Wow…wow….wow…. (I feel like a dog, well, almost, with that start!) – today, we were expecting a meeting with Pastors William Castaño and Wilmar Gomez: they came, but, as so often, a few others arrived unexpectedly with William. Sometimes, your heart sinks when you expect one thing, and then there’s a room full of people who want to draw more out of you (than you think you’ve got left in the tank).
I’d never seen these folk before, but William had them about me, and they’d driven a couple of hours, from Buga (now, now – it’s pronounce Boo-ga!) – a Pastor, his niece, and her grandmother. The gran had suffered chronic arthrosis (Arthritis is an inflammatory condition affecting joints whereas arthrosis is a degenerative condition where the cartilage of the joints are affected by wear and tear) for 40 years. She is a mere 88 years old, and her name is Flor. The niece, Diana (Dee-ana), 18, was involved in a terrible car crash 3 years ago, and, when she regained consciousness from the crash, was severely injured and delirious. She’d done a lot of damage to numerous internal organs, most of which were, by now, ok again: what wasn’t ok was her back, more especially her spine. Three extremely unsuccessful surgeries, and the insertion of titanium rods welded to bone had been put in her back, to no effect. She was in chronic pain, at the point where the rods began, and all of her lower lumbar region.
We prayed for Diana first: she could hardly move, only to the point of yelling with the pain. I told her a story about God dissolving steel rods and plates, and that he could – and would – do the same for her. It was lovely praying for her, just telling her back to in line, the rods to go, and the pain to disappear. Then I got her to stand: which she did with some reticence, then walk….. and then twist both ways from her waist…. and then touch her toes.
The look on her face when she did it was worth the visit here on it’s own… that’s when I wish I had another pair of arms to take photographs. She was – to say the least – over the moon, totally pain free, and a smile as wide as the Atlantic!
Flor then shuffled to the ‘prayer chair’ – you could see she was in awful pain, it was in every line of her face, and every movement. She could hardly move her arms, nor walk very well. In moments, she had her arms completely vertical, then behind her neck, and then got up and walked briskly around our apartment! Wonderful, wonderful God!
By now, the couple whose church we were in Saturday night, who’d been robbed at gunpoint, had 300,000 (£100) stolen, along with their phones (vital in their mountain community), had arrived. Pastor Arsenio and his wife were desolate about the loss of the money, as it was ‘earmarked’ for doing some
extension work on their church building, as well as being shattered by having guns held to their heads. I felt it right to give Arsenio my phone at the end of the meeting, and dear Simon, bless him, wrote to some friends in England to tell them of the finnacial loss, and could they help?
They did, and, in typical ‘God’ style, it was more than they had stolen, so they came here, not knowing why, to be blessed by Si with 700,000 (£230) to replace what had been stolen. Si’s posted a video on my Facebook page (I’m not sure how to link it to here as it was done on the dreaded iPhone(!)), which demonstrates just what £230 means to a family like theirs. They were gobsmacked, blessed, and in tears. So, so beautiful to hug and hold them both….
Then, out with Wilmar to eat, and now awaiting his return to take us to the extremely dangerous barrio, Simon Bolivar: but to the lovely Hernan & Heche’s church, John 3:3 – so many miracles have happened there in the past visits, we’re up for more tonight….
And I’ve just realised that I DON’T leave tomorrow…but Thursday! Fortunately, Alberto, the apartment owner, came to see me and told me…. 🙂
