Hey everyone, so we have finally managed to process what
happened on our trip enough to write a blog on it. There’s so much to share, in
just over a week in Medellín our team had about 40
speaking engagements, 7 morning devotionals, numerous outreaches and some more.
Thousands of lives were touched, at least 700 people came to the Lord,
thousands of healings and miracles were released, so many inner healings took
place, many were delivered of demons and countless hearts received the Father's
love for the first time, wow, our God is such a good God!!
The full blog of our
time in Colombia will be delivered in a trilogy, how fun huh?!? Today I’m gonna
write part one, the overview of our trip, so much happened, I’ll try keep it as
short as possible. Then in a couple of days we’ll post part two, with blog of
testimonies, testimonies of physical healings, emotional healings, people
encountering God, people giving their lives to God and all that, and in a
couple of days after that we’ll be posting the final part of this trilogy, a
blog on how this trip has deeply impacted our lives and prepared us more for
what’s about to come as we move to Brazil at the end of the summer. This is the
best way we found to fully describe how amazing this experience was and the impact
it had in the city of Medellín and in our lives. I hope you guys enjoy reading
this and we pray that through these blogs, stories and testimonies you would be
encouraged to believe more and more for what God can do wherever you are, and
that revival is a very real thing that is happening right now in many parts of
the world. Yes!!
Part one:
Revival is Here
The church we were
working with in Colombia is called Comunidad Cristiana de Fé, this church is
truly living in revival. Every week they have 40 to 60 new Christians giving
their lives to Christ, EVERY WEEK! We were there 2 weekends and we couldn’t
believe the amount of people giving their lives to Jesus every service, and
they weren’t just praying a prayer, those people were in tears, having a full on
encounter with God, so beautiful to watch. As for now they have 7000 people in
the church, 2000 young people at their youth service and over 400 cell groups
around the city, and the numbers are growing every week. It was so amazing to
partner and serve a house living under true revival. That itself is something I
won’t forget, but this is just the beginning of the journey we had during 9
days of ministry in Medellín, Colombia.
Our team arrived in
Medellín on the weekend and on our first day there we attended their youth
services with around 2000 people each, it was a lot of fun. Worship in Colombia
reminds me a lot of Brazil, they are extravagant, lively, loud and yes, they
love to dance! At some stage this 70 year old man was on the stage waving
flags, and it wasn’t long till other oldies joined him, dancing and jumping as
they worshiped God with all they had to offer at that moment- so awesome.
During the service we
got to share some testimonies and release God’s goodness to the church, and
after both the services we were doing prayer ministry. Some people waited in
the line for over 40mins to receive prayer, many of them were physically
healed, emotionally healed and had encounters with the love of God. The message
the pastor shared on that day was on abortion, so during the ministry time we
had quite a lot of women that came up to receive prayer because they had
multiple abortions in the past. There were some quite heavy things being thrown
at us, but God’s grace and love is stronger than all that, and many of those
women had rejection and condemnation broken of their lives as we ministered to
them. It was so amazing to see them forgiving themselves and embracing God’s
love and acceptance as they realized that nothing can separate them from the
love of their heavenly Daddy.
On Sunday morning we
did the same thing, shared some testimonies, called words of knowledge from the
stage and at the end ministered to people for a very, very long time, 2000
people is a lot of people for a team of 21 haha. Again, so many testimonies of
encounters with God, deliverances and both physical and emotional healing came
out of that ministry time, God is so good and He was showing up with all his
goodness at every prayer request, whatever it was.
On Sunday afternoon
after the church services we went to a community called Santo Domingo, this
community is built on a mountain, and the best way to get there is by
cable-cars, as you can see on the pictures. We did our first outreach there, hundreds
of people from the community came to this square and we spent the rest of our
day hanging with the kids and adults from that community. Christine and I and a
couple of other guys from our team were playing with kids and making balloons
for a couple of hours until we completely ran out of balloons. The awesome
thing is that through making swords and crowns, we were knighting kids saying
that they were princes and princesses of God, and through that we got to
release their true identity, Christine led one of these girls to Christ and it
was so sweet to watch. On that day after a open air message and a drama for the
kids many people gave their lives to Christ and were connected to the local
cell groups from the church that are in the area. Many people came asking for
prayers for physical healings and once again God showed up, they had encounters
with a powerful God that cared and loved them enough to heal them and it opened
the door wide open for them to give their lives to Christ, it was a great
outreach.
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| Santo Domingo |
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| Santo Domingo Cable-cars |
On Monday and Tuesday
during the day we got to spend time with the kids from the foundation we were
staying at. The place is called ‘Fundacion Viento Fresco’ (Fresh Wind
foundation). They take care of around 175 kids aged from 6 months old to 12
years old. These kids come from really abusive and hostile backgrounds, many of
which live in high risk of becoming street kids. A lot of these kids parents
are involved in prostitution, drug-dealing and gangs, and a lot of the kids
don’t really have a father in their lives. During those days we got to just hang
with the kids, play, help the staff with feeding the kids, putting them to
sleep during nap time, and some more practical things. It was so much fun,
these kids were so excited that we were there, and we were super excited to be
there, our whole team fell in love with them and it was pretty hard to say bye
to them at the end of the trip. We also got to know and really fall in love
with the staff of the foundation. There isn’t a lot of them, and the amount of
work they have to do everyday is crazy, almost overwhelming, and yet they do it
all with such a great attitude, they have created a family and a safe
environment for those kids. The
love that each one of the staff carry for those kids is surreal, it was a
honour for us to be in the presence of that kind of love and humility. We were
challenged, stretched and transformed just by watching, serving and partnering
with the staff of that place, such ordinary heroes that do everything they do
as if they are doing it unto God Himself.
We also got to teach at the staff devotionals. Every morning the staff
meet for 30mins to share the word of God, and during our time there we got to
take these devotionals and teach what God was putting in our hearts. On our
last devotional our team decided to honour the staff of the foundation and we
washed their feet, it was such a great and powerful moment of the trip. We will
never forget that place, and everyday we miss being there, seriously. What a
beautiful place.
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| Playing with kids at the foundation. |
On Monday night a our
team split into two groups, half of us went to do a church service and the
other half went to the streets to do ministry with homeless and drug addicts,
Christine and I ended up going out to the streets. The church service turned
into a healing meeting with many people getting not only physically healed but
delivered from demons and filled with the Spirit of God.
We went into this
really dangerous neighborhood not far from the foundation we were staying at,
with locals from the community with us for protection. We ended up on this
narrow and dark street filled with homeless, people doing drugs, people just
sitting outside their gates and kids playing amongst all that, it was an
interesting scenario, especially with the kids playing as if they were having
fun in a playground. We got to give way some bread and drinks and pray and love
on people, we had people being delivered, giving their life to Christ and
healed on that night, still, in the midst of all that, we left the place
feeling a bit overwhelmed by the reality in which the people of that community
live in, it was an interesting tension, we were grateful for what God did that
night but at the same time overwhelmed by their situations.
On Tuesday, Wednesday
and Thursday evenings our team split up and went to different cell groups. Christine
and I led two cell groups together on Tuesday and Wednesday, one for the youth
leadership team and another with some awesome Colombian families. At both we
got to share about intimacy with God, living from Heaven to Earth and releasing
the kingdom of God. We got to activate them into the prophetic, declarations
and healing and both nights God showed up and people were healed physically and
emotionally and delivered from oppression. At the second meeting everyone that
needed healing got completely healed, it was amazing, then they were all
baptized with the Holy Spirit and joy, it was a fun night, one of our favorites
meeting, and the Colombian families had some awesome Colombian snacks for us,
which is always a bonus!!
On Thursday we went
to different cell groups, Christine and Michal led a woman’s cell group, they
spoke on the culture of honor and had an amazing time, Christine will share the
testimonies from that on the testimony blog. I led the meeting for the leaders
of the teens and children’s ministry in the church. Antonio, Peter and myself
had a lot of fun as we shared and prayed for that group, it was a fun
night.
On Thursday and
Friday morning we led classes at a school of ministry called Christ for the
Nations that is led by the church. We spoke on the unconditional love of God,
loving the unrighteous as well as the righteous, shared some testimonies and
did some teaching and activation on the prophetic and words of knowledge and on
the second morning we went out to the streets on treasure hunts. While on the
streets we tried to step back and let the students take the lead, it was
amazing, so many of them had never done that before and many got words of
knowledge and prophetic words right for the people on the streets, some people
got healed and had an encounter with God as well, we had such a great time with
the students of their school, it was awesome to share what we have been
learning at our school here in Redding.
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| Our team at Christ for the Nation Ministry School |
On Friday we went to
a public school to speak and minister to the students. We were told that a really rough school had cancelled
classes for an hour so we could minister to the students, which is a miracle in
itself as it has never happened before. They got us a school bus because it was
too dangerous to drive cars into the neighbourhood and they made sure to tell
us, a lot of times, not to bring anything with us to the school, as these are
not the kind of kids that you want to meet on the streets at night. So the
scenario is: 500 students at one of the worst high schools in Medellin, filled
with teens who spend their nights as hit men and prostitutes in a very
dangerous neighborhood- perfect!! We got there and cheered the 500 students as
they walked into the auditorium and then after a message about the love and
goodness of God and the power of what was done at the cross we had an altar
call. I believe that between 80% and 90% of the kids stood up to welcome Christ
into their lives, seriously, I could hardly believe what I was seeing, so let
the ministry time begin. We were praying for those kids for a long time, they
kept flooding to the front of the auditorium asking for prayer for their
families, for themselves, for healing and more. We were there for over 2 hours
with those kids, and they only left because we really had to leave, otherwise
we would be there still. The principle was amazed, he said that this had never
happened before, he said that the worst kids in school were the ones touched
the most, some kids were looking at each other in tears saying “we have felt
the love of God, we can’t continue the same, we are bad people, we have to
change, we will change” yes! These are kids who live in ridiculously abusive
and violent environments saying that they will change because they felt the
love of the Father, in tears, WOW!! The kids and our team were in tears all
over the room, the principle asked if we would go back to do it again haha. The
testimonies of what happened are incredible, so many physical healings,
emotional healings, prayer for families, prayers of forgiveness and a lot more,
and I mean a loooooooooooooooot more. I’m still trying to process the goodness
of God and what I saw happening on that day. WHAT A GOOD GOD WE HAVE HUH?!? So
good!!! The day after that the church contacted the parents to ask them about
sending a bus to pick the kids up to go to church, the parents were asking what
happened at the school, they said that their kids went home that night with
tears in their eyes and peaceful, some said that a new kid went back home from
school, and they asked the church if they could keep up whatever they did at
the school. Seriously, I can’t stop re-living that afternoon in my head and we
are forever changed by this experience. We’ll share more individual stories of
this day on the next blog.
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| Kid's response to who wants to give their lives to Jesus and have a relationship with Him. |
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| Ministry time with the kids. |
After that, on Friday
evening we went to the streets to meet and release the love of God to women and
men involved in prostitution.
There’s quite a lot of prostitution going on in Medellín, to be honest,
I’ve never seen anything like it, it’s happening almost everywhere and in a lot
of places it goes on day and night. The night we went out we saw girls as young
as 14 years old selling their bodies on the streets. We got to talk to a few
girls and they were so open and welcoming, we got to hear their stories, pray
for them and give them hope to pursue a future outside of that. Many of them
felt the love of God for the first time as we went out representing a good God
that has nothing but love and acceptance for them, a good Daddy who longs to
have relationship with them. They are so used to being judged by Christians
that it was almost overwhelming to them. It was another one of those moments
where I was grateful for the encounters they had with God’s love but
overwhelmed by their reality, I’m still trying to process through things as I
write this blog.
On Saturday and
Sunday we went to different church services, on Saturday morning Christine went
to a church with someone else from our team and they spoke on intercession, I
went to a different church and spoke on the prophetic and hearing the voice of
God, both services went really well and many people got healed as we prayed for
the sick and released the kingdom of God at the end. On Saturday afternoon we
went back to the main church, the one with 2000 young people, for their youth
service. There we called out words of knowledge on the stage and did a healing
service, so many people were getting healed, it was amazing, and many gave
their lives to Christ. After the service we went out on the streets with the
young people to do treasure hunts. Christine and I ended up going to this
square where people meet to do drugs and drink and where the police never goes.
There were hundreds of people doing all sorts of drugs and drinking, we loved
being there, we believe that darkness can’t stay when light shows up haha.
Needless to say that God, once again, backed us up as we started to share his
goodness with people, we got to talk and pray for quite a lot of people and we
could see God touching lives as we loved them. It’s amazing the amount of
beautiful people you would find in a place like that, I love it.
On Sunday we did
ministry at both services in the morning and again hundreds of people got
healed, saved and delivered. In the afternoon we went out to the streets one
last time in Colombia on a big treasure hunt with the church and God showed up, hundreds of
testimonies of salvation, healings and deliverances came out of that last
outreach, so good, so God!!
Wow, there you go, a
very short overview on our 9 days of ministry in Colombia.
As I said before,
both Christine and I, as well as the rest of our team are still trying to
process all that happened during our time in Colombia, we saw more people
getting saved, healed and delivered than we could’ve thought was possible,
everywhere we went people were having full on encounters with God. I’ve seen
enough tears coming out of people’s eyes to fill up a lake, tears of pain,
tears of joy, tears of hope. I’ve seen what revival looks like, I know it’s
possible, I now know that there’s no place dark enough for God’s love and light
to shine in and transform everything.
Thank you all for the
support towards this trip, financial, prayers, encouragements, it all made a
huge difference while we were there and it made this trip possible for Christine
and I.
So this is it for
now, a nice overview of our trip, in a few days we’ll be posting a blog with
individual testimonies of things we saw God doing in Colombia, we have enough
testimonies to fill a whole book so, there’ll be some good stuff on here.
We love you guys, and
we pray that you would walk in full awareness of who God is, who you are and
what you carry after reading this blog.
Daniel and Christine.
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| Christine and I enjoying some awesome tasty Colombian food! :) |
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