Our last Sunday in Panajachel was beyond words. Mac was asked to preach the week before and so he did this specific Sunday. He preached on 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 He went for a good 45 minutes and it was awesome. My favorite part was when he was wrapping it up. He was talking about running the race for God and bringing the Kingdom to places, but this is a direct quote of what he said: “And you’re going to smack my butt and tell me to run faster and I’ll smack your butt and say you too!� Priceless. After he was done Pastor Ben closed in prayer. He then invited us to the front of the church and told the people of the church that if they needed prayer or to be ministered over to come on up to one of us and we would do it. Nothing gets your nerves going faster than being put on the spot like that, but I am glad we had no foreknowledge of what was to happen because the Holy Spirit completely took over.
Paul cast out a demon. Sarah gave someone spiritual rest. By that I mean she was praying over this lady and she just fell to the floor and was out. She was perfectly alright, but Pastor Ben told us that she probably needed spiritual rest and that was Sarah had done. The rest of my team was praying and prophesying over the people. God was giving me the words to say to the people that came up to me. Marvin the youth pastor translated for me and although I was super nervous because the first person to come up to me was his wife God totally took over. I couldn’t tell you all what I had said, but I’ll never forget those moments. I knew that when I was hugging people it wasn’t me doing so, but God. The words I spoke to one lady made her cry. Apparently they were super encouraging because she was going through a rough time in her life. With all of those things happening nothing was greater than having God give me a vision for this teenage girl. It was the first vision I have ever had and it was awesome. Haile ended up coming up to prophecy over this girl to and what Haile was saying went right along with my vision. I ended up embracing this girl for about 10 minutes. The music had stopped and the room was silent, but we didn’t let go of each other. I knew that the church was watching and waiting on us, but she needed that hug. I didn‘t let go until she did.
We sat back down while Pastor Ben talked about a vigil that he went to for the police of Panajachel, which took about 15 minutes. After he finished that we were called back up to the front again only this time Pastor Ben asked us to close our eyes and for the congregation to stand and extend their arms out over us. Lily began to prophecy over us in Spanish. The congregation prayed over us and prophesied over us. Pastor Ben came up to each one of us and anointed our foreheads with Frankincense and Myrrh. It smelled wonderful and you could actually feel the spiritual anointing pouring over you. I was crying, but it wasn’t because I was sad. After Pastor Ben was done praying and blessing us we were handed a smile vile of the same oil we were anointed with. Marvin and Moses gave me mine and told me that God would tell me when I needed to use and not to worry when I ran out because I would be blessed with more. They also told me that God had called me to a very special part in ministry and he would make it known to me when the time was right.
Sunday night was so encouraging. I loved how the church just embraced us in hugs afterwards even though we didn’t know everyone. As much as I was ready to leave Panajachel I was amazed at how powerful that night was. I want to remember the small encouraging moments like this one.
