Back in Action

I’m 2 days in to my first trip back into the jungle in 2011. It’s been so good to be back. Everything went relatively smooth heading in and upon arriving I got some great hugs from the cutest kids ever, had 15 kids in my home trying to clean it up and got to see some friendly faces that I have truly missed.

A couple boys I have been sharing the Word with came by last night and we got to pray together. Wan-Balla, a non-believer, was there and when asked if he wanted to pray, simply said, “I don’t know how”. That led into a good conversation about prayer and then the three of us got to spend some time talking with the Lord.

I had lots of visitors, most of who just came by to say hey. The others came by to see if I had really gotten whiter, as some of the villagers had been saying:) I guess it’s true. After not being blasted by the sun on the equator for a while, I must have lost some of my “redness” as they say.

Already some praises but also some hurts and prayer requests as well. The prayer requests:

1 ) Pray for the family of a local pastor here in the jungle whose son was just murdered in the capital city on the coast. The young twenty year old did not live in the jungle anymore but decided to begin a life in the city several years back. The pastors family is now in the city visiting and mourning.

2) Another concern…one of my good friend’s wife is really sick. I thought she just happened to have some health issues as of late, which still may be the case, but I just heard from another villager that a curse had been put on her by a “wisiman” in the village. A wisiman in short is basically just that, someone who puts curses on people. Please be in prayer for these two families.

My huge praise came this morning as we were able to hold a service in a nearby village called Sanbedoemi. This village, to the best of my knowledge has not had a church service held on its island before, at least since I’ve been here. A women from this village passed away, supposedly one of the oldest women on the river and many family members have come from the city and neighboring villages to mourn. Im not sure how it came about but another pastor in a neighboring village was asked to hold a Christian service for the women who had passed away at Sanbedoemi.

Next thing I knew, we were going to the village this morning around 10 and I was informed at 9:30 that I would be “preaching”. Whoa! Im usually ready for sharing, but for the funeral of one of the oldest women on the river, in a village that had never held a Christian service before….I definitely began praying for the Lord to speak! And thankfully, He did.

We arrived and began worshiping together, danced together and read from Gods Word together. The sweet thing about this service was that we were in the exact same place where they would later be holding their own “spiritual” and ancestral services which involves very much animism and demonic worship. The same drums that were going to be used in these spiritual ceremonies in just a few hours, we were able to use to praise the Father. The same place where people would soon come to dance and mourn over the loss of their loved one, we were able to dance there and sing with joyful hearts to our loved One. The same place where alcohol would soon be poured out to the gods and ancestral spirits, we were able to pour out our prayers to the Father.

It was a pretty special day to say the least. A great start to these last few months here in Suriname. Please keep praying.

Sorry for the lack of new pictures on the blog. My camera broke and a new one is on the way. If you are a friend on facebook, you can check out pics and a new video I posted there. Im going to try and keep posting pictures and short updates each week on facebook to keep everyone posted. Thanks again for the prayers!!

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