God is on the move here is Palenque… I´m actually a little sad that we have to move on in a week. It´s been a pretty amazing week. I haven´t blogged in a bit (since the 13th?), but I´ve got one coming… it´ll blow your socks off!!! I just forgot to bring my jump drive to the internet cafe. ANyway, it recounts what happened on thursday morning.
Thursday afternoon I ended up going to 2 more houses, prayed for a couple, and for a single mom who´s trying to make it on her own. At the couple´s house, we prayed for the husband who wants to get his act together but has been struggling with alcoholism since his baby girl died in an accident. We prayed over them for a while, and then we went to the other woman´s house. She had 3 dogs (one looked like Scott´s old dog Pallas, except very malnourished) and one calf (Sequoia´s size). She wanted prayer for her son who has become rebellious and for her husband who´s been living in the States for 2 years. God totally gave me words to speak to this woman.. He told me to tell her that it´s not her fault that her husband ran out, and that her son is rebelling… that it´s not up to her to make things right. God is in control, so you can let go! He´s already got them, He has plans for them too! I could physically feel how lonely she was. She just collapsed into my arms… I felt like I was hugging my own mom.
Later that night we went to a cell group at a house behind the church. The night before we had prayed for healing over a man who´s arm had been paralyzed from a stroke (for at least a year he hadn´t used the arm), and Thursday night he showed us that he could raise his arm to parallel with the floor, and although he couldn´t move his fingers, he did regain feeling in them. He´s been coming by the church for the last couple of days for his daily massage and range of motion work… we´ve even been giving him stretches for him to do at home. I think he just likes the fact that people care about him enough to want to see him be made whole. I think a cultural issue here is that people have very little self worth. People don´t really care about eachother, they may even live together, but they show little emotion to eachother.
After dinner (which is served at 8 pm, lunch is at 2), we went back to the single woman´s home to drop her nephew off (who is going to be a pastor when he´s older… Chad wrote a good blog about him) and pray for his family. His sister had a stomach illness, and his mom had a fever. After we finished praying for healing his mom said that she knows her daughter is healed. Her faith is amazing!
All that in one day!
Yesterday morning and this morning we´ve been learning different dramas set to music… pray for me about this. I´m really not looking forward to anything drama-ish. I actually get a sick feeling when I have to practice this stuff. I don´t know if I was cut out for acting. It´s weird, I can go up in front of buches of people and talk, or sing, but when you ask me to act, I get all scared and timid, and actually feel like puking. God is going to have to stretch me here. I´m hoping we´ll be with other teams when we have to do drama stuff.
Today after getting stretched, Scott and I went out for a date (very rare that we get a moment alone). We end up having to be very intentional, going out for meals, spending $. If anyone out there feels led to help us out for personal spending money so that we can continue to work on our own marriage (having alone time) we´d appreciate anything you could give (and send it to my mom… you can get her address by emailing her [email protected]). We´re hoping that every once in a while we can even get a hotel room away from the group to even have one night alone. WE´re realizing how intentional we really have to be… there are days that we just pass eachother and don´t really even feel married. But we know God´s in control, He´s got a plan, and we´re where we are supposed to be.
Tonight we have a youth service and Scott and I will be sharing a lit bit, we´re getting pizzas, playing games, and singing a lit before we get into our message. Tomorrow we have a prayer service in the morning at 8 am, then the actual service tomorrow night at 6… those things can go on forever. Scott and I had been sleeping in the sanctuary because they have ceiling fans in there, but we´re moving to our tent tonight to get a little more quiet time.
Monday is our day off… the guys are going to help Angel Perez cut down trees in the jungle in the morning, for sort of a guys bonding time. So I´ll be Scott-less for the morning… maybe the girls will go shopping or something. Or maybe I´ll get to sleep a little more!
Only a week and a half left in Palenque. I can´t believe it… this month is flying by! God is moving more quickly than we are… if that´s possible! (All things are possible with God.)
