Tag: crusade

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Mission

When Tumors And Cancer Disappear

In my last blog “Living With Christ is a Blast” I wrote about the adventures in the Amazon Jungle in Ecuador, how we flew into the tribes in small planes and how we drove over the Andes Mountains on motorcycles, swimming in waterfalls, white river rafting etc.

This time I want to share with you the biggest adventure of them all and the reason why we went there in the first place. I did not come for the jungle experience, I came for the “Jesus Experience”, to see Jesus touch peoples lives in the Puyo region.

First time I came to Puyo was in June 2018, and after two days of crusade, I felt there was more for me to do. That’s why I talked to the pastor in the region, and that is why we set up another crusade with four revival meetings at the beginning of December 2018.

The first night we preached in the host church in Puyo, the jungle capital of Ecuador. The pastors are Carlos and Alicia Marchan, they are wonderful people and very respected for their work in the region. When they came there was nothing. Today they have started many churches and led many people to Christ, and it is amazing to see how the church has developed and grown with the city.

It was a really good start, many people were baptized with the Holy Spirit, so we were all fired up and ready for the big meetings the following days in the downtown sports center. The next day it was raining all day which I had not expected. Only a few people were there at the beginning of the meeting, but after an hour they were there by the hundreds, including my tour guide and several of his friends, and when I called for salvation many people gave their lives to Christ.

Instant Miracles of Healing

My preaching did not take a long time at all, so we started ministering to the sick and oppressed. I will try to give you some of the highlights:

A teacher and her teenage daughter, she was completely blind on one eye and had severe pain in one side of her face. The daughter started crying when she realized that her mother’s eye had been restored and to my surprise, she started reading out loud the banner behind me on the stage, even the sentence in small print that I could not even see myself.

A woman with a severe infection in her stomach, it was so bad that she could not even urinate and had a lot of pain. We prayed for her and I told her to go the restroom and pee and when she came back her face was all lit up and she whispered in my ear that as she went to the restroom all the puss and infection had come right out of her and she was healed.

It just kept going and going on for so long. So many testimonies. Now I knew that the second crusade night in Puyo would be great. Again it was raining cats and dogs all day, even worse than the first day, we could not even go out of the hotel. The rain was so heavy that I thought people would not be able to come. But people kept coming. They said there were over 500 the second night, which was a personal miracle to me with all that rain.

After the sermon, I asked people with tumors to come to the front for prayers and one by one they testified how God healed them there on the spot from tumors and growths. When people saw and heard this, their faith exploded and soon many people poured out from the isles to give their lives to Christ and to receive healing and deliverance.

The Power of God Hit the Place

A woman with throat cancer came forth. I had talked to her before the meeting and she said she had no faith. I told her that I did not agree since she had already demonstrated her faith by coming to the meeting. And when she finally came for prayer I told her how she had now demonstrated her faith in Jesus twice in a day. First by coming to the meeting and second by coming for prayer. I asked her friend to lay her hands on her and immediately she started to swallow, which she could not do. She asked for water and after drinking a whole bottle she asked for food and then another bottle of water, she could eat and swallow without any problems. A miracle happened right there before our eyes.

I remember another lady with a huge tumor under her breast, it was as big as a cup. As we prayed for her to be healed the thing disappeared right before our very eyes. We all started crying, everybody on the team experienced the power of Jesus Christ that night. It was like an explosion. This evening many more got saved. It was so powerful. I could not sleep when I came back to the hotel.

Sunday morning I preached again in the church and again we saw several people getting baptized, healed and set free from demons of witchcraft. This was my last meeting, supposedly the end of the trip, but I have the feeling that I am not finished. It seems like we are just getting started on a whole new chapter, an outpour of the Holy Spirit in Ecuador spreading to other countries in South America as well.

Categories
Mission

Scales Fell From Her Eyes

blind girl.jpg

Puyo Mission Trip

I have found it hard to describe details from the latest mission trip to Ecuador. So many wonderful things happened but this video from the adventures in the jungle and the miracle crusade in Puyo says it all. You can sense the anointing in the songs, the hunger, the expectation, the miracles. And you can hear the testimony of the blind girl that got healed in the first night of the miracle crusade in Puyo, Ecuador.

Categories
Mission

My Sons Tribal Adventure

 

 

On my recent mission trip to Ecuador my son, Hector preached for the first time in a church in Puya. At the meeting was a lady who travels among the tribal people and she liked his message so much that she invited him to come and preach for one of the Huaorani communities in the jungle. He was the only white man, 23 years old, and she wanted him to share his testimony with the young people in the tribe. He had to be there at sunset which meant that she would come and pick him up from our hotel at 3 am in the morning!

Going to bed after the meeting he was so tired that he wished she would not be there, but he was still excited to go when she came and knocked on the door. They went an hour by car until they came to a small village. People in the community were sitting around the fire waiting for him, and he was received as a king. First, they painted his face and gave him a crown on his head. Then they gave him a necklace and an armband and a drum around his neck. Together with the other guests this morning, he started strumming the drum and walking around the fire. He had no clue what was going on since he did not speak their language, everything he said was translated, first from English to Spanish and then to their tribal language. At one point they wiped his arms with a plant to welcome him. Later he had an allergic reaction on his skin and found it that it was a poisonous plant! As the ceremony went on, he got served chicha, a fermented drink made of spit and yucca. He was served by each family and like this, he officially became a part of the Huaorani family.

As they were sitting around the fire, they all had their bible study with prayer and worship. For breakfast, they were served fish and banana wrapped in banana leaves. After breakfast, they took him to the river. They use bongos as transportation which are boats carved out of wooden trunks. Quite impressing how these bongos are able to float and transport people through the enormous Amazon delta!

Visiting the Huaorani people was a “one in a lifetime” experience. Hector was the only gringo invited to take part in this adventure, the rest of the team had to stay behind. When he came back before noon and I saw the painting on his face, the pictures of the tribal people, and the videos, we had a good laugh together, this was so unexpected, one of those things that God puts together for his people to enjoy.

When we came to the crusade in the evening, God and the Huaorani people had another surprise for us. Now it was my turn to receive the honour, and for this, I still give God the glory. My son and I received a crown and a necklace as a sign of respect, one more time, and now I rightly can call myself Warrior of the Huaorani …

If you click on this link you can see how Hector and I were crowned by our hosts at the last night of the crusade!

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Mission

Miracle Crusade in Ecuador

Coming home from the last miracle crusade in Ecuador my wife would pick me up at the airport and ask me a ton of questions. I was gone for a week, and even though we have had our daily updates through Facebook, it seems like my wife always wants to know everything. Not so much about the trip, but more in details about the people, the miracles etc. Questions like, how many people got saved, what did you preach about, what was the biggest miracle and so on …

As usual, I let her talk because I don’t know how to answer! After preaching my brains out several times a day I am so tired, not to mention the travelling and the past two days of only a few hours of sleep. What was the biggest miracle? Was it the little blind girl that got her sight back, the deaf ears that opened, the man with the kidney problems that got healed, the woman that was crippled by arthritis who suddenly had no pain, the man that was delivered from unclean spirits or the owner of the kayak rental and his family that got saved.

Every person is unique, created in the image of God. You can’t compare miracles, so why even try? All I can say is that I am so thankful that I was invited to be in this crusade and see the mighty move of the Holy Spirit. It was awesome to see how peoples lives were touched and forever changed. The meetings were held in a big basketball stadium. First night 250 people came and the second night 600 people came. More than 150 prayed the prayer of salvation. If we had continued one night more, I believe the place would have been full.

Our son Hector was with me on this trip and I saw God’s gift over his life unfold. He was preaching for the first time and was ministering with words of knowledge and prophecy. After he preached he received a special invitation to go to the jungle to share the Word amongst the tribal people. He was picked up at 3 am in the morning to get to the village. They gathered around the fire before sunset for worship, bible study and prayer. They welcomed him like a king, brought him gifts and painted his face. He was the only white man visiting. Every family gave him a drink to show him honour and he was officially adopted into their tribe. When he came back to the hotel, he still had the paint on his face, and at the evening meeting, the indigenous people had prepared another ceremony for him. Here they put a crown on his head, and next thing, they did the same to me, as a token of honour and love.

Preaching the gospel is a privilege. As a young man, I gave my life to Christ so that He can live His life in me and through me. Now I live my life for others to see and experience the life of Christ. It is such an honour to serve him and I don’t take it lightly. Going to Ecuador, to the exact same area where American missionaries got killed by Huaorani tribesmen in the 1950’s for preaching the gospel, was a privilege. We were literally walking in the footsteps of the men that were killed and the wives, that went to the jungle to fulfil the mission of their passed husbands, preaching the gospel to the tribal people. We went to churches established by people who were saved through their testimonies. What we witnessed over this past week was the fruit of the sacrifice they gave, as we were passing on the baton for the coming generations to be saved.