I wrote most of this starting at 2:20 a.m. Friday morning. We got back here to the "Christian Embassy" about an hour ago. We were at a church in a poor area of Guayaquil. There were about 40 people in church and all 3 of us shared the Word. Emily shared about women of noble character, referring to Ruth. Paul shared about how tired we can get spiritually and how the Lord wants to give us rest. I also shared on that theme and quoted from Matt. 11 where Jesus says, "Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest." For the altar ministry time after I spoke Emily and I took one side of the room, and Paul and our translator Marcel took the other side and we went out to where the people were standing at their chairs and prayed for each of them there. Emily and I ministered to many women in particular. Quite a few times Emily would just hug them and love on them and the next thing you know they are crying, and filled with the Spirit, even though she wasn't always able to speak Spanish. Paul had a blast, the highlight being that he got to lead 2 people to the Lord! Afterwards I got a chance to speak privately with the pastor about his financial and marital struggles and by God's grace was able to connect him to some practical human resources that are equipped to help him in both areas.
Sunday morning we all travel together to a city about 2 hours north of here called Vinces. Vinces is where our team leader started a home group less than 2 years ago just for teaching about biblical marriage to 9 couples. It grew and grew until they became a church which now has 400 members and over 700 in attendance every Sunday. We will minister there in the morning, then we'll minister to their church leaders in the afternoon, and then on the way back to Guayaquil we will stop at another church plant about 30 minutes north of Guayaquil for an 8 pm service.
Our first ministry opportunity was Wednesday afternoon when we ministered to some of the employees of host church. It turned out that the messages we all shared were right on point with some of the troubles they are facing together that we didn't know about. God is good. That night we ministered in a church meeting designed around improving marriages. Paul shared briefly, Emily shared from 2 Kings 1 about how Bathsheba encouraged the prophet Nathan to speak into her husband's life as a friend (King David) and analogized that to wives today who should encourage their husbands to have godly friends. I then shared on how men have the authority in the home but the authority is to serve and not be served, as Jesus taught in Matt. 20.
A highlight of that Wednesday evening service was the healing of a man born with a congenital birth defect in his back which caused him constant pain.. After some prayer and counsel it was revealed that he had some deep wounds from his childhood in connection with his disability. We then prayed through some of those issues and he got some help, and then the Lord healed his back! All the pain was finally gone after so many years. We serve an awesome God!
It was also a blessing to see the couples who got reconciled that evening. Couples came forward during the invitation to seek help for their marriages. At our urging many asked for and received forgiveness from their spouses for various things they had done to hurt them. It was wonderful to see a couple married for 42 years crying and embracing at the front of the church after asking each other's forgiveness for various issues. Our team also dealt with a younger couple in which the man went forward and repented of adultery. Somehow the wife found the strength after prayer to forgive him. There is so mudh to report, but more on that later..
