Ministering in a country that is of catholic belief, Mayan culture, a heritage of witchcraft and Satanism, idol worship and practises, generational curses and spiritual warfare, in Spanish and local dialects is quite confronting at first.
But God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of authority through the Spirit.
In Luke 10:19 Jesus says to his disciples- “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions, and to overcome, all the power of the enemy.
Nothing will harm you…”As a team we learnt and developed in our authority in and through the Spirit and began to walk in it- what an amazing privilege it is to be under the Lord’s covering!
It is with mixed reactions that I compose this blog on my time in Guatemala last month. After an epic week long journey of travelling 60+ hours on buses, overlanding Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, and 1 flight we made it to Guatemala City.
Our ministry was based in Panajachel, working with a local pastor and his wife who were saved from Satanism 9 years ago by Christ’s grace.
Reflecting back on that time I think I experienced every kind of emotion that can be felt in a ministry situation, but ‘challenging’ would be the best word to describe my experiences. I went through everything from love of the people, to hate of the sin I saw and experienced; from struggling with languages, to being able to share the Gospel in Spanish and have people understand and come to Christ;
from being challenged in all areas of my faith, to developing and solidifying what and why I believe in Christ; from questioning my identity in Christ, to growing in and through the Spirit; from doubting God in healing, to experiencing deliverance and healing in my own life;
from struggling with thoughts of returning home from my illness the past 5 months, to experiencing the joy of being set free through prayer from the spiritual oppression over my life;
from struggling as a team leader on Luke 10, to experiencing God as my guiding strength; from questioning God in regards to spiritual warfare, to developing in understanding of the reality of the world we live in and where our battle lies; from struggling to walk in the Spirit, to being led by the Spirit on how to walk; from being so physically weak and unable to work and get through a day without trouble with my health, to being healed miraculously by God and gaining my strength from God;
from going without food and a place to sleep, to experiencing God’s abundance provision; from not understanding why we need to have a knowledge of sin in the sense of its fullness, to understanding that such knowledge helps in witnessing Christ to a person involved in such sin…from breaking down religious habits, to living in freedom and the life Christ desires and intended for us!
Obviously a challenging month, but I am thanking the Lord for the growth and development of faith in my life!
Some highlights include:
-Luke 10 three day challenge with the silver team= growing closer together, experiencing God’s grace in our lack of faith and learning to trust God completely for everything!
-Our lady of peace from Luke 10= after sharing the Gospel with her on our first night, we followed up on the conversation the following week only to find out she chose Christ! What an amazing privilege to be apart of kingdom building!
-Spiritual warfare growth and understanding from Ben's teachings
-Guatemala city trips & Antigua trips= checking out the old towns
-Work-site evangelism in different working groups
So as you can see we had an amazing but challenging time in Guatemala, but God really did alot in my life, of which I saw fruit in the Philippines, and am looking forward to putting into practise in the rest of our Asian countries- Thailand, Cambodia, China and India, and wherever God may take us in our upcoming Asian Luke 10 journey!
To God be the glory. Amen!