Finally I am sharing a story from ministry! I know a lot of you have asked to hear more about ministry and thank you for being patient between the transitions between months, this is all new to me and I’m trying to find the perfect balance. I also don’t want you all to think that because of the videos that I have been posting that I was sent on a vacation and not being sent to the mission field.
God is doing things in my life but more importantly each and every morning before we jump into the trucks and head to a different village each day I pray to God to let him use me as a vessel. Thursday morning we loaded the trucks and went to one of the local villages to do prayer walks. This type of prayer walk was not anything I have done before, we would go from house to house and meet people and simply ask if they needed prayer. We walked up to our first home and met a sweet old lady that said she was sick and just asked for prayer over her illness. My teammate Erika prayed over her and we all laid hands on her and once we were done Erika asked if there was anyone else who needed to be prayed for and she pointed and said that her son needed prayer. Her son motioned us over and told us he wanted us to go to his house with him.
We got to his house and he introduced himself, his name was Manuel and he also introduced us to his wife and his grandson. Manuel proceeded to tell us that he was ill and that he had pain in his joints (elbows and knees) and his wife was currently ill with the Chikungunya virus. My teammate Luke prayed over them individually and we chatted and then left. We moved on to the next house where a girl was asking to be prayed over for health and didn’t want to give details, while my teammate Anna prayed over her I could not get Manuel out of my mind and I kept thinking “maybe I should go back and pray for him.” Anna finished prayed and we started to leave this home and I thought “okay God, lets go pray at one more house and if I still feel this way after then I will tell the team I want to turn around and go back to Manuel’s house”. We left and started walking down the road and someone from the house we were just praying at stopped us and told us no one lived down the road and that it was a dead end.
At this point I KNEW what had to happen, God was telling me “No. I think you’re going to go now!” So we turn around and I knew I had to tell the team, so I called to Erika and asked if we could go back and her and our Squad Mentor Ben both look at me with big smiles and Erika tells me “yes!” We headed down Manuel’s road and my teammates are feeling good and ask if I need some Rocky theme music as I lead us back and I turned around and confessed that my heart was beating so fast it was about to beat right out of my chest. We entered his yard and waved and smiled and yelled “HOLA!” We finally make it to him and Erika explained to him why we were back and that I had heard from the lord to come back and pray for him. He was glad that the lord had said that and let me pray over him. I prayed and I honestly didn’t know what to say, I prayed for healing, miracles, strength, and an overall sense of love.
Once I was done praying he invited us all to sit and chat with him and we got to ask him some questions to get to know him better. He told us his testimony, how he first became a Christian at age 17 and he currently is 50 (he does not look 50). How he truly came to know Jesus was through his wife and his sister. He has such a huge heart for Jesus that people think he is crazy. He told us 2 stories of how God has shown healing in his life. One was how his daughter was in the hospital for a heart surgery and he prayed on his bike the whole way to the hospital and everyone asked him what he was doing and he said praying for his daughter and they said he was crazy. Then he got a call from the doctor saying she was completely healed, he was so happy and just praised Jesus. I’m not quite sure if God sent me back to simply pray over him but I think he sent us back to build the relationship with him, to build community and speak apparent truth into his life and to see how big his heart and faith was in the Lord.
Thank You for letting me share this story that God has placed into my life. Thank you all for being so amazing and supportive. Please feel free to share this story with anyone and everyone. Tomorrow I will be posting a video from our most recent adventure day Sledding down an active volcano.
Also I will repeat this every post but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE pray about financially supporting me. I have a deadline on 2/29 of $13,000 and I am currently at $10,944. So I need $2,056 to stay on the field and to continue doing this amazing work on the field. I will not get the opportunity to share stories like this or ones like the young girl today who walked up to us and said “I’m ready to accept Jesus into my life can you help pray with me?” God is working every second of every day in more ways then we will ever know and I need help to stay here. Also as a note any fun days off I have and the adventures that I have are all out of my own pocket so every donation is going towards, food, lodging, transportation, etc. Sledding down a volcano, going to the beach, or going out for dinner with my teammates are all out of my own personal expenses. So please know that every donation is used properly and for the kingdom of God not for my fun days. Thank You!
God Bless,
Jenrae
