Year End Report
Hello Everyone,
How are you all doing? We would love to hear from each and every one of you. I mentioned in our last report that we were going to train some youth at a church a few hours away how to do market place ministry. We went there last week and trained 10 youth, with our team leaders taking out 4 different teams. Each team had at least one male with them for safety. The pastor also went out on one team.
In just a few short hours the 4 teams led at least 30 people to Jesus and we experienced at least 3 or 4 healings. This was in a fairly small community and we actually were in a residential neighborhood going door to door as there are not markets their of any size. On our team led by one of our female leaders we encountered nine kids all under the age of 13 who were playing baseball with a ball made out of tape and using a stick for a bat.
We love to lead children to the Lord and they were thrilled to have the big white foreigner dude come over and talk to them a little in their own language and to make them laugh using words that they find funny. After leading them all to Jesus and spending at least a half an hour with them we prayed for a little boy who was around 8 years old. The whole time we were fellowshipping with them he kept on blinking and frowning and something was obviously wrong. After asking him some questions we found at that he had been in quite a lot of pain apparently for a long time in his eyes and the kids teased him at school because he was always blinking. We prayed a short prayer and asked him how he felt. He just stood there dumbfounded and could not speak for a short time, as it appeared he was in disbelief and just realizing his pain was all gone and he stopped blinking. Finally he confirmed that he was fine and the look on his face was priceless. Praise the Lord!!!!
We also had a couple of young ladies who had never prayed for anyone to be healed before pray for two elderly ladies and lead them to Jesus. One lady had pain and immobility in her hips, legs and knees, as I understand it. After receiving prayer she was jumping around smiling like the chesire cat and could not stop thanking us. I told her to dagan pas pas which means to run fast and she ran around in a short circle with a big smile. It was really quite cute.
A few weeks ago on a Saturday our team of 6 walked our own neighbor hood which we have been doing for nearly two years praying for people. Just around the block we met a man in his 40s standing by the gate in front of his house. He had had a stroke and his left side was partially paralyzed and his shoulder was in quite a lot of pain. His fingers twitched from nerves. We prayed for him once and he said he felt a little better. We prayed for him again and he said he felt something inside and was better. We prayed for him a third time and asked him to try to do something he could not do before. He raised his arm and moved it all around and got a big smile and said all the pain was gone and that he could not raise his arm before. Most of the twitching had left his fingers.
We then asked him if he knew anyone else who needed a healing. He led us around the corner to an elderly woman in a wheelchair who could not walk without a walker. We prayed for her and she was not healed but we led her Jesus. We asked her if we could hold a bible study in her home and she agreed. So our intern pastors held a bible study there last week with the man who was healed of the stroke and one of his friends.
It turns out that the man who was healed of the stroke has a radio program and the man he brought with him is the radio station owner. Cathy and me were gone for 3 days a 3 hour ferry ride away in Dumagueti when we had our normal Sunday afternoon meetings. The team always does and local language Bisayan meeting then and these two men also attended the meeting and testified to how God healed the stroke victim. That night on their radio program they also testified to what Jesus had done and gave him glory.
Saturday after we went out into the streets again and returned those two men were waiting for us. They invited me to come and speak on their radio program last night. We spent an hour going through a few scriptures on healing and they asked me to comment on each scripture. After the radio program they asked me out for some fellowship at a local bakery. I asked them if they would be open to having a call in program on the radio where people could call in for prayer and they agreed. I offered to train them how to lead people to Jesus and pray for healing and they are so fired up they agreed. I will begin to speak at least once a week on “The Healing Hour” program now teaching over the radio how its God’s will to heal His sons and daughters. Who knows where God will take this but we are very excited about it!
So much for my (short) message, tee hee. Every Saturday morning at 6:30 we attend a pastors prayer breakfast with between 20 and 25 pastors. We noticed one of the pastors wives who is usually there was not there and they were the ones hosting the meeting. After the meeting she came in and us, (me, Cathy and Rey) to pray for her as she had been sick for 5 days and her head was in significant pain. As we prayed she begin to cry, not tears of sorrow but tears of joy as she was totally healed and all her pain was gone. Just normal stuff for our Papa!!! Amen. Thank you all for your continued support as we could not live here without you.
Love Mark and Cathy