So I wound up being put on the team that was all people from the worship team for Sunday morning, er afternoon church. So while everyone else loaded up in our vans, we waiting to get picked up by the pastor. We drove into town down some dirt roads, which was odd since the street would look the same as the one next to it minus the pavement, and picked up 3 men. Now there were 10 of us in the van.
We drove some more and stopped on the side of a street. A few got out to go pray for someone and I was told to stay with the van. So four spanish speakers and two english speakers were left in the van with not much to say to each other. So one of the guys pulls out his guitar and starts to play some worship songs. Luckily my fellow english speaker had learned that song in Spanish and so I played the djembe. We then sang it in English, switching back and forth between the languages. It was great.
After probably 30 minutes of worship we were all getting very hot as there was no breeze where we were. Soon after that the rest of our group came back reporting that the son of one of the men we had picked up was healed of asthma in the waiting room of the hospital! From there we went to the gas station and when the pastor said the attendant had pain in her foot we got out to pray and God healed her!
The drive to the church was an hour outside of La Paz. They told us that the people were migrant farm workers. Knowing this I think we all had very low expectations of what the church would be like. I think these expectations were lowered even more based on the dirt road that we drove on for miles. It is one thing to drive on a dirt road in a city. It is a whole different thing to drive on a dirt road in the middle of the desert where you can see no buildings at all.
I was starting to wonder if they would have any power at the church and I didn't even think that the church would be in a town, but rather just on a plot of land somewhere. Well, eventually we start approaching the farm land and it wasn't anything like what I had expected. Other than the desert backdrop, it looked just like anything I had seen back in Florida. Then we approached the town.
It reminded me of hearing stories of people that live on remote islands where groceries and other supplies are shipped in once a week. Even though it was just an hour outside of La Paz, it was remote enough that it probably does face some of the same difficulties as a small island.
They drove us around the town which took just a minute or two but described to us the slave-like conditions of this massive warehouse that provided a garage type home for some 3,000 people. We returned to the church and after quickly setting up their speakers and microphones the service started just after 12:30.
They had me play djembe which was interesting since I didn't know any of the songs and the worship leader didn't speak english. It was an interesting experience to be worshipping God with no fewer than 10-15 mosquitoes flying around you.
After worship they brought up a young boy who has been deaf and mute since birth. We began to pray for him and within a few minutes he responded to us snapping behind his head. So while our group leader preaches and our lone spanish speaker translates, the two girls and I take the boy out of the service to continue praying for him. Over the next half hour or so he begins responding with great frequency to snaps and then begins to speak what the boy who had been healed of asthma says to him.
The smile on the boy's face was priceless. Since it was such a special moment I kept switching between praying for him and getting the miracle on video. Praise God I had a video camera with me! Our greatest moment with him was probably when the young helper sat behind him out of view, spoke and then he spoke what he heard! When we went back to the service we showed the congregation the boy's progress and then went into praying for the people for healing.
I prayed for one of the young men that rode with us and God healed his shoulder. Then I told him to pray for his mother's ankle and God healed it too! Since there were only 2 people other than our team member that knew any english I just went around laying hands on everyone without knowing what was wrong. Others did the same. Our two girls prayed for a woman whose ear opened up. At the end of the service 20 people lined up to share the testimony of what God completely healed. Not bad considering there were probably between 30 and 40 adults there (plus another 40-50 kids).
I did pray extensively for a young girl with club feet who was in a wheelchair. I forget if she had any other problems, but even though I felt an anointing there as I prayed, we saw no improvement. Around 4 in the afternoon church was over and we left to go meet up with the rest of the team that had been at our missionaries' base (different from the base where we stayed). Exhausted, we slept most of the ride back, well, most of the ride after we got back on paved roads.
Once we got back we quickly grabbed some of the left over lunch which was now essentially the time when we normally had dinner. Then we left to go the boardwalk for our evening outreach. They had a worship band that was made up of some of the best worshippers in the city. They were amazing! After a few songs, the local church did a drama, then two people on our team shared testimonies, followed by our team doing the drama. They had no way of playing their music for it so they had me play the djembe and the keyboardist from the band play as well. It actually turned out better than with the CD because I could go with what they were doing and the keyboardist followed me!
Immediately after the drama was over I was introduced to preach. Although there was a crowd gathered I must say that probably all but a few were from the church and most of the ones that weren't were probably being talked to by people on our team. Nevertheless, one man raised his hand saying that he needed healing when I asked but he had been at our meetings all week.
A little while after I was done I went to get back my video camera from one of our guys and on my way I was grabbed by a woman from the church to pray for someone. The woman had partial deafness in both ears and had rhumatory arthritis in her left foot. I prayed for her foot first for maybe 30 seconds and all the pain left! Then I prayed for her ears once and in under a minute she had complete hearing! Glory to God! I tried to ask how deaf she was but they couldn't quite figure it out but just answered that it was pretty bad.
As a group that night our team lead 20 or 22 people to Christ including a police officer and another man who had said that Jesus was bogus. That man apparently had refused a prophetic picture and then after I preached went back to the guy who made it for him and our guy led him to Christ and got him filled with the Holy Spirit!
One of our leaders prayed for a few siblings who had all been cursed by witchdoctors and went blind at age 18. Yo, don't mess around with witchcraft. She started breaking things off of them and leading them through repentance and at least one of them (I forget the whole story now) regained partial sight!
When we were leaving after getting some more ice cream one of our guys stopped to pray for a man on crutches. He had been walking with crutches for the past 6 years due to a knee injury caused from a car accident. After praying for him the man started to walk around so I got out my video camera and got it on tape! Then our guy was asked to pray for a woman with a brain tumor. They were touched and as they left the man gave his crutches to his wife to hold as they walked away!
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