Last day in Panajachel PART: 2
After hours of study and Agora, a movie about the early “Christian� church, Angie and I we allowed to slip out for a bit to say goodbye to Marleni and her four children. We had met with Marleni a few times talking about favorite biblical verses and playing with the kids. We had promised the children we would make kites with them but because of the surprise “lock down� bible study we could only take them to buy kites and say a quick goodbye before heading back to church. We hopped in a tuk tuk and made our way to their house but when we walked into the common area no one was home. Not wanting to keep Pastor Ben waiting we decided to just buy kites and leave them for the kids. After about 8 stores didn’t have the kites that we usually see everywhere we were really running out of time, again we hopped into a tuktuk and said “take us to buy kites! We don’t have a lot of time.� Apparently most kites in Panajachel are made to order because there was about a half hour wait for 1 to be handmade and we needed 4! From 2 different stores we bought the 4 kites and rushed back to Marleni’s house. I asked Angie to hold our taxi while I ran down the narrow alley between buildings and houses to drop off the merchandise quickly.
When I made my way back to the tuk tuk true to form Angie was surrounded by Guatemalans and chatting. She had been explaining to our taxi driver why were were in Panajachel, the work we were doing and when she mentioned that we are missionaries a few people walking by had stopped to talk and ask for help. We gave them Ben’s info and told them about Mi Reto and the projects they do. But one woman asked us if we would go and pray for her. Angie and I looked at each other knowing we would be late, knowing we would probably get reprimanded in some way but also knowing this was why we signed up for the race. I said “I guess we’re going to go pray for her.�
Trusting that this was totally of God, having been in the ally for only a few minutes when we were running around and should have been either saying good bye too Marleni’s family or in our bible study and it being the same time as the lady walking by and hearing the word “missionerasâ€�, we followed this stranger through unlit alleys winding behind the main street. We could have been walking right into a dangerous situation but we knew that we were being led by the Spirit. We finally reached the lady house and met her husband and 3 daughters who were all ready to pray for their meager circumstances’. We had been told on our walk to her home that her husband had health and heart problems and that her youngest daughter had bronchitis. We entered their home, a room about 10×10, empty save for two dingy twin beds and lit by one thin candle and were so humbled that God had chosen us to bring His kingdom to some of his beloved children in need. We got to praying.
We stood in a circle hand in hand and started to pray. I wouldn’t say that pray is my forte and quite honestly since we had had bible study with Ben 3-4 days a week, 2-5 hrs a day on demonology with pictures of hacked up corpses and recordings of exorcisms I had been have trouble sleeping, a spirit of fear was working its way into my mind, but as we prayed the Holy Spirit completely took over. The morbid subject matter of our study was not helping me to walk in faith and the authority of Jesus but when the Spirit took over all fear left me and for the first time I started to understand the power we have in proclaiming God’s word. Prayer flowed out of us for about an hour but felt like 10 minutes. At one point, while praying with my eyes closed I could feel darkness and evil start to slowly close in on us and just as fast as it came our prayers like a light shined so bright and completely obliterated any trace of evil. That is when I truly realized that evil never stands a chance like a bug under my foot, I am afraid of spiders but all I have to do is step on it, it never stood a chance. We claimed the home for the Kingdom, cast out sickness, proclaimed God’s word and freedom over the family. Before we left we ministered in broken Spanish and reminded them that God would provide their every need. Angie and I left feeling energized and full of life, not caring if we met an angry teacher when me got back. Fortunately Ben had barely missed our presence and when a teammate asked us how our visit went we got to tell them everything. We had dinner with our favorite family whose home we helped complete and got to say our goodbyes, but I’ll remember the night as the first time that I followed God down dark back alleys to one of the greatest blessing I have yet experienced and that it was possibly the one and only thing that Ben told us we did right all month which just added to the blessing that it was.
This month we are in Ometepe, Nicaragua working at an orphanage. Stay tuned for the 53hrs it took to get here, the 4th plague of Egypt that struck us and bribing guards to let us sleep on a ferry! I will have very little internet access this month L I am reading all your comments and please keep writing me though I am not always be able to respond. LOVE YOU ALL!
