Praising God with Toads and Bugs

Last Thursday night an Evangelistic Campaign was started at one of the new Methodist churches in Luque. It is not exactly a church, but an annex to one of the churches we have been attending. It is located in an extremely poor area where people have moved in waiting for government homes. Hundreds of families are living in shacks constructed out of cardboard and plastic trash bags. Most of them are 8 x 10 feet with maybe 1 or 2 rooms. They usually cook outside on small charcoal grills in one pot and wash their clothes in buckets and then drape their clothes to dry over the barbwire they have surrounding their lots to keep the cows and horses out.

The area is not only physically poor, but spiritually poor as well. During our time there we have seen several people staggering around drunk. There is also a lot of witchcraft. One of the pastors pointed out a witch's home just around the corner from where the church meets.

Every night people have been coming up for prayer for healing and accepting the Lord as their Savior. It has been awesome! The campaign was supposed to end Saturday night, but everyone felt that it needs to continue. So, it will continue through next week. Everyone involved has been asked to fast and pray for a spiritual breakthrough in the area.

As all of this has been going on, I must admit I have also been a bit stretched out of my comfort zone! Nope, its not the healing or praying in tongues or pentecostal preaching style that is stretching me (I love to see the way God is moving!). Its the bugs and toads. I'm not talking about cute little bugs or tiny leaping frogs. There were literally millions of HUGE flying bugs and GIANT hopping toads. I was okay while sitting back in one of the chairs, but as soon as I stepped into the light to play my trumpet, they were surrounding me. As I was playing, I could feel them landing on me and some even going down my shirt. The toads, some literally the size of small cats (only a little exaggeration) were happily jumping around my feet and eating them. I tried to take it all in stride, but I'm not sure how well I did!

All I know is that God helped me through it and it did not take away from the awesomeness of the demonstration of His power that night.