Lately we have all have had some stomach issues and just feeling sick along with having some teammates experiencing some visits in the evening from something dark. From the beginning of the race we had been one of the healthier teams until Trujillo and now here, nothing serious just stomach and such issues. One teammate woke up in the evening felt something on the edge of her bed and was paralyzed with fear and started to pray and in the morning told us all of this encounter. So we decided as a team if this is to happen that we are to wake one another up to start praying over the room and each other. There were a couple of other encounters and I just remember thinking to myself ‘Do not wake me up in the middle of the night. I want to sleep.’ And if you know me, I do not do anything that deals with supernatural or demon stuff. No sir! I avoid them at all cost because it freaks me out and I do not like the unseen.
Then Monday morning around 3:30am, I woke up to notice the door was open and I did a double take and noticed a dark figure standing by the door. I instantly closed my eyes and was paralyzed with fear. I just kept talking to myself ‘I am imagining this, you didn’t see anything’ but then I remembered how we asked each other to wake up and pray if this happened. I never thought I would be the one waking someone up because I didn’t want to be woke up. All of a sudden my stomach started turning and hurting and I knew right then we needed to pray but I couldn’t move. Laying there in pain I started praying for protection over all of us and that I knew all of our sickness had been spiritual, instantly I felt this cooling presence around me and my stomach started to calm, I knew it was God covering me with his protection. I also knew right then I needed to wake up Chelsea to pray but that would include me getting out of my tent which was not about to happen. So I started to think of ways to wake her without getting out of my bed, one way was shining my headlamp at Hilary, whose tent was between our beds, to wake her to then wake Chelsea cause I was not getting out of my tent because all I could think of is those scenes in those possession movies, for instance I would step out of my tent and then be dragged out of the room by this dark figure. Finally I realized it was more important to wake Chelsea to pray then to lay paralyzed by fear, which would have been so easy to do and just try to fall back asleep. So I unzipped my tent, heart racing, and walked over to her and shook her a couple of times and she kept sleeping and I started to think ‘great now I can’t even get her to wake’ but I knew that was what Satan would want. So I continued to shake her and finally she woke up. I told her we needed to pray, she knew that right then it was time to wake up fully. So we sat there on the edge of her bed and prayed over our team and room for God to place his guardian angels at the door and for his continued healing on all of us.
During these times that I have been sick every single month and spiritual attacks from Satan, it has been so easy to think ‘can I just go home’ and how much easier life would be if I was home right now. But then I think of everything that God has been doing in me and using me for that I realize I would rather have ‘butt-pee’ every month, fighting the war for the Kingdom, and diving deeper in my relationship with God then to be sitting at home doing the same routine and being at a stand-still with life. He told us that it would not be easy but I know that He always has bigger and better things in my future. He will not test me more than I can bare.
