January 2008: Dallas, TX – Have my first “God-dream”…one that I KNEW was from the Lord the moment I woke up…I KNEW I had to write it down, though I also KNEW it would forever be sealed in my memory. Generally speaking, it had to do with a latin-american boy calling out for his father as he was drowning; I jumped in to try to save him and woke up before knowing the outcome.
October 2009: Possum Kingdom, TX – “God-dream” about someone pushing me deeper and deeper into a bottomless sea; yet, there was no fear (I haaaaate deep water, especially in the ocean) or resistance from me.
January 2011: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic – “God-dream” where I attempt to save a good friend from drowning and can’t find her, then a moment later I take a huge step of faith based solely on a word from the Lord and save a complete stranger from drowning.
March 2011: Trujillo, Peru – “God-vision” out of NOWHERE as I was praying on the rooftop one morning, of a young latin-american boy, with two small, white flies/crabs crawling on his eyes. It. Was. Intense.
[There are MANY MANY other details, but for sake of time and carpel tunnel, I’m leaving them out and praying you get the overall gist of what the Lord is trying to say…I promise to tell you the entire story someday if you’d like to know :)]
Tuesday, April 12, 2011, 9:00 a.m.: Poneloya Beach, Nicaragua – 16 yr. old Anthony Cadena is swept out to sea. (member of New Song, a ministry in Candelaria where one of our teams, Hagiazo, was working)
Tuesday, April 12, 2011, 11:00 p.m. – God brings all these dreams and visions back to my mind just before I fall asleep. Suddenly, I find myself BELIEVING that God wants him found and brought back to life. And that somehow I have a role to play in it all. I realize people are going to think I’m insane. In fact, I’m kinda wondering that myself. 🙂
Wednesday, April 13, 2011, 4:00 p.m. – Erin, Denise, Kellen and I head to the beach. For what? We weren’t really sure at the time. Once we got there, we decided to just walk the beach praying. Then we asked the Lord to show us Anthony’s father, who was apparently somewhere on the beach searching for him. As the sun began to set and the four of us began to pray in unity, three men approach us out of nowhere. They spoke so fast, and I was so caught off guard, that all I heard was “Anthony”. Turned out to be Anthony’s uncle, his dad, and his dad’s friend. We prayed with them, for them, and took them to dinner. (while we were out, another group had gone to a different beach to pray and ask the Lord to bring his body back)
Thursday, April 14, 2011, 5:15 a.m. – (while teams Rooted and Wreckonciled stayed in Bethel worshiping and interceding) Erin, Denise, Jeremiah and I head to the beach with Anthony’s uncle to meet up with his dad and friend to take a fishing boat out and search for his body. The Spirit was heavy…we all knew we would find him.
Thursday, April 14, 2011, 8:00 a.m. – Anthony’s father finds him on the shore. The four of us spend the next two hours laying hands on Anthony and praying fervently for God to bring him back to life. Kinda feels like an out-of-body experience when I look back on it…it was like the moment we saw him, our Spirit’s took over…they were all in complete unity, and the Lord was speaking soooooo clearly. We were full of faith, believing with everything we were that God’s will was for Anthony to live on this earth again, and that God, for whatever reason had purposed the four of us to literally pray that into existence. [A LOT of crazy things happened during these two hours]
Thursday, April 14, 2011, around 4:00 p.m. – Anthony’s funeral and burial. At first, our faith was shaken, since we were convinced we would see Anthony walking down the beach earlier that morning. But then we clung to the stories of Jesus, of Lazarus…who had to be buried in order to be raised from the grave. The longer Anthony was thought to be gone, the more people heard of it and saw him, the more glory the Lord would get when He brought him back, we reasoned.
Thursday, April 14, 2011, 11:00 p.m. – Rooted, Wreckonciled and us Squad Leaders pull an all night prayer/Bible-reading vigil; each person taking an hour shift and therefore us reading through the entire New Testament in a night…asking God to speak about Anthony.
Friday, April 15, 2011, 7:00 a.m. – Convinced that since 9:00 a.m. this day would make it exactly three days since Anthony went missing…(Someone else rose again after three days….)…today was going to be the day!
Friday, April 15, 2011, 10:30 a.m. – We take communion. And now I’m clinging to the story of Lazarus…who was in the grave four days…still hope…surely tomorrow.
Saturday, April 16, 2011 11:00 p.m. – The day passed, but the Lord kept speaking loud and clear…”resurrection life!”…then He miraculously returned my flip flop after the ocean swallowed it for a good 45 minutes…Still hope! Maybe tomorrow….it being Easter and all….
Sunday, April 17th, 2011 – Easter comes and goes.
Monday, April 18th, 2011 – Now I’ve got questions….I thought God was speaking life, not death?
Which we’ll talk about in Part II…
Disclaimer: Like I said before…there is A LOT to this story that I’ve chosen to leave out, plus more that I will talk about in upcoming blogs…so, know that A LOT of people were involved in many different ways in the life and loss of Anthony…this is just my own personal perspective (and really only about 1/50th of it).
