Our venue tonight is in a covered basketball court with open air sides in the village of Villa Rotaria. We divided into 5 teams to invite the neighbors to come in this more upscale community (remember, some homes have Internet). They were generally less friendly but praise God, during the visits, 2 people prayed to accept Christ. There were a lot fewer people there tonight, perhaps 60 or so, but we felt a lot of oppression. it turns out that area is a lot darker and there is a Satanist there, but the church leaders prayed against it. Nevertheless, the response was still quite good after Vision sang 4 songs and did the chair skit and Elder Alfonso preached. Chris and Vision proceeded to pray for those asking for prayer with some being healed including a young boy whose ears were plugged with water and couldn't hear well. After Eugene, Andrew, Marshall and Elisabeth prayed for him, he said his ears were still plugged but Elisabeth persisted until his mother asked and he smiled and said he could now hear. But the most amazing healing of the night was a 40ish old man who had been mute from birth. After several of us prayed for him, he still could not speak. Marshall went to fetch Chris and still he could not talk. His mother explained that it was this man's wish to be able to praise God verbally. Over half of Vision including Rachel, Elisabeth, Crystal, Gentle, Tim, Jason, Josiah and more continued to persist in prayer. Then he softly whispered, "gracias, Señor", several times. The kids continued to pray and he started praising and thanking God louder as a smile came over him and his mother like we read in Matthew 15:30-31. Jeremiah 24:27 prophesied that the mute shall speak as a sign that they may know that I am The Lord. We were privileged to witness that tonight. Thank God. Eugene, Katie and Natalie sang "Restoration" and Vision sang "The Lord Bless You and Keep You" to close out the program since a lot of the audience remained after the prayer. We then returned to the church for a late snack of soft tacos and returned to our hosts' home a little earlier than last night to shower and sleep. Thank God for another amazing day of ministry.
July 18 - Forgot to mention where the other people are. Elaine, Katie and Crystal are staying with a family about 20 minutes away by car; the 7 guys, Jeremy, Jason, Eugene, Andrew, Tim, Israel, and Gentle are staying with a man around the corner from us; and Chris, Josiah and Jaden are staying with a family a few minutes from the church. We are well taken care of by these gracious folks. An example of their graciousness is the couple who gave up their master bedroom for us and sleeping on the concrete floor. How many of us in the US would give up their bed and sleep on the floor for some strangers? Incidentally, Pastor Jesus (his wife did not come with us) and Alfonso are staying at the house with the Internet we went to yesterday.
After breakfast and devotions where we meditated on Psalm 27, we went to the beach where we visited different people living there. One group prayed for a young man with schizophrenia, we sang and prayed for him and he said he felt better. He said he was already a Christian and thanked us. Megan shared that someone in the US said she would meet a man named Jose. At the beach, she met a 100 year old man named Jose. Megan and Kaitlin prayed for him and was holding his hand. He said he could feel God's power flowing through her hands as she held his. Mei prayed for a lady. It turns out she had problems hearing but Mei did not know this and the church ladies with Mei thought Mei was blowing in her ear. Nevertheless, her hearing cleared up after Mei's prayer. One of the church ladies said after we prayed or sang, the people we prayed for or sang to told her how much peace and joy they felt while we sang or prayed. The local Christians who went with us felt that this time, there was a lot less rejection and more acceptance. Our presence made it easier for them to talk and share. We returned to the church, ate lunch, took a siesta in the plastic chairs and shared about this morning's visit to the beach. We did not do the VBS we planned as it was too hot and used the time to debrief. We then surrounded the church members and prayed for them Korean style and they in turn prayed for us.
We then went down to the town square where we have our program, stopping on the way to invite people to come. When we started at 8, a few drops of rain began to fall and we prayed for the wind to blow the threatening dark clouds away. The drizzle brought a refreshing coolness but did not stop and kept a lot of people from coming. We sang "The Lord Is My Light", "I Have Decided", "Pues Si Vivimos", then did our Spanish version of the puppet skit. Since they had removed the keyboard by now because of the rain, we switched to our acapella pieces and sang "Casting Our Crowns", "Lay Up Your Treasures in Heaven", "Ain't Got Time to Die" and the heart skit, starring Andrew and Hannah who replaced our stars of the previous years, Eric and Nadia. One amusing coincidence is the rumble of real thunder happening just as we sang the phrase "a rumble of thunder" in the song "Casting Our Crowns". Pastor Jesus then preached and Chris and Vision prayed for those desiring prayer. Even though we had a small crowd, at least twenty people came forward for prayer which we did under the porches of the buildings behind where we sang. We have not debriefed this ministry time yet but it seems many who braved the rain were healed. We walked back to church, ate dinner and returned to our hosts homes to shower and sleep.
July 19 - we leave Tetitlan today sad due the awesome ministry but also happy to go back to a cooler Taxco. Mosquitoes are much more active here and Hannah holds the unofficial record with more than 70 bites while Katie has the record for most swollen bites (on her ankle). We met for breakfast at 9:30 so we could do our devotions before leaving for Acapulco, a little more than an hour's drive down the coast. Our devotion is on the Luke account of Mary's annunciation. We discussed the ministry time last night a little. The rain brought refreshment and God brought those who needed to come so praying was easier. An older woman came who had one eye she could not see and each time we prayed, she said she could see better. We prayed for two little kids' legs and one of started running around afterwards. Almost everyone we prayed for felt better. Praise God.
We finally left after lots of pictures and hugs at about noon, got to Acapulco at about 2 and ate lunch at one of their many seafood restaurants. We learned that Eric and Connie safely arrived in Taxco and we will meet up with in a couple of hours. The van will drop me off at the pastor's home so I can send this update while the rest goes and pick up our pizza dinner.
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