Category Archives: Travel

I’d have to confess that I think to wake and get up at 0500 on a Sunday for church is rather outside outside my bounds of delight! But – it was to go to Tulua (pronounced Two-lwah), a city I’ve come to love going to, made many friends among pastors, leaders, and members of some great churches, and seen God do some amazing things. There have been many healings and miracles there over the last few years of tripping north towards Bogota for a couple of hours (Bogota is 8 hours north). Church was at 0900: the hospitality of Iglesia Manantial de Amor (Springs of Love), was outstanding – coffee immediately we arrived, cooked breakfast about 30 minutes later: the care they took of us was exemplary. Really lovely lunch after the service, too….

Again, all the guys spoke – a bit nerve wracking maybe in front of a good few hunded people. Adrian spoke well about the determination to get to Jesus for healing – many walking miles, waiting hours, but all were healed. Interesting that when you read the account in Matthew 15:29ff, Jesus saw the crowd for healing, and SAT DOWN. Those who know me, and know my ‘style’ will know that I’ve always sat down to pray with people, individually. To me, I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t see anywhere where Jesus got them to stand in a line, walked along the line, shouted at them to be healed and pushed them over…. yes, I know, not everyone’s pushed, but there’s a psychology about being among the ones who DON’T fall over, and many go over under ‘peer’ pressure. Personally, I’d prefer to stop people falling over, so you can ask them, ‘So what are you feeling?’, ‘Has the pain gone?’, ‘Any unusual sensations?’, ‘Do you know that you’re healed?’….

Adrian was very visual on Sunday! Picked on one poor Usher, and jumped on his back (Adrian’s a big bloke!), and had the man carry him up the quite steep stairs to the lectern (I had a wee bit of trouble walking up them with my ailment!!) – demonstrating that people were carried to Jesus. I’ve seen many carried to meetings, when in the wets, they’d have stayed home…. then he reversed the roles, and carried the no doubt terrified Usher (quite a big bloke!) DOWN the stairs the other side of the platform! Point made, though – desperation, expectation, belief + Jesus = healing.

I wonder, do you think Wesley or Wigglesworth or Spurgeon gave people piggy backs? 🙂 One of the myriad things I love about Colombia, and Cali, Tulua, and the state they are in, is the expectation, and the huge profile that they give to healing and miracles – almost the reverse in many western churches – primarily, I guess, ‘in case it doesn’t work’ (what a load of….erm…basura (rubbish!) – or the belief that the enemy is clever in inventing new diseases, that cancer is something you pray for in hope rather than expectation (see the last blog and the story of Astrid! – and read back over years of blogs if you want to see hundreds, maybe thousands, healed of it). I get so angry when I hear prayers for healing that include ‘Lord, if it’s your will’. We KNOW the will of God for healing: Psalm 103: 1-5 is God’s social security system (‘forget not all his benefits’) – who HEALS ALL OF YOUR SICKNESS AND DISEASE. We know the will of Jesus for us for healing – ‘I’ll send my Holy Spirit… (then Paul:) and you’ll speak in new tongues….through to gifts of healings (plural) and miracles (plural) and back to Jesus: you WILL lay your hands on the sick and they WILL get well….. ‘This is the Kingdom – heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, raise the dead: freely you’ve received, freely give’ – Jesus again, Matt 10: 7-8. There’s another of my ‘bugbears’ – charging for ministry. I wonder how much Jesus charged? And how charging its into ‘freely receive, FREELY give…’? Rant over!!

The place was packed – or bunged if you’re reading this in Northern Ireland! Again, people saved – including a young brother and sister, Harold 17 and Angie 20, both having their bodies slowly closed down and destroyed by Muscular Dystrophy. Harold has had a bad time with suicidal and murderous thoughts (those do tend to take on reality here). Thanney led them hrough a prayer of forgiveness, and then commitment to Jesus. I prayed for all sorts of things for them, Peace came over Harold, and Angie felt tingling and heat in her legs, legs which she’d couldn’t feel a few moments earlier…. A lovely young lady, Claudia, paralysed totally for some months, brought to church because  – I know – that her family KNEW she’d be healed> That’s one of the significant differences between here nd the western world: you’re paralysed, have to be carried around in a plastic garden chair – so you go to church because you EXPECT to be healed. All sorts of things happened to her, changed for her – pins and needles in her legs, more heat, a smile so broad it was contagious, peace… She stood for the first time in a long time, yes- with support from family, but it’s the determination AFTER the expectation that God adds even more power to. I really sensed she’d walk again, very soon.

Andew’s Facebook post from the weekend:

• Today we were at the church in Tulua. It was filled, probably 250-300 people. After we had done some “corporate” prayer for some of the most common ailments in the area, there were still lots of people who wanted individual prayer. Personally I prayed for Rosa, who had cysts in her chest;

  Leyla, Erica & Luciana ( mum & 2 daughters ). Erica ( I’m guessing about 12 ) wanted her dad, Hector, to be healed. She told me he is terminally ill with HIV/AIDS;

  A little girl of 4 (unfortunately I don’t recall her name) who was suffering from vomiting and fevers. The doctors couldn’t/hadn’t given a diagnosis.

  Valerie (15/16) who had great difficulty in breathing through her nose. As we prayed for her nose/sinus, I could here her starting to sniff repeatedly as her nose/sinus cleared. She left crying for joy.

  Monica, who was suffering with pains in her arms and legs. She said she could definite feel her pain easing as we prayed.

  Diana & Diego, a mother and son who wanted peace and stability in their lives.

  Maria, a lady probably in her 80’s. She had already had a operation on her brain, and was due for another. They weren’t able to tell us 100% what the issue was (even through my brilliant translator Cesar ), so we prayed for her as best we could.

  Gerardo, a man in his 70’s who was suffering with Tinitus. He left with a smile on his face, and no noise in his ears.

  And then there was my friend in the picture, Pedro. 20 years ago he was shot in the head! You can clearly see the scarring on his skull. He is on medication to prevent convulsions. His speech is laboured. He WAS, badly paralysed down his right side, arm and leg. We prayed for him for quite some time, and, whilst I’d love to say he left skipping , dancing and singing, that wouldn’t be true. What is true, however, he did walk out the building considerably easier than he came in – and that comes from Pedro himself !!!! I believe that his healing will continue over the coming days and weeks. We also prayed for his speech again. I sensed that he was “scared to speak”, so we prayed that the spirt of fear would be lifted from him and that he would start to talk that much, his friends and family would have to tell him to “shut up”. I firmly believe, as does Pedro, that all of this will happen.

  All in all, not “a bad day at the office” !

  

For some years now, I’ve been friends with, and got to know well, Dr Ana Elisa Bustos Gomez. Ana’s an eye surgeon: she works in the hospital 100 hours a week, and she’s as remarkable a lady as Ana Beiba, they are both heroes of mine. I’ve been with Ana Bustos many times to one of the worst places I’ve been to on earth – underneath a road bridge, where a large community of street people live – drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes, solvent abusers – every form of addiction. It truly is ‘unreal’ if it weren’t for the reality of it…. Doctors here don’t get paid a lot – I know that from various of the as friends, even top brain surgeons. Ana cooks hot meals for the ‘bridge people’ at home, and takes it to them once or twice a week – out of her own pocket, and there are a lot of them. I love going to help hand out the food, and talking with people who live there, praying for them. There have been healings there, as everywhere here: it’s tragic what drugs do to people. One of the guys there I’ve got to know quite well over the years, he speaks 5 languages, but can’t work because of drugs….

As well as the ‘bridge’, Ana has a house – that’s being exceedingly complimentary to it! – where she takes in 140 street kids every day, feeds them, clothes them, teaches them, teaches them about Jesus, and loves them to bits. Again, all out of her own pocket….. there is no state help, no benefits, no rich foundations that fund the two Anas: in the house, the only electricity is ‘borrowed’ from a street vendor, who has two 1.5 volt (I’m reliably informed by Thanney) wires giving light  and heat to keep hot food ‘warm’…. Ana’s borrowed one of those cables, as the previous tenants didn’t pay the bill (as I understand it, for 10 years). The amount outstanding was 1,500,000 pesos – about £450 or 500 euros, US$550, AU$700. A totally impossible amount for Ana to find. Thanney discovered that they ran lights, fans, all sorts of electrical things, off that one cable – the thickness of bell wire. It’s a house fire waiting to happen – with 140 kids inside. Oh, and no fuses, of courses… In a western house (I’m learning a lot from Thanney!) it would be minimum 12 volt cable, protected, insulated, and fused…. Te one skinny cable also meant, of course, that Thanney wouldn’t be able to operate the tools he’s brought here, to leave behind with a builder who can’t afford to buy anything like them….

Ana came this morning to pick Thanney up – and the other 3 guys all went off with him and Ana. The hold up in beginning any work, and doing anything significant, was going to be the electrics: by the way, there’s no water either…. I wrote a post last night to put on Facebook to see if I could raise the £450: then laid awake thinking, think-praying, as to what could be done. When I woke up, the only response provoked….how shall I word it….or not…. it provoked a response borne out of my initial reaction! Money for the trip seemed irrelevant in the light of the lives of 140+ kids, so Ana had the money, has paid the bill, and the guys are underway. New sanitary fittings arrive this afternoon, along with a lot more other materials. Ana burst into tears when I gave her the money this morning…. the bridge people and the street kids are burned into her compassionate heart.

It’s going to take a  miracle to get this, and one of two other jobs done, in the 13 days we have here: but it’s a city of miracles!

What a wonderful first day of ministry Sunday was. A day populated by two wonderful churches, lovely worship, and loads and loads of people healed. Even better, after Adrian had preached in the Sunday evening service, in Siloe – (and, I discovered from the Pastor, Samuel, the heart of the most dangerous barrio in this, one of the most dangerous quarters of the city), at least 30 – maybe more – people gave their lives to the Lord. Foreigners don’t go to churches like this – well, most foreigners! (but then I feel ‘Caleño’ – a native of Cali), and my sense was that people had come to the meeting partly because there WERE gringoes there. God’s love emptied out over them like the Victoria Falls, and lives were transformed. I do love God so, so much for loving people who many would think don’t deserve to be loved….including me.

In the morning, at Wilmar’s church, the worship as always there, was wonderful. All the guys spoke, just for a few minutes – for Davy, the first time I think he’s spoken publicly in any form of meeting), Adrian preached, I shared a bit at the end. Loads responded for healing – healing here includes – as everywhere, of course – physical, but you pray for a lot of people who want prayer for their families – kids in prison for drug offences, murder, you name it: for financial blessing from God, they’re about to be evicted….. praying for them, you get involved in their lives, which is one of the reasons I just CAN’T have a line of people at the front, pushing them over, saying ‘be healed’….. Sit with them, hold them, hug them….empathise, show compassion… God’s love is EMPTIED OUT over them….

Pain went, bodies were healed, sickness disappeared, peace and hope came… Wilmar’s mum, Maria, who is just so adorable, came to tell me about her grand daughter, Maria Jose,who I had the joy of praying with last year, and her mum, Wilmar’s sister, Oliva. Maria Jose had a serious, incurable brain condition (I think she is about 8 years old). Oliva – and the family – were desperate: Maria told me Sunday that Maria Jose is totally healed, and doing wonderfully well….. God…how do you do it? Thank you, thank you, thank you that you do….

I could list names and diseases, but you’ve read them before in past years – and, honestly, I think some people are bored with reading them… I’ll never get bored of praying for them though, and every time, every meeting, every person, amazes me….

In the afternoon, the first time I’ve been in a church meeting in Siloe (Sil – oh- ay): though I’ve been in houses with siccarios, drug dealers, prostitutes, murderers – and been under the same waterfall….. once upon a time – for the first 4-5 years I came here, the people I came to stay with then wouldn’t even want to drive along the road at the foot of the hill that Siloe is ‘built’ on – it’s one house built on another, from tin, bits of wood, anything in fact – as it was too dangerous, especially with a gringo in the car. So it became a ‘bucket list’ place for me to go into, especially to preach there! To just say that God was there would be to denigrate God: you could feel him, cut the presence of the Holy Spirit with a knife…. all the guys shared again, after a lovely time of worship. I just felt that Adrian was carrying something special that day, so though I’d have loved to have preached, I asked him to – and salvation came…. 30 or more, like I’ve said, out of about 80 (the place was packed – bunged, if you’re Irish!) – wall to wall. I shared a bit from Psalm 103, and then – the tsunami of people wanting prayer – probably all 80 – and the drenching of the waterfall of God’s love….

A lady, virtually blind and hardly able to walk, the end product of diabetes – saw perfectly, and walked. Osteoarthritis went from legs and knees especially!! THANK YOU, JESUS!! I’m more in faith than ever this trip, that my turn is coming…. especially as they’ve been so excruciating! All manner of pain – gastritis, heart pain, joint pain, kidney pain…. I prayed with Thanny, and his praying saw a number of instant healings and miracles…. he was obviously blitzed by it as he was quieter than usual!!! I’m so thrilled that, on day one, the guys saw what is commonplace here: my principle of ‘dropping them in it’ DOES work…. :). I could go on and on listing miracles and healings…..

Yesterday, though, the enemy struck again, and we woke to the sad news that Lee was going to have to return home, as his lovely wife, Katie (they are such dear, dear wonderful friends) had lost their ‘not-long-pregnant’ baby. It’s not the forum, nor is it my place, for their story to be told: please pray for Lee, Katie, and Mary, their utterly gorgeous 2 year old daughter – a miracle herself – as they go through this time of loss and grieving. Lee was only here 56 hours, but his impact was great: he flew home last night. I miss him, cos he’s truly one of my best mates: I’m sad that he’s had to go, but even more sad as to why he’s had to go. And he DID have to go….