The past few days have felt weeks longs. They have been jam packed with evangelizing, meeting people, performing dramas and dances for the youth, preaching in the churches, leading worship and praying for people. It has been a true joy going out into the neighborhoods and meeting the colorful people that live there. The people in these neighborhoods are so open and hospitable. They ask good questions and are genuinely curious why we would choose to leave our homes to hear their stories. These people are real, genuine, and vulnerable with their stories. I feel I have learned more about being open with these “strangers” than I have in the rest of my 27 years on this earth.
Friday night Pastor Diego and Mama Olga trusted us with their congregation. We lead worship, preached, and prayed for their congregation. It was amazing. For worship our team led 2 songs in Spanish and 2 songs in English. Maggie brought the word to the people and Oscar translated her message into Spanish. People were moved and we had the chance to pray over each person. Holy spirit was moving in that place like crazy.
There was one woman who a few of us got to pray over and she was HEALED! She had a bulge in her stomach which had been giving her pain for years and doctors could not figure out how to help her. She told some of our team who went back on Sunday that she felt like someone was pouring oil on her while we were praying for her and her pain went away. She was so grateful for the healing from the Lord that she couldn’t help but Dance for Him! What a testament to what the Lord can do!! He wants to use each of us for his glory! You just have to be faithful go out of your comfort zone and let him do the rest.
The next day we got to go out into the neighborhood and put on a performance for the local kids. We set up a sound system on a corner and started calling kids to come down and hang out with us. We made balloon animals, blew bubbles, and hung out with the kiddos for about 20 minutes then we started our performances with a couple songs. We did two dances and two dramas. When we were done with the dramas one of the local missionaries gave a short object lesson. The kids were given some candy and we got to play with them and love on them for about an hour.
One of my favorite moments in this time was seeing some of the really shy kids break out of their shells when we started to interact with them. I started playing chase with this one little boy and within two minutes I was being crawled on like a jungle gym and chasing 5 or 6 kids trying to tickle them. It was the best. Tickling, playing chase, smiles, giggles, candy, dancing, and pictures are universal. You don’t need words to connect deeply and show love.
