My time here in Peru has come to an end. Soon I will be in Argentina with a new ministry! While I’m excited to see what God has in store for next month, I will first have to say some hard goodbyes. I have enjoyed getting to know the people here in Huaraz and my last week was filled with some great things.
Just within the past week I have had some awesome experiences and I feel like I could write a blog for each of them. Instead of doing that however, I want to share a few short stories in this blog.
First:
Last Wednesday we got to go to a market to share the gospel, sell Bibles and children’s books that have been translated to Quechua, and sing the songs we have learned. Going into this, our team had fasted in the morning an spent time in prayer so that we would go into the market in the Lord’s presence and prepared for whatever He had in store for us.
After we had sung a couple of songs, a couple people came up to us and asked us to pray for them. Our host (who speaks English) helped us translate so we knew what they needed pray for. Soon there was lines of people waiting to come up to us and ask for prayer as well. Since there was so many people coming to each of us the host couldn’t really help translate for everyone so we ended up using the little Spanish we knew to ask if they had pain, where it was at, and then after praying we asked if it felt better.
This turned into a incredible time of asking God to heal many people and trusting in His goodness. We prayed for so many people in a short amount of time. We also saw many people get healed and many people say that they felt much better after we prayed for them.
There was one lady in particular that made and impact on me. She came up to us slightly hunched. We found out that she had fallen and hurt her back. We prayed and asked if it was better and she said no. So, we prayed again. This time, when we said “Amen,” she straightened up her back and asked us how much it cost. What?! We prayed for her and Jesus healed her back and she wanted to pay us??? We told her is cost nothing and that the glory was God’s alone. I so wish I would have been able to communicate to her that Jesus had already paid everything for us to even be able to ask the Father to heal us.
I also learned in this day that it is within the Father’s will to heal us, and when it doesn’t happen miraculously, it does not mean that He isn’t listening to us or doesn’t want to heal us. We should not grow weary but continue to pray and come to Him with all our needs because He cares and He’s listening.
Second:
My team had a lot of opportunities to preach in churches this month. At the beginning of the month we signed up for the time that we wanted to preach. The time I signed up for was this past weekend. I choose this time because I was told it would be for a Christmas program and I would get to talk about the birth of Jesus!
Then, of course, plans changed. We ended up going to a different village and I was no longer being asked to talk about Christmas. I then had a few days to plan a message and not a lot of time to plan. I have been learning a lot about depending on Holy Spirit for all things, so I turned to Him in prayer to decide what I would preach on.
At first I thought I would talk about how Jesus is the light of the world, but then I felt Him leading me more toward the seven “I am” statements in the gospel of John as well as when God names Himself “I AM” in Exodus while talking to Moses. In addition to this, I also heard God ask me “Do you trust me enough to go up there without a plan?”
UMMMMM What?? Of course I trust Him, and I trust that He would speak through me, but wasn’t going up in front of a church without anything written down kind of irresponsible?? Although this feeling didn’t go away. So I thought about what I wanted to say, I read the scriptures I would preach on, but the only thing I wrote down were the scripture references.
So there I was standing in front of this church about to preach, with really no plan at all. I was terrified. So, before starting I prayed. I asked God to speak through me, to guide me in what He wanted this church to hear, I invited Him into the preaching and I immediately felt peace. He definitely showed up!
After I would say something, I would have to wait a bit while my words were being translated to Quechua. This gave me time to read the scripture, think and listen to Holy Spirit. God used the time of translating to tell me what I would say next. It was incredible and my team told me that my message was very clear and communicated really well. It is only thanks to God that I could do that.
I learned that God definitely still speaks to us all the time. I learned that depending on Him for all things is much better than depending on ourselves. I also learned to trust that Truth lives in me and that I can get up in front of a church and share the word of God with them.
Last Story:
On our way home from the village we visited that was 6 hours away, we stopped in the national park in the Andes to hike to a lake. This hike was probably one of the hardest hikes I’ve ever done. Between the altitude, the pain my muscles were already feeling from being squished in a car for many hours, and the nausea/lightheadedness from lack of food and sleep (we woke up at 3:30), I struggled through every hour of the 3 hour hike.
Shortly into the hike, my hip started to hurt. Every step I took I felt likeI had pulled the muscle. I stopped and stretched it a bit, but I didn’t want to stop for very long because I didn’t want to get cold. I also didn’t want to stop because then it would be harder to keep going and I really wanted to make it to the top. By the time we made it to the last stretch of a steep incline, I was in so much pain that I was on the verge of tears. Every time I lifted my left leg I had a sharp pain in my left hip, but I was being stubborn and still didn’t want to stop.
A couple of my teammates had caught up to me and asked me how I was doing, so I told them about my pain. They prayed over me and I was hopeful that when I started walking again my pain would be gone. This, however, did not happen. I cried out to God in my pain and asked Him that if wasn’t going to take away the pain if He could give me a stick that would work as a walking stick. A minute or two later I found one and I was so happy!
I was still in pain, but the stick helped me take each step a bit easier than without it. After a while of walking with the stick, my leg was starting to feel better, so I tossed it into a bush and kept going. A few steps later and I realized I still needed the stick, the pain was still there and just as bad. I went back, grabbed the stick, and then God taught me a lesson.
How often in our lives do we get to a point of pain or helplessness or even hopelessness and realize that we need God. We ask Him for help, He answers our prayers and things are great. But then, things are great so we stop relying on God and we no longer think we need Him. As soon as we try to do things on our own again, things start to fall apart and we once again realize we need God. WOW! Okay God, I hear you. I would love to get to a point in my life where I am fully dependent on God in all seasons. When things are great and when things are bad I NEED the Lord in my life. There will never be a time when I am better off without Holy Spirit as my “spiritual walking stick”
Okay, those are the stories from my last week here in Peru that I wanted to share with you. While there were so many other cool things God did, these were the moments that I learned the most. As always, I’m thankful for you reading, supporting and praying for me. Love you all!!
Blessings
~Kaci
