Peru 2011 - Marilyn & LTI students - Blog #4

There is a blog that precedes this, but the computer that it was written on was left in Jicamarca and we are now in Chincha.

Jason
Monday
Hi, I found my deodorant. Thanks for praying for me if you did, if not, oh well. Monday was a free day. We first went to Pastor Augustines house, they were very hospitable to us. They served us cappuccino and clementines. Very delicious. Afterward we went to the inca market. I looked around with Dylon and Marco as the girls went their own way. We found some very…interesting items there. I helped Dylon get a 20 soles item for only 14 soles using my master negotiating techniques. Dylon and Marco were making fun of my negotiating techniques, I told em don’t hate the player, hate the game. After the market we went to Chili’s. It tasted just like the Chili’s at home in Fort Myyyyyers. After Chili’s we hung out at the mall. The mall was very nice. Then we got home at night and Dylon Pastor and I were in the kitchen and its almost pitch black on his property. Pastor was telling us a story about demonic activity that he’s encountered while in Peru. In the middle of a sentence his face turns to stone, he looks behind where Dylon and I were standing and he says “what was that?” my heart almost stopped because I thought he saw a demon or something. I turn around to see what he was looking at…IT WAS A MOUSE. Good grief. It turns out that I am more afraid of mice than I would be of a dumb demon. I actually already knew that but this wat evaaa. So Pastor comes up with this master plan of how we were going to catch this mouse. His master plan consisted of Dylon moving the bucket that he suspected the mouse was behind, then I would step on it with my shoe. I said absolutely not. I was not going to step on an ugly mouse with my shoe. Na son. Long story short, Dylon moved the bucket and there was no mouse. The end.

Tuesday
Today was marvelous!!! We went to minister at a school that is 9 miles away from Pastor David’s house, but it took us 1.5 hours to arrive there. Going through the mountains took up a nice portion of the time. We were supposed to have 3 sessions, but the principal only had us do two, im not complaining. I was going to do my story about Jesus feeding 5,000 people acting as the apostle Andrew. The group that was taken out was a group of 25 kids from age 3-5. While the story is fun to do, it is very exhausting because you have to be very animated and energetic with the kids or else they will find you very boring. And after having done the story 5 times in one day on Friday I don’t have much desire to do the story for a long time. So the 1st session we had was about 120 kids age 6-11. This session was good, but before the 2nd session I felt something in my spirit that made me want to explode. I was so excited to share the gospel message with these teens. The 2nd session was about 90 kids ages 12-15. We started with a drum line that they enjoyed very much. Debie stayed home to recover from sickness, and Jovanna (Pastor David’s niece and one of our translators) was willing to learn Debie’s part in the drum line. It worked out fantastic. After Drum line Emily shared her testimony with the group. After the testimony Dylon and I did a skit. The teens enjoyed this very much as well. It starts out being funny then has a dramatic twist as the skit goes from the natural to the spiritual. After the skit Dylon presented the gospel message to the teens, and taught about growing in relationship with Christ and being filled with the Holy Spirit. After Dylon taught, I shared a few words with them and invited people to receive Christ as their savior. Very many people responded to the invitation to Christ. Afterwards Dylon invited the ones who are already believers and wanted to grow in relationship or receive the Holy Spirit. After this invitation almost every student was at the front. We prayed with those who received forgiveness of sins and salvation, then we began to pray with people to receive the Holy Spirit of God. What happened next rocked my world. First we made sure that we laid hands on every person at least once. The Holy Spirit at this time was ministering to a few people. Dylon, Emily, Jovanna Pastor David and I then began to really press into the Spirit of God. I began to make a demand on the Spirit of God to fall upon all those who desired Him. When we were calling upon the Spirit of God He answered. It became more and more evident that the Spirit was ministering to more people as we began to make a demand for Him. At first I was nervous. I thought how could I minister to someone if we don’t even speak the same language? At Iglesia Vida, when we went to minister to someone we had a translator that could speak to the person with us because there would be about 20-30 people who we would be ministering to with 3 translators. There were almost 90 kids and no translators because our two translators were doing Gods work and ministering to the teens as well. I knew that if I was going to minister to any of these students it was only me, the student and the Holy Spirit. I went up to one boy who was about 15 years old. I laid hands on Him and immediately as I did so he began shaking from the power of the Holy Spirit. I went close to his ear as though I were going to speak him and I began to speak in the spirit to him. The more I spoke in the spirit, the more the spirit ministered to Him. When I realized this, I began to speak to the student even more strongly in the Spirit. I have ministered to people many times with words before but never have I ministered to someone’s spirit by the Holy Spirit. While I was speaking to this student in the Spirit language it was as though he understood what I was saying to him. I honestly was so shocked by what I was privileged to be a part of. You read things in the word of God but it goes to a totally different level when you can actually be a part of it. So I continue to speak to this boy in the Spirit and my spirit is ministering directly to his spirit, then suddenly like wildfire he breaks out speaking in tongues. Glory to God in the highest! I mean the boy wouldn’t stop, you could see the joy of the Lord written all over his face. I moved on to pray with another boy. I could tell that the Spirit was already ministering to him. I went and laid hands on him. I got very close to his ear and said one word in the Spirit and the boys reaction was as though he understood what I said. I began to speak to Him more in the Spirit and he began to weep. I then begin to speak to the boy even more strongly in the Spirit and he is still weeping as though he is understanding what I was saying. We were communicating spirit to spirit. Insane! I took both my hands off and continued to speak to him very strongly in the spirit. Then I touched the boy and he fell out in the power of the spirit. He actually fell onto the concrete, he fell right on his butt bone. Ouch :X we should have had a Life Church usher there, he wouldn’t have had such a fun time falling on his backside lol. When he was on the floor the joy of the Lord too entered his heart and he had the brightest smile on his face. Praise be to God for an outpouring of His Spirit. You know the portion of scripture in Acts that says that all the people in various villages and cities brought people to be healed and receive ministry from Peter? Well that’s what happened here. We were ministering to so many students and the Holy Spirit fell upon so many of them that the teachers started to bring each student to us to be ministered to. There was one boy that one of the teachers brought up from the back to ministered to, I could tell he did not want to receive ministry but I began to pray for him anyways. I began to pray in the spirit for this young boy and the spirit told me to say “leave him alone” I ignore what the spirit told me to do to see if it was just my mind or if it was the Spirit. I was praying for the boy in the Spirit and it was not having the same effect on this boy as it did the others. The thought arose again, the Spirit told me to say “leave him alone” this time I knew it was the Spirit. So I said what the Spirit told me to say and as soon as I did the boy dropped his head lower. The Spirit revealed to me that this boy had a demon. I began to declare to the demon that the boy belongs to the Lord and He does not share. Declaring freedom in the name of Jesus and the more I spoke to this demon this boy began to cry stronger and drop his body down lower. This is when I knew for sure he had a demon because while I was praying in the Spirit the boy had no reaction at all, but when I began to speak to the demon he began to respond. Pastor David came over and declared freedom from the demon in the name of Jesus as well. The demon left the boy. I have never experienced anything like this. Before the sessions started we were jokingly saying that revival would be nice. Little did we know what the Lord was planning to do. Today greatly increased my faith. Now I have absolutely no doubt in the power of the Spirit. Not that I had doubt before, I guess I just say that because I have never operated in the power of the Spirit in such a fashion as today. pray that those who responded for salvation don’t fall back into the things of this world and pray for those who desired more of God and those who received the Spirit to continue to grow in Him. Keep us in your prayers for safe travels to be used by God in the way He wants to use us and for us to have patience with one another. Some of us need more patience than others :P haha. Bethany, I love you J If your fam is not reading this tell them I say hello. Family if you are reading this, hello lol. Thank you all for keeping up with the blog and for your prayers.

Dylon

It’s Thursday afternoon and I am on a bed in a hotel in Chincha. I’m not really sure where to begin and quite frankly I don’t feel like writing very much right now. I want to thank everyone for your prayers so far and encourage you to finish out strong as we do the same. I can assure you that your prayers are working and are helping to minister to all of us as well as those we touch. So a big THANK YOU. I can feel your support more than ever.

Tuesday we went to a school on the opposite side of the mountain that Pastor David lives on. The journey was interesting literally traveling through a level of clouds. We had no idea what else was around us. We arrived and they weren’t expecting us for another two days, but they were flexible in fitting us into their schedule. This was a place where the administration was very willing to allow us to flow and truly minister and the result was definitely a product of this. The older kids came into their prayer room where we were preparing. We immediately all felt something in the atmosphere change. At first we were sensing a spirit of rebellion as they entered, but then the Spirit began to stir in us and we felt the opportunity for us to speak strongly and specifically. Our program went better than ever and the time following at the altar was phenomenal. I have a feeling Jason went into great detail about this experience, but many received salvation in a very real way showing signs of true repentance. This included many potential gang members who Pastor David has been trying to reach through his previous ministry at the school.

Then the Holy Spirit came as those who were willing stood to experience His power. I was very firm in announcing to all of them that if they were not serious about receiving the power of the Holy Spirit that they needed to sit down because they were about to experience something very real in tears, laughter, peace and joy. My words were strong, but the Holy Spirit was there in a very strong way and I knew it would come. Many began to “break” as we laid hands on them and spoke to them. No, we didn’t speak in English, but we spoke spiritually and somehow, in God’s awesome way, it was received. We all were more satisfied in the end with the ministry of the outreach than ever before because it wasn’t just what we could do, but what God lead us to do helped to prepare the school’s heart for what HE could do. He proved His word with signs and wonders!

Yesterday was mostly travel to Chincha. We had a great lunch at a local restaurant and then prepared for ministry at a small church here. This was the same church we traveled to last year, but it was unrecognizable. Marco, our guide, even got confused about what street it was on because of how different everything looked. Jason and I taught on discipleship, in a slightly different way of course, to impart growth to a young congregation in Christ.

We had breakfast this morning and went to the local basket market and bought gifts for people at home. Jason exercised his terrible negotiation skills and it didn’t work out for him… again. But he’s trying. I’m more accepting of the prices here and I usually pay what they ask. (It’s cheap, either way.) I’m ready to go home, not in a sad way because I truly do love to be here, but I miss the people that surround me. I appreciate and love all of you. See you soon.