Sorry this is long, but I have to tell all of the details of how God moved.
Debrief has been very resting and it has been nice to have some down time. On Tuesday night I met Marcel, a guy that is in Baños practicing whitewater kayaking. Marcel is 22 years old and speaks spanish, yet some words here and there are English. I am able to talk to him here and there every night. I was able to invite him to do paragliding with some of us on Thursday. He was really excited. On Thursday we left for paragliding, and got to the beautiful scenery of the launch area. We had to wait for about an hour before the tour guides told us that the weather wasn’t good. We then got into the car/transit bus and headed back to Baños.
Over the hour that we were at the launch area, I got the chance to talk to Marcel about God and who God is to me. I got to share the gospel with him. I believe he understood the things that I was saying to him. I want to continue talking with him and become more easy to talk to. Every time I see him in the Hostel, it is very easy for me to go up to him and ask him how he is doing. It is hard for me to come up with the Spanish on the spot because I don’t know really that many words for conversation about God. But it has been cool to see how much Spanish I actually do know and that I think Marcel understands what I am talking about. I have been able to connect up with Marcel on Facebook messenger, so I will still be able to stay in touch with him.
On Friday, I did my first adventure thing for debrief. Carter, Brenden, and I went to the Edge of the World Swing. It was like a 40 minute bus ride to the location up on top of a mountain. When we got there, we went to a swing and also found a swing that did flips when swinging too! We rode both and then we found out that those swings weren’t the edge of the world swings. We had about 20 minutes to wait to ride the actual edge of the world swing, and got to ride. It was fun, pretty much the same as the other swings. (Side note: Baños is a more touristy town so there are people there that also speak English) I started talking with Lilian, the girl that was sitting next to me. I told about what we were doing and she mentioned that she was Jewish. She started asking me questions like: What is the Gospel? What is sin? What is the law? As I began telling her about each of these things, I realized that she didn’t really know anything about the Bible. So I started in Genesis and started to tell her quickly a full summary of what the Bible says. I wish we had more time on the bus, because we soon reached the bus stop and that’s where the conversation ended at the moment. I asked her if I could get her number to continue the conversation, and she said that would be good. So I’m really excited to stay connected with her and tell her more about the Bible.
On Saturday, we had sessions/teaching. After the teaching there was an activation time, where we went out on the streets of Baños and prayed, talked, or encouraged people. The leadership told us to listen for God’s voice in what we should do. Over the worship time, I asked God where I should go and what I should do during the 2 1/2 hours that we would have.
During the time of prayer and silence for me, I thought of a brown sign, that was hanging in front of a shop/building. The sign was an oval and I didn’t see any details on it, and I felt like I was to pray for someone below the sign, or near the sign. I questioned myself, “Joshua, are daydreaming or is this God.” I asked God again and it was like I was standing at the location where I could see the sign and the details. I knew this had to of been from God. I had no idea where the sign was in Banos or if the sign really looked like what I saw. I then paired up with Caleb and we headed out.
Caleb didn’t feel/hear anything from God, so he came with me. He said that he would look for God’s voice when we were walking around. So we started walking, Caleb knew from God that he would follow me around for the time and we would go as companions, because that’s what Caleb did in the Bible. We decided to walk around for a little time and then get lunch and then look more. When we were We turned the corner and headed down the next street. We stopped and talked about where we should get lunch. After we made our decision, I looked across the street. A sign caught my attention. It had the exact same details as God had shown me. I was shocked. I told Caleb that this was the sign God showed me.
We walked by the sign, but no one was around. We decided to go eat lunch. Lunch was encouraging with Caleb, and we were able to keep each other accountable in our own personal walks with the Lord. We then returned to the sign, and walked by it. There was a churro vendor right by the sign and one of the workers inside caught me eye and knew that we should pray for him. We walked by again so I could use google translate to write out my prayer before, so in the moment I wouldn’t need to stress over what I was saying. Not that I need to pray a “perfectly” worded prayer, but I wanted the guy to understand me too. Caleb then felt from God that the guy had back pain. So we then planned to ask the guy if he had any pain that we could pray for. I was nervous.
We walked up, and I bought a churro to kind of start a conversation, and so it wasn’t like we were just there to talk, even though that is what we were there for. The guy that we were to pray for was behind the counter and we were wondering how we would be able to pray for him, because he was talking with the 2 other guys in at the vendor. He then got up to leave the vendor, and walked right past us. We asked him if we could pray for him. He said yes. We then asked him if he had any pain in his body that we could pray for. He said he had back pain in the exact place that Caleb felt God tell him where it was. We asked if we could pray for GOD to heal his back. He said yes. We prayed 1 time and asked him how he was feeling. He said a little better, so we prayed again. Once we finished, the man twisted his back and started walking around. He said the pain was gone! God healed his back!
He had a huge smile on his face and walked down the road with one of the guys from the churro stand. He soon came back and asked us what religion we were, we said Christianity. We got to pray over one of the other guys in the vendor. His name was Franklin. We told him a little about Christ and who he is.
I know we planted a seed in these guys’ lives. But none of the things we did was because of me or Caleb. This was fully God, and I want Him to receive all of the glory from this.
For quite some time now I had been asking God to show me the miracle of healing. For Him to show me this after showing me the image of the sign blows my mind. God is so awesome! The one thing during debrief that God has led me to think of has been; “Life with Him is an adventure.” Coming into debrief, I was excited of all of the adventurous things that I would be able to do, not that wanting that is bad. But, it was very cool to see the ‘wild’ things GOD did this week and showed me.
-THINGS YOU CAN BE PRAYING FOR-
1. For me to be able to stay in touch with Marcel, and for God to move in some crazy way in his life.
2. When I talk to Lilian about the Bible, for her to be open and want to learn more about God.
3. For Franklin and the other guys to have continual good days of work and for them to pursue God after seeing healing from God.
4. For me to remember God’s goodness when life gets hard, and for me to remember that the things that I have done are all from God, and He is worthy of all worship and praise.
