The Answer is Yes!

Am I still having the time of my life?

Great stuff tonight in the little church in Clorinda (right across the river from Asunción, Paraguay). 

Check out this tiny child laying on hands to pray for a little boy.  The pastor's daughter, in pink also was laying hands on a little girl.  It happened while I was sitting on the floor blessing the circle of little kids and a photographer captured it.

God was doing some deep work in the lives of his people.  The evidence is often what happens after church… outside when I am trying to get into the car to leave.  People, including little kids, that come running to hug me and never seem to let go. 

Pastor Martin Martinez and his wife were still hugging and praying after most had left the altar area. 

A lawyer in his fifties and his first time to enter the church… captured me at my car.  I had noticed his black car stop just outside the open door as I began to preach.  He had come in, sat in back and listened to the whole message.  By his own spontaneous testimony God had obviously already done a powerful work in his heart.  I prayed with him… but I think he had already stepped inside the safe haven of God’s salvation.  He promised the pastor that he was going to keep coming. 

A girl in her early 20s came to me in the dark by the car.  I thought at first she just wanted to say good-bye.  But she wanted to talk with me.  She had been the caretaker for several years (along with her mother) of a 92 year old man who had recently passed away.  She was happy that he was beautifully saved through the testimony of her mother and her… but she carried a very heavy burden inside her… thinking that she did not treat this elderly man with the kindness that she should have.  He, like me was old and gray, “tall” and had blue eyes.  I reminded her of him and she was pouring out tears like a river as she tried to spill her heart out on me.  She was living under a cloud of guilt.  Not that God had not forgiven her, but she had been unable to forgive herself.  I believe her confession to me broke the weight of that dark part of her life.  I told her of the grace of a loving God that does not want her to be kept under a cloud of guilt, but to be set totally free. 

Young guys in their late teens hugged me so tight I thought I would break.

Pastor Martin Martinez and his lovely family deserve a picture in this blog.  What loving people!

The 75 minutes drive to reach the church had been filled with praying in the Spirit and seeking the Lord for His work to be done in the hearts of the people.  Then the return trip on that dark narrow highway was filled with praise to the Lord.  Once again He came through for me.  He made it more than worth the effort of that 150 mile round trip.

Ralph