An Unanticipated Miracle Trip To El Salvador

I just returned from a trip to Guatemala January 6-21 where we saw God move day after day. However, I want to share about an unanticipated short miracle trip to El Salvador. One of our Guatemalan leaders, Annie, received a dream from God one night in which a woman named Sorina from El Salvador thanked Annie for coming to see her. Sorina is a friend of the ministry whom we had not seen for two years and who had since become pastor of her very conservative denominational church. They believed that God did not move anymore as He did when the Bible was written. We checked on Sorina by e-mail. In her response, Sorina informed us that her ministry was fine, but her health was not. She could not eat and was having serious colon and digestive problems.

Two days later, we made the 6-hour trip to Sorina's church in El Salvador and met with Sorina and 25 of her church members and leaders.The group was sitting in a large circle of chairs when we arrived. As ll sat and prayed, pastor Jorge, our Guatemalan team leader shared how a small, poor church from Villa Nueva, Guatemala had been doing missions totally led by God. It turned out that this El Salvador church made up of professional people had just made a commitment to missions beginning January, 2009 (Divinve appointment I'd say). During this time I looked around the circle asking God what He was doing... where He was working.

As I scanned the people, He kept showing me one particular woman over and over who sat directly acorss the circle from me. At the end of our meeting, we had one on one prayer. I approached the woman (who I later learned was named Blanca) whom God had been highlighting to me. I placed the tips of two of my fingers very lightly upon the woman's forehead and began to pray. Her hands were partially raised about head high and her eyes were closed. After a few moments she began to fall backward, she caught herself as her eyes opened with a start. She had obvious fear in her eyes. She looked at me as I continued to pray and then closed her eyes again. After a few more moments, the Holy Spirit moved upon her again and she fell backward into the arms of one of our team members. Blanca laid on the floor for many minutes sobbing as the Holy Spirit ministered to her. The team prayed for every church member and we also laid hands upon Sorina asking God for her healing.

At the end of the meeting, I sought out Blanca and asked her if she was alright, knowing that she had never experienced the Holy Spirit like this before. She looked up at me nodding her head approvingly, saying in Spanish, "I was really blessed by this new experience." She continued, "Two or three weeks ago a man gave me a word that the Holy Spirit was coming to our church. I have been praying ever since that the Holy Spirit would come through me." God answered her prayer. Praise God!

In addition as we gathered the next day around mid-morning, pastor Sorina, who previously did not believe that God spoke through dreams anymore or still did things like He did in the Bible, praised God for sending us to their church through a dream. Sorina also announced that she had been able to eat a big supper after our prayer meeting the night before and even had a large breakfast that morning without any problems. She praised God for her healing.

I believe this church will be a much needed base for our continued work to the poor in the rural mountains of El Salvador. Please pray that God will continue to move through these people and teach them about His Holy Spirit. How sweet and gentle is our God!

As an overall update, we started 3 1/2 years ago with 20 people in a very dangerous and poor area of Guatemala called Villa Nueva. Today we are ministering to over 550 people in Villa Nueva and the mountains of Guatemala and El Salvador. Plus this group in Villa Nueva is going weekly into the Villa Nueva schools to share Gospel stories with 2,000 school children each week. I am so blessed to be a witness of how they are operating in power and going deeper with God.