We have had spiritual forces against us since we got here. The enemy has never shown himself so real and active to me than here in this place. I imagine I will only see more and more of this over the next 10 months of my life. I guess surrendering your life to Christ only invites the enemy to mess with you and makes him want to stop you at any cost.
But, luckily we serve a God who is mighty and is “greater than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4 ). I am growing more and more confident in the greatness of the Lord and trusting that even when I come upon opposition – that He is in control and He sends His protection to surround and comfort me. Our first week here, my team and a few other teams grabbed lunch and went to eat it in the local park. We met a man there who was acting a little strange, and circled our group, walking around us and talking out loud for a really long time. It was in Spanish, so we were not really paying attention to what he was saying, because only Anna is fluent. After about an hour of group time, sharing our hearts and what we felt the Lord was showing us – Anna was able to pick up on what he was saying. She explained to us that he was praying to satan – praying against us and cursing us…praying evil things over us. The crazy thing to me was that – this man does not speak english … he had no way of knowing what we were talking about. But, he felt the presence of God in us and was afraid – and began rebuking the Lord.
Let me just explain real quick, for those of you who do not know me… I grew up in a Baptist church in Southeast Texas. I know that satan is real because the bible tells me so, and I know that he schemes against christians who are seeking to do great things for the Lord…but I have never really experienced first hand this kind of activity and even before now would think people were a little ‘crazy’ for talking so ‘spiritually’. But, my eyes are opened here in ways they have not been before and I am seeing and realizing that there are a lot more things that go on that actually are spiritual warfare than I have ever wanted to give credit to before.
Anyway, this man continues praying to satan and cursing us – and we begin to realize that he is a possessed man, who is being tormented daily by the enemy and demons. So, as a team-we begin praying peace over him and rebuking the demon that is residing in him. Dave asked God for a very specific sign, because he felt like the Lord wanted him to go and share Christ with the man. A few minutes later, the man did exactly what Dave prayed for and so he went over to him. He sat with him and began to tell him that Jesus loves him and wants to have a relationship with him. The man, who does not speak English, gets very angry and begins to freak out a little. When Dave put his hand on the man (on his shoulder), he jumped up very quickly and began circling us again with curses against God. We just continued in an attitude of prayer for this man, for deliverance from the evil inside him and desperate prayers for him to understand how desperately Jesus loves him. It was heart wrenching to know that this man thinks satan has more for him than a gracious and loving God who came to save us from all sins.
Second – while in Guachupita, we were helping Ida and Clemente put together their outhouse, carrying rocks over to help build the bottom. The day before, in what is usually very lighthearted and enjoyable conversation, Dulce was full of fear. She told us that there was a man who had just come back in town – ‘coincidentally’ right after we started coming…who is a drunk and a murderer and he was in town to get drugs. Apparently he has proven himself a murderer before – He had gotten drunk the night before and gone around to the people’s homes and started throwing their things around and threatening them he would kill them. So, we hear this story and began praying for Alfred, that is his name – praying that God would bring peace to our friends and that he would protect them from this angry man. The day we are helping with the outhouse, as we are walking back and forth with the rocks, we hear a blood curdling scream – coming from a house nearby. We are all pretty nervous as to what is going on – and we can see and hear rocks flying and hitting the tin that is surrounding the house. It is Alfred and he was beating his wife. We hear her screaming something about her hand (I think he was holding her by the hand while he was beating her) and then see these huge rocks being chunked across the yard and hitting the tin wall. It was horrific. The most horrific part of it all was that the 7 or so children who were helping us with the rocks were completely unmoved by the situation. One of them even said … “oh, it is just a man beating his wife”!! Dave & Zack struggled a lot with what they were supposed to do – especially not knowing cross-culturally how the men in this culture react to these type of situations. Especially since they are both the only and oldest boy with two younger sisters – they are such protectors! We have continued to pray for Alfred since this day, praying desperately for him to find Christ and to have a Saul/Paul conversion. I know and believe that God can change this man and that He loves him. But, I personally struggled a lot on that day because I am also a person that believes in justice – and I just wanted some man to go in to his home and beat him to a pulp…and tell him that if he ever hit a woman again-it would be the end for him. *Maybe that is because I come from Texas and men from Texas don’t put up with crap like that! I struggled very hard to pray for grace for him – I wanted justice and did not think he deserved grace. But then again, I guess that is the beauty of grace…no one deserves it. I don’t deserve it and yet the Lord gives it to me every single day – and every single day I fail him somehow. I ask you all to please be in prayer for Alfred and that God would rescue him from this life of sin that he is so entangled in. I believe that if Alfred were to find Christ – it would completely change all of Guachupita. The people are terrified of him and seeing a man like that change, would bring such peace and hope to the people. Even so, I ask you to pray for peace for them.
The last prominent thing that happened was this past week. All of our teams had gone out to eat dinner and our team was the last in the house, so we locked up and took the keys. When we got back…everyone was outside waiting for us. It got quiet, and Kristen told us that our neighbor grabbed her attention and the attention of some little kids with her as they were walking down the street towards the church. He told them to be careful and that he was waiting and watching for some boys down the street. Apparently these boys have been waiting for us for several nights – with knives, wanting to steal things from us. * I guess it is a hard concept for people to understand that although we are Americans and commonly Americans who come here to visit are rich – we are definitely NOT rich and are living off of $10 a day!!
Thankfully, Kristen is fluent in Spanish and was able to relay this danger to us and said that our neighbor was waiting for the boys and he was going to read them the right act. He was really looking out for us – and we were thankful for the protection from him and the fact that God orchestrated it all so that Kristen would be the one to hear (being that she is fluent) and not a one of us has been in any real danger.
We have seen and experienced some pretty dangerous things in the last 3 weeks – all pretty frightening if I let myself get scared. But, I am learning to trust in the Lord and trust that He “never leaves me or forsakes me” (Joshua 1:9). I am learning to understand that God is my protector – not man…believe me, I have wanted to call my Dad several times and make him fly here to beat someone up for me!! 🙂 I guess what I am realizing is that this is what I prayed for and this is what I signed up for. Now, understand, AIM will never put us in a situation where harm would easily come upon us – it is just that we are going in to some really dark places. We are going to spread light to the darkest places and satan knows what happens when light is shed in the darkness: the truth is seen. If satan can keep people in the dark, then he will be victorious over the lives that he wants – and God has called us to shed light to show them the way out of the darkness. I know that there will be some really trying and frightening times, but I am choosing even now to trust in the Lord and allow His peace to cover me. I have asked God to completely change me this year. If that means, I am in some really uncomfortable positions – I am okay with that…I truly want to be a different person at the end of this race.
It is hard to believe that I will only be here in the DR for 5 more days and then I am off to Jacmel, Haiti for the month of February. We leave here on the 31st and travel to Santo Domingo, DR and then bus into Haiti – 16 hours on a bus!! Please pray for us as we leave the people we have grown to love. My team will be working with team “Gentle Warriors” next month at a YWAM base – doing VBS, evangelism, church services…etc. It should be intense. We are going back to Guachupita 2 more times before we leave. I will let you know when I have posted pictures of our friends.
