This month is a bit of a stretch for me. At first I didn’t think so. Nicaragua is beautiful. Our ministry is teaching preschool and walking the barrios (neighborhoods) surrounding our preschool and walking house to house praying for the people that live there. I love that. I love kids, and I love prayer.
But it’s month three. This is not new any more. It’s hot in Nicaragua. Walking for hours in heat, or sitting in a stuffy house trying to understand what to pray for is exhausting. Working with preschoolers is exhausting.
The first two days of ministry, I experienced exhaustion like I have never felt before. Literally, I could not keep my eyes open. Sitting in the classroom, even speaking felt like a chore. I felt like all my joy was just gone. Leaving the classroom to prayer walk was even more tiring.
Going into the third day, it felt like something had to change. I had never imagined that working with kids would be difficult for me, but it was. I just asked God to please come in and fill me up. Jesus, just let me lean on you.
He did. As we began walking into the barrios Los Angeles toward preschool, the ground literally started moving. For several seconds our team clung together, as we realized, this is an earthquake. Not vertigo, an earthquake. First of all, there is NO WAY you give in to exhaustion after experiencing that. Second, you’d think that would be what stood out to me, but it wasn’t. It was a simple prayer that freed a woman.
After preschool we headed into the barrios to pray for the residents. We aren’t far from Costa Rica so many people have family and friends there. We wanted to just cover them in peace and prayer in what was a disturbing time for the entire community. Their world had literally just been shaken.
As we walk down the second or third street, things are looking rather dead. People are staying inside and we are just walking and praying. At the end of the street, a woman comes out of her house. We walk over and introduce ourselves. We explain that we are praying for the community and ask if she would like us to pray for her and her household or anything specific. She says she has nothing specific, but can we just pray for her household and her brother in Costa Rica.
We begin praying, and as we pray the Lord just keeps showing me how special this woman is to Him. He keeps telling me that she is His. Then I felt led to lay my hands on her house and pray for her house. As I laid my hands on the house, I felt an unwelcome spirit. I began praying to cast it out, and just keep inviting the Lord in. I felt His presence just rush into the place. As we all finish praying we thank her and turn to leave.
As I begin to turn away, I hear the Lord say Tell the woman. Tell her what? Tell her that she has my spirit. That she is filled with my spirit. I am practicing listening to the voice of the Lord, and I hesitate. Lord is this really you? Tell the woman.
So I grab Elizabeth, my teammate who speaks Spanish, and ask her to translate for me. As she translates, the woman’s countenance changes. Her spirit needed these words. She looks at us and asks, “Please pray for my husband. He is an alcoholic and he comes home every day from his job in the market already drunk. It is scary for the children. Just pray that he would be set free.”
This woman, who previously had nothing specific for us to pray for, was now telling us about her husband who came home drunk every day. Who as the head of the house was failing his family, she was sharing with us something that literally ten minutes earlier she had not felt comfortable sharing.
Jesus will show us what breaks his heart. In that moment His heart was broken for that woman, and He was bringing salve to her wounds. Elizabeth and I begin to pray for restoration, for healing in her family and for chains to break off her husband and for her to walk in her inheritance from her Father.
I truly believe that in that moment, Jesus changed something in that woman. He touched a place inside her that told her that He was there. As we finished praying the second time, the woman reached out and hugged us with tears falling down her face. “Thank you. You are a blessing and may you be blessed wherever you go.” The change in her was obvious to everyone. She was free. Jesus had come and poured his healing salve on heart and she was set free.
There may have been a physical shifting of the ground that day, but the shifting inside the woman at the end of the street is the one that I will remember. Jesus is teaching me that circumstances don’t matter. He is Lord of circumstance, and no matter how hot it is, or how tired I am, He can still use me. That is where my joy is.
