It’s been a few years since I went to Los Naranjos, a barrio right in the far north east of Agua Blanca. Naranjos, of course, means oranges, a more unsuitable name for the place would be very hard to find! It’s close to the dangerous areas we’ve already been in this past week – Los Lagos, Mojica, Ciudad Cordoba, and is, itself, a place where the astonishment of the pastors, Carlos and Leonore Vergara that grongoes would go to their church, spoke volumes!
Robert is visibly ‘relaxing’ in his second visit here when we go to places like it! He doesn’t take a change of trousers anymore! The church is called ‘Ministerio de Restauracion el Alfarero’ – that doesn’t really translate into English sensibly – Restoration the Potter – but it’s one of those places where you’re driven to the steel cage door of the building, ushered quite rapidly inside, and then padlocked and bolted in….
I reckon there were somewhere between 75-100 there, and there was a lovely atmosphere – a real sense of the Holy Spirit and God’s Presence – during the worship. Robert shared for
about 10 minutes, very, very well. He spoke about the miracle God is unfolding in his family, with his terrific sons. As for me, I’d gone with about 5 messages in my head, and, of course, used none of them! – but really sensed that God was saying stuff that hadn’t been in my head and that I hadn’t had time to ‘process’ out of existence, or chicken out of saying. When I think back nearly 30 years, reading word for word the notes I’d prepared in Filofax paper (remember Filofax??!), reams of pages, these days it is so much easier….though far more nerve wracking and challenging!
The moment I made the appeal for people to come forward for healing, the usual tsunami of bodies surrounded us. Initially, the first couple of folk didn’t ‘seem’ to have anything major happen for them, though they felt ‘heat’ and ‘fire’ as Rob and I did a joint praying session for them. And then we saw God go ‘on a roll’…. As always, knees got healed(!) – one young lady’s knee was moving around under my hand as we prayed for her. Another guy had all his pain go, but was left with a joint ‘click’ – which disappeared instantly.
A couple of people – one a young lad, the other an older man – both deaf in one ear – heard: the boy for the first time in his life, as he was born deaf. The smile on his fast when Johan whispered in his deaf ear, and he heard, was worth the airfare to come here! , so gA lady with breast cancer felt intense heat and was sweating profusely: I guess only a ‘private’ examination back in the quiet of her own home will determine that the tumour has gone. Another lady, who’d had cancer, and survived, was having real trouble with her blood, the haemoglobin level was far too low: she began very cold (temperature, not attitude!), and in seconds was basically ‘on fire’ and feeling really well. She’d looked pretty pale and ‘drawn’ before we prayed.
One lovely bloke, a truck driver called Jhon, had trouble from head to toe, it seemed: especially lower back and legs, not good stuff for a trucker! What’s more, he’d gone to renew his truckers drivers license, and they’d failed him on his eyesight, his right eye below 30% vision. His other eye wasn’t brilliant, and he couldn’t read…. but only for a few moment,s then he read from translator Johan’s Bible. He was over the moon as God then healed his back and his knees!
Countless headaches, mostly migraines, and with the sufferers in church with them (how many people in the western world would stay home because they’d got a migraine?) had them disappear instantly. Asthma – at least a couple of people were healed of it, and knew it: a young man with acute sinus problems was healed…. and so it went on – and on – for four hours of praying! That, after a 1½ hour meeting, then lunch, kindly provided by a lady from the church, who’d had her eyesight and leg pain healed. By the time we got back home, the ‘meting’ including the drive, was just a tad over 7 hours…. we were knackered, but poor Johan, the translator, was well ‘out of it’ by the end of lunch. I so, so admire translators: they work so hard, and Johan is great.
So, it’s Brian’s last evening with us: doubtless we’ll go out and eat somewhere, just to celebrate what for him, has been an amazing week, way beyond his wildest expectations and imaginings! Brian had a great time at Wilmar’s church, his post is on my page, so blessed that Brian’s moved from ‘halting, anxious’ testimony to preaching for 20 minutes without notes this morning. It blesses me more than I can ever tell you when people who come with me not only see the raw power of God in action, through miracles and healings, but having shifted paradigms in what they thought they could do…. I love that. Maybe it’s the only legacy I’ll ever get to leave…..
