1/24/20
The past couple of days have been very emotional for all of us. God has been teaching us about a highly important topic: prayer.
It has been so interesting to see the unity of the Holy Spirit throughout the entire body working here in Palacaguina.
It began yesterday morning when 5 of us (Kristen, Hannah, Kellie, Bethaney, and I) were at the work site, feeling a bit discouraged but focused on God. With each victory of pulling even the smallest chunk of rock up from the ground, we were praising God. And let me tell you, Satan wasn’t having it. He tried to distract us with injuries and discouragement and negativity. And let me tell you, we recognized what was happening with Satan and we weren’t having any of that either.
So, we decided to take a short break and go into the church together to pray for renewed strength and focus on whatever God wanted to show us. It was such a wonderful time together. We got down on our knees and we prayed and then we spent some time worshiping, and then some people even felt like dancing! Just a super awesome time.
So, we were renewed with the remembrance that God is God no matter what happens and His church will stand no matter whether this expansion of the church ever even gets built. And besides that we just had so many words of encouragement for one another through the Spirit and it was so uplifting. And we returned to our work outside with a new mind and a bit of a renewed spirit for another hour or so until lunch.
But we were exhausted.
Breaking up rock and doing construction the Nicaraguan way with the bare minimum of tools and little idea of what you’re doing is hard and exhausting, but I know we have all found joy in being able to do this work for the Lord. And we’ve all had just enough breaks that it’s been doable. But let me tell y’all, my teammates have got some rough looking hands. They are giving their ALL and THEN SOME to this construction work we’re doing for the Lord. Man, I am impressed by them. But, anyway, we took a break for lunch.
And while we were at lunch, we got word that we shouldn’t return for the afternoon because our host had a prior engagement. We certainly didn’t argue and figured it would be a good time to rejuvenate for work in the morning.
But then something CRAZY happened!
Our host, Osman, came around the time we were going to bed and he told Erica that he had gotten a word from the Lord that the Lord wanted us to take the next day to focus on prayer. He gave her a list of topics for us to pray over.
Y’all, it is a blessing to know that:
1. Our host cares about us and sees that we are working hard
and
2. Our host listens to the Lord and is faithful to be obedient and flexible to the word God gives him.
So, we rejoiced in the new task we were given, made plans for when we would pray, and decided to sleep in a little late this morning (breakfast at 8:30 instead of 7).
But oh my gosh, the prayer today has been AWESOME and POWERFUL!
Sadly, we’ve been playing games of have a day sickness here and there (as y’all know, for me the first day here was pretty rough, but I have since recovered and my allergies haven’t been too too bad since those first days), so unfortunately Hannah wasn’t feeling top notch today and we left her to rest at base while the rest of us went to the church, where we felt called to go pray.
And we prayed for
-The growth of the ministry and that more sponsors would begin to financially sponsor local children.
-The children’s and women’s programs and the leader who is our roommate
-The radio show the ministry hosts and our role in getting on the show to share God’s love soon
-The church and construction
-Pastor David
-A word Kellie received that there will be abundant salvation of new souls in the next 2 weeks here
-The other church we attend on Sundays
-The mountain community we hope to visit in coming days
We were there for so long, reveling in the ministry of prayer, that Bethaney had to return to camp to begin her afternoon in the kitchen helping with lunch. And we just kept on praying together afterward.
And then we invited Pastor David to come into the church with us so we could pray over him.
That was one of the most powerful moments we’ve had on this journey so far. He knelt down and we placed our hands on him. Most of our prayers were in English so he couldn’t even understand, but he was moved to tears by the act of our praying.
And he shared with us that just this morning, at breakfast, God reminded him how important prayer is and then he came to church and we prayed over him and it was so powerful.
Kellie said this moment alone was worth 19,000 dollars. I think we all have to agree with her.
God is working. Like, it’s so cool that we were so moved to pray and then the same spirit of prayer came over Osman and Pastor David. Like Holy Spirit is working so much unity and unison in our entire team and that is the coolest thing ever.
But it didn’t even stop there.
So the 4 of us went down into the village around the church to pray over all the individual houses and families. I have to confess that this is something I have been looking forward to doing, but I couldn’t have imagined what it would really be like. I mean, the thing is, praying door to door over people isn’t something I do in my every day life in the States and I wanted to experience it on the Race, and I knew I would experience it. And I hope to learn to do it so well and so easily that I take this practice home and continue doing it.
So my spirit was filled by the fact I was praying over houses in a village for the very first time.
We came to a fork in the road and a few members of the group felt a desire to go down the path to the right.
Well, you’ll never guess who we ran into! The 2 little girls from my previous blog who helped us at the construction site. Erica, who is fairly fluent in Spanish, explained to them that we wanted to pray over the houses and asked where their house was. We were standing right beside it, so we started there. And then those girls took Erica’s hands and led us from house to house until it was lunch time.we probably prayed over 15 houses and families today. And we even prayed over a 5 month old baby.
Y’all, I am certain that this community will be blessed by the Lord for a long time after we leave. And I feel so fortunate and so blessed to have been included in this process by God. I am so blessed that I got to pray for this community. I am so blessed that I got to pray with Pastor David who has become so much of a friend in our work together. I have been so blessed by God these past few days as He has taught us about the power of prayer and brought unity to our team.
I also want to invite you to this too. Take the list of prayer topics and spend some time in prayer. Also, pray for our team’s health since we’ve been having some sick days. Prayer is powerful. Truly. Let God work in your heart through prayer and your relationship with Him will grow. Pray for my team and pray for your own community, your own team, back home. And tell me what happens! We are all a team together too!
