What a great time we had serving the Lord in Peru on this trip. Wonderful salvations, incredible healings, encouraging church leaders, insightful prophecy and building lasting friendships were all a part of this trip to serve the churches in Lima Peru November 16 through November 23. [To see more photos of this trip click here[

Lima is a huge city of 9 million people, and most of the time it seemed that they all were on the road at the same time we were driving around. Packed with activity, this port city is the capital and seemed to have more of a middle class than Ecuador does. President George Bush was in Lima at a big economic conference with other world leaders while we were there – explaining why he couldn’t attend our conference going on at the same time.

	Tony, Stan Rodriguez, and translator Sonia at lunch and church at Jesus the Way to Hea- ven Church, Lima, Peru

We had a great team traveling from Orlando to Lima, where each team member brought specific gifting and talents to the churches in Lima. Team leader Tony Nardella had the rough job of coordinating all the people, events and logistics. Of course ahead of the trip Emily Nardella did so much to prepare the team, including finding us lodging, booking the best flights, finding and coordinating the gifts to the pastors, and a host of other critical things to make the trip the success that it was. Although Emily did not go on the trip, she did so much in advance to prepare us. 

Other team members were Pastor Joe Warner, Chuck Blystone, Stan Rodriguez, Tim Frazier and me.  Our prime purpose of the trip was to bring a prophetic conference to the church leaders in Lima. We had prepared 200 ....[continued]

workbooks in Spanish for the church leaders and ALL of them were used! The three day event, Thursday November 20 through Saturday November 22, was a huge success. However in addition to that major event, we split up and preached 15 other times in churches on Monday through Wednesday, including one time during the conference.

Because we haven’t debriefed each other, this recap of the trip will be primarily from my perspective on the situations I was personally involved in serving the Lord. We arrived around midnight on Sunday night and were met by some of the pastoral Heart of Titus (HOT) team members, and then taken to an apartment on the 14th floor in a safe section of town.  

	Team preaching at Radio La Familia

Monday at noon, we had a meet-and-greet time with several of the pastors at lunch to discuss the upcoming prophetic conference. What great people! The love and acceptance was amazing, evidence of the work that Tony/Emily Nardella, Chuck/Becky Blystone, and Ray/Bev Watson have done over the last four years. All of us spoke briefly, as we had a wonderful kick-off time. Mirarri was the first translator we met, as she helped us non-Spanish-speaking pastors share with the 25 Peruvian pastors gathered. 

On the Saturday before we left, I was mowing my lawn, and the backyard was filled with blind mosquitoes. If you don’t know what those are, they are mosquitoes that don’t bite, but swarm like crazy in warmer weather. At times our yard can be FULL of them by the lake. As I was riding my mower through them, and they swarmed all around me, the Lord said to me: “They’re all around you, aren’t they?” “Yes,” I replied. “But they aren’t harming you or biting you, are they,” he asked? “No Lord, they are not,” I answered. “They are merely distractions in doing what you have to do, aren’t they,” he asked. “Yes,” I responded. “On this trip you will have many things that happen, but you all will not be harmed – they are only distractions from doing what I have called you to do,” he told me. As you read this report, you will note many distractions in accomplishing the purposes of God, but this prophetic insight from God that I shared with the team proved to be very helpful as we encountered many “distractions.

”“Distraction” number one was the snoring at night. Wouldn’t you know it, everyone on the team snored except Joe and me, and Joe got his own room with a single bed. Luckily Tim, my roommate, gave me some great earplugs to get through his snoring, after the first sleepless night. Sleep is a good thing. 

Distraction number two that popped up all the time was our problems with transportation:  confusion of directions on the part of our drivers, flat tires, late arrivals and so on formed a real distraction to what we needed to do. But because of the prophetic word given to the team, we labeled all our problems on this trip as mere “distractions”, therefore we were never incapacitated in exercising our faith or keeping our focus. 

 

Pastors' luncheon for Prophetic Conference

Monday night I preached at the most exuberant church I think I have ever been in – the church of Pastors German and Aurora’s church, Jesus Mi Pastor. Tim went with me and we had a great time of preaching and ministering. Our translator was Sonya, a gifted minister in her own right. God touched many of the 50 people who came forward with salvation, healings, prophetic words and calls to repentance! One lady in particular that I remember had relentless pain in her abdomen for the last three months. God instantly and completely healed her, and the excitement in her face and her testimony radiated the power to change that comes from an encounter with Jesus! 

We left our service and went to pick up Tony at his church in another very poor area – all the churches we ministered to were in poor urban areas. The name of the church was called The Way Christian Church (in English). Pastor Jugo and his wife looked so full of God, yet so hurt and “unworthy”, as this church came out of another and felt so illegitimate. Although they would like to reconnect, the other church doesn’t want reconciliation. Yet God was healing and building this new church. Many healings, casting out of demons, and the beginnings of encouragement were beginning to blossom in the hearts of the leaders and congregation of about 45 people packed into this tiny upstairs room, and standing outside the doors. Assistant Pastor Jonny and his wife were incredible people, loving to serve their pastor and other people in the church. This church was an amazing mixture of humility, brokenness and exuberance.

Tuesday we went to a Christian radio station, called La Familia, to preach in another poor part of town. The owners of the station received us well, and all of us had a time of sharing on the FM radio, broadcast throughout the city. The owner and his wife had been hurt by disloyal partners to the station in the past, and were still having trouble getting over it and moving on with where God has called them to grow. We ministered to them and their adult sons, who were involved in the station as well. 

Tuesday night, Stan and I went to another small church where God moved greatly during the altar ministry. 

Wednesday afternoon we were on our way to Pastor Hugo’s church for lunch, when we had our first of two flat tires. (More distractions, but no loss of focus or bad attitudes.) Of course we had no spare tire, so we walked the remaining 4 or 5 blocks to the church. Fortunately, we were almost there – we had been in the car for 45 minutes by that time, trying to reach the church. 

The time at Pastor Hugo’s church was church-altering, to put it mildly. We thought we were merely going to lunch, but when

	Pastor Yugo Yanqui, leading worship

we arrived everyone was there and they were in the middle of a full-blown worship service. Tony shared briefly, but during the ministry time at the altar was when everything got in high gear.  

Stan checked with Tony about what he felt God was saying to him prophetically and Tony agreed, so Stan gave the word. Stan prophesied that God was ordaining Hugo as the official pastor of the church. The congregation gasped and immediately broke into cheerful shouting and applause. Pastor Tony officially installed Pastor Hugo and his wife as the pastors of the congregation, wiping out all illegitimacy that he and the church were feeling! What an incredible event! His assistant pastors Jonny and his wife were then put in place. Humbly, appreciatively and soberly, they accepted.

The Holy Spirit filled the room as we ministered over many. One girl who I prayed over was named Lillianna, and the Lord healed her left arm that wouldn’t bend at the elbow, giving it strength as she honored the Lord with hands now held high in praise of him. Wow! Many other healings occurred that afternoon! 

On the way back to our apartment, we had a robbery attempt. While sitting at a stop light, someone walked up to the driver’s side of the car to distract us. Meanwhile I was in the front passenger seat, having forgot to lock my door. Another thief opened my door, grabbed for my blackberry and my briefcase in my lap. During the struggle, Stan reached from the back seat and grabbed and squeezed one of his arms while I grabbed his other arm, fighting off his pull on the briefcase. He lost. God won. As a result we all started religiously locking our doors, quit “blackberrying” in public and hid our briefcases at our feet from that point on. (Another distraction: “blind mosquitoes” that distract, but do no harm.) 

That night, Chuck was so sick he could not preach. (Sickness formed another distraction. Chuck was down, but not out!) So Stan had to preach at that church, and was accompanied by Tim. This was a major event in Stan’s life, not liking to get up in front of people and preach – but he did, God was honored, and people responded. There were heavy demonic manifestations that occurred, and Stan and Tim dealt with them in the power of the name of Jesus! God did many great things at that service on Wednesday night, including really launching Stan into greater ministry! 

More transportation issues continued to plague the team. This was the night before the conference began on Thursday morning. We were praying for Chuck too, and God was gracious in giving Chuck the endurance to start the conference the next day! 

Pastor Nery (coordinator of HOT in Peru), Pastor Maximo and Pastor German formed the main team that coordinated the event held at Pastor Maximo’s church, Rose of Sharon. Pastors from Peru, Argentina, Brazil and Peru were at the prophetic conference. Conference topics were as follows:

•         An introduction to the conference and prophecy by Tony
•        Spiritual gifts intro  by Joe
•        Despising prophecy by Chuck
•         Humility, holiness, and the fear of God by Pat
•        Judging prophecy by Joe
•        Receiving and walking out the prophetic word by Pat
•        Dreams and visions by Joe and Tony
•        Prophecy in the worship service by Joe
•        Prophets in the church by Chuck
•        Baptism of the Spirit and gifts by Joe
•        Evangelism and prophecy by Tony
•        False prophets and prophecy by Chuck
•         Building a Spiritual House by Joe
•        Questions and Answers on Prophecy by the panel of Tony, Joe, Chuck and Pat
•        Your destiny, “dry bones” and prophecy by Chuck

Interwoven with these conference talks was a prophetic presbytery, where we met in small teams with each pastor and spouse to prophesy over them individually. About 30+ pastors signed up for this, and we held those upstairs during the afternoons while the conference was going on. This proved to be an anointed time for those pastors for their lives, marriages, families and ministries. 

Another distraction came on the way back to the apartment late at night, when we were on Lima’s major six-lane highway. We had another flat tire. Our pastor/driver stopped in the left lane and would not pull off the road! Cars were zipping by honking at over 70 mph. I told Stan and Joe that we needed to get out of the car, since our pastor/driver would not pull off the road, before we were slammed into. We got out. Finally one irritated driver, with a car full of guys, passed us honking, pulled in front of us, backed toward our car in the left lane and screamed at our driver to get that car off the road. Finally Pastor Ronald pulled off the road. What an event! Pastor Ronald finally walked back down the road, found a police truck and they came to help. Of course we still didn’t have a spare tire or a jack. They took Pastor Ronald to get the tire repaired after they got it off the car. Tony was already back at the apartment and came to our rescue in a cab. Another distraction, that could have had horrible consequences….except for God watching out for us. 

Each day and evening at the conference, we had ministry at the altar, after certain topics. God continued to heal, distribute spiritual gifts, bring repentance, prophecy, fillings of his Spirit, and even salvations during the night sessions open to people other than church leaders! 

On the last night, the Lord told me to go across the room and pray for this lady in a wheel chair. The ministry time at the altar was basically over, and this would be the last person I would pray for on this trip to Peru before heading to the airport. Her name was Ooeva Cario. She told me that she couldn’t move her left side of her body since a stroke three years ago. I unrolled her sweater from covering her left hand. The hand was shriveled and closed tight. I held it and prayed for that hand to move in the name of Jesus. After that, she said thank you pastor and smiled, but the hand did not move, nor did she initially have the faith for its healing. I spoke more to her about how I felt that Jesus wanted those fingers to open and move. This time we agreed in faith, and when we finished praying, I told her to move her thumb in the name of Jesus. Slowly that thumb got some life in it and it moved about ¼ of an inch! I then touched the index finger and told her to move that in the name of Jesus. It too began to move about ½ an inch. She got excited and encouraged and as I touched each finger, the life of God returned and she moved each one! We prayed again. This time she was able to move each finger over an inch and a half open! She praised the Lord and told me next time I come she will be able to wash her clothes with both hands! What faith! What mercy from our Lord! We grabbed a microphone and she testified to the power of our Lord and demonstrated His goodness toward her. Wow! 

We seemed to average about 4-5 hours of sleep each night. On Saturday night, having woken up at 6:30 a.m., Joe, Stan and I went straight to the airport after the final night of the conference, and finally got checked in at 3:30 a.m., having to catch a 5:30 a.m. flight back through Panama to Orlando. What an adventure in serving our Lord! What a privilege to see Him move so much toward these incredible people in Lima Peru!