Pretty much exactly a year ago when I was at training camp for the World Race former team Dunamis ended up in a hospital praying for people. Neil, Sara, and I ended up in a room of a man we didn’t know praying for him and his family. That is how we met Ron, the man that began speaking crazy things over our lives. He spoke so many prophecies over us that day that I to be honest was skeptical that they all would come true. Looking back…I have realized that there have been several things that he spoke over us that day that have happened pretty close to the way he said it would. One thing in particular: he told us that almost exactly a year to the day we were there that God was going to use us and something big and crazy was going to happen. And well he was pretty much right on.
When my team (Remnant) was in Panajachel, Guatemala last month we randomly met a pastor named Caesar. He just happened to be in town and just happened to come to Pastor Benjamin’s church that night. After praying over several of us that night, he was talking to us about The World Race. When he found out what we do he was super excited telling us that he knows several pastors in Nicaragua and wanted to set up a crusade for us mid August. We weren’t really sure if things would work out…I mean it sounded cool but we just couldn’t say for sure. Pastor Caesar did not give up however. He insisted that this crusade was something the Lord was orchestrating and calling us to be a part of and he would not take no for an answer (we said no several times).
Once we were in Nicaragua and deep into ministry the crusade kept coming up. Both Pastor Caesar and Pastor Benjamin from Guatemala continued to tell Neil how important it was that we go through with this…that it was what the Lord wanted. It was then that I remembered the words that Ron had spoken over us and realized that the crusade was going to fall only days after that prophecy had been spoken over us almost a year ago.
So we went for it. We could only send four each day so Neil, Dennis, Carly, and I went the first night. We found ourselves in a parking lot type setting…what was actually an open air church. There was a stage set up with lights and sound, a band, and rows and rows of chairs. Several churches were present and the place quickly filled up. We were in the middle of a barrios so there were lots of people on the outskirts standing so they could hear what we were saying. We worshiped (even after the power and lights went out…which made the crowd sing louder), we prayed, and people preached. Then it was time for the “altar call”. The stage was flooded with people that needed prayer. I was humbled. We along with several of the pastors present spent the next 45 minutes or so ministering to those that had come forward. At one point, I was standing beside Pastor Caesar praying over this woman that had come forward. After a while, she actually manifested a demon….she started screaming and jumping around. We formed a circle around her and let her struggle for about 5 minutes. Then, Pastor Caesar barely touched her head and cast out the demon in Jesus Name and she literally collapsed limp onto the ground. We moved on continuing to pray for people. After the service was over this same woman came up to me and gave me a huge hug…in fact she didn’t want to let go. She said something to me in Spanish which I couldn’t understand. I just held her and kept telling her she was now free. I looked into her eyes and they were different…there was now a light and a joy in them. While I was hugging her this woman came up to me with her baby that had a stye on her eye. She was asking me to pray and to anoint her baby with oil. So I did just that (while the other girl is still clinging to me). I prayed healing over the baby’s eye and it went away!
I was humbled that night as I realized that people were coming to me for anointing, for prayer and asking me to pray for them for healing. Why me, Lord?
Later that night as the Pastors brought us home I was overcome by the goodness of the Lord. First of all…I was just in awe of what HE had done that night, how HE had shown up and worked in the lives of many. Also, I was so humbled that the Lord blessed us with little blessings the whole night (they picked us up in a Chevy Suburban with AC, and they took us to PIZZA HUT afterwards!) When we got back to our house the pastors wanted to lay hands on us and pray for us. Pastor Caesar had told us at dinner that the Lord told him he was to pray anointing on one of us…he prayed for me three different times that night. He prayed over my hands specifically, prayed for more power of the Holy Spirit, and told me that with just one touch I could lay hands on someone and they could receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The third time they prayed for me the Spirit fell on me, and my hands began to shake uncontrollably as I started speaking in tongues. This went on for about 15 minutes and then Pastor Caesar and Pastor Luise started praying peace over me….it ended as quickly as it started. Before that night, I had had a really bad fungus outbreak on my right hand that I had picked up in Guatemala somehow and it wouldn’t go away…I noticed the next day that it was nearly gone! I’m not completely sure what happened that night…some of the details are foggy. And I can’t really explain to you about what happened to me that night, except that it DID happen, but I do know this: it was the power of the Holy Spirit. Everything that happened that night was not because of me or Pastor Caesar or anyone else but it was Jesus and what He was doing.
Why me, Lord? But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)
