influence from a member of the family. Pray against the attacks of the enemy, and that they would only seek Jesus as the truth. He’s the way, the truth, & the life and NO ONE comes to the Father EXCEPT through HIM!
– Pray for team unity, constant spiritual growth, to be bold at ministering to our taxi drivers, for us to take care of our physical bodies, and that we would excel in Spanish at a supernatural rate!
– Thank you, God bless!
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God has been moving through all of us, and we have been very busy. Our schedule changes just about every week, and unexpected stuff seems to come up constantly. This is something I observed a lot as a Pastors kid, growing up 100 feet from the front door of the Church. There’s always a need, and you’re always to be available to fill it. The most helpful thing when being in such high demand for draining ministry is your personal time with Jesus. If I can’t get away and spend time in the Word, without distractions, soaking in worship, bent over at God’s feet in prayer, then I have no fuel to minister, and really…no right to minister.
Something I’ve been thinking about recently, and really been impacted by is this – When we can’t physically HEAR the voice of God sometimes, then we should be spending even more time READING the words from God that He already wrote for us 2,000 years ago in the Bible. Sometimes we’re waiting for a phone call from God, and He’s just saying “Why don’t you read my letter first?”.
This is our 6th week in Peru, and God has been teaching me a lot every day. Constantly growing into the man of God that He wants me to be. At some point in our life, we all stop growing physically, but we were not meant to stop growing Spiritually – ever. I challenge you to accept that truth today!
Left to Right: Ron – our host “Dad”, & Brandon (one of my teammates).
….Physical Healings & Demonic spiritual influences:
A couple weeks ago at Church, I shared the testimony on stage of a lady’s stomach getting healed at an outreach event. After the service, a lady in our Church asked Brandon to pray for her for healing for a condition of not being able to sleep – and she went home and had no issues! Immediately afterward, another lady asked Brandon to pray for her stomach and she said the pain left immediately. AMEN! All glory to Jesus.
Generally when praying for physical healing over someone, when finished we ask them “Do you feel better, the same, or worse?” so we know if we need to pray more, and what God has done. If the person says “Worse”, then it’s very likely that they are being oppressed by an evil spirit or demon. I’ve never had anyone tell me that they felt worse after praying for them until this weekend. We went over to the girls’ host family’s house to pray over the mother over a growth and blood flow issues. She’s been told the doctors can’t operate for 6 months due to scheduling, so we thought it was a perfect opportunity to pray healing over it. We did, and it was very very powerful. Lots of tears, and the Holy Spirit was absolutely touching her in a way she had never experienced before. She said it felt like there was literally surges of lightning going through her body and showed us 2 places specifically that felt very hot and intense on her body while praying.
After that, we prayed for her daughter who has been having daily headaches after falling and hitting her head a couple months prior. Her head felt fine before we prayed, and after we prayed, she said her head hurt. What?! So we prayed again, and against any tormenting spirits and rebuking demonic influence over the household, and after that she said she felt fine. Continued to pray for the rest of the family, and shared wisdom about seeking the Lord and the Christian walk. They’re very hungry for Jesus, and have been searching for truth. 2 days later the girls felt a very strong demonic presence in the house so they left, and began to anoint the house, rebuking the demons and evil spirits. We found out the next day that the mother had visited a Spiritualist the night before, and have been learning of some prayers to “arch angels” and other things that can open the door for demonic influence. The girls haven’t had any issues at the house since praying that night, and we are praying for the doors to swing open for us to share truth with the mother, for her house to be covered in the blood of Jesus, and for total protection over their family. Please join us in prayer against the devils work!
….God’s Church, lots of fruit, and changing my outlook:
We have Church services at our church plant on Sunday nights. Beginning to average about 50 Peruvians in attendance. I mention Peruvians specifically because Arequipa, Peru is the base city for Extreme Nazarene Ministries right now, so there about 25 gringos in attendance as well from Extreme. We meet in a rented building, right next to the local Arequipa 40/40 missionary team. They’re called the “Cercado Team”, as that’s the side of town they live in. They’re the team that we are interning under while we’re here. Every Sunday I’ve just been falling in love with Church more and more. On tour with For Today, we didn’t get the pleasure to attend Church and enjoy worshiping Jesus corporately as much as we should have. Combine that with me traveling a lot in between that, and my spiritual walk with the Lord was mostly in bible studies and on my own with Jesus. There is a reason that God wants us to fellowship with believers – because it’s incredible! I’ve been re-learning that since this Summer, and I just love it. From attending long weekends of prayer, worship, & teaching at International House of Prayer – Kansas City, to Bible studies and services in Sioux City, to missions conferences around the Midwestern U.S., and now to our services here in Peru – I love God’s Church!
For every Sunday service we’ve been a part of at our church plant since we got here, we have seen new visitors every week, and new people commit their lives to Christ for the first time. I spent months in prayer over Peru & Ecuador since I found out my call to move here and be a Missionary, and I can’t tell you how fulfilling and exciting it is to see it all come to life in front of my eyes! I’ve seen God do miracles through prayer hundreds of time, and IT NEVER GETS OLD! AMEN! JESUS – POUR OUT YOUR FRUIT, WE’RE HUNGRY!
2 Sundays ago I was assigned to work with the kids every 2 weeks. The selfish part of me was sad that I wouldn’t get to be in the service because I long to worship Jesus more than anything else…and in song is when I feel most in tune to His spirit. Jesus has been teaching me the importance of ALL parts of the body. Yes – you are just as extremely important to the Kingdom while running around with kids, teaching them foundational Biblical truths, and taking them to the bathroom. Was I able to sing beautiful songs to Jesus and learn from Pastor Brian’s teaching? Not that week, but God was smiling, and my heart is changing to be more like His.
…Outreach Event
A couple weeks ago we hosted an outreach event out on the street in front of one of the houses we have a Casa Abierta at. We provided a grill out of sausages and potatoes, had music & balloons for kids, showed the Christian film “Courageous” for free outside on our Jesus film equipment, and presented the gospel during an intermission of the film. The grill out was a success – after we finally got the grill lit! The most common way to grill here is to use a Carbon version of charcoal. It’s about the least efficient way I’ve ever seen anyone try and cook meat, but “Do as the Peruvians do”, right? I got the privilege of manning the grill – I love to grill! It was kind of funny spending over an hour fanning the silly Carbon, trying to get hot coals. Part of me wanted to catch a taxi to a hardware store and purchase the first gas grill I saw, but I think God enjoyed watching our patience be tested as we failed over and over again to get anything to light!
Sheena & Eli fanning the Carbon…this is probably after an hour!
In the end, we were able to bless over 50 people with free food and entertainment. I think we waited too long to present the Gospel, but God had a plan as we prayed with a few people to accept Christ at 8pm out in the cold, dusty street during the movie break. Fulfilling work, I tell ya! Lo Siento. Apparently I didn’t take any pictures after we got the grill going, because I was grilling all night.
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