Spicy Spiritual Gumbo

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. Is. 55:8

True dat. As I zipped up my suitcase for the last time and plopped myself into bed with excited anticipation, I little expected that within a few hours I would be caught up in a wholly different kind of whirlwind. All through the night, as I battled head-on with The Stomach Flu With a Vengeance, I cried out to God to save and deliver me so that I could get on the plane for Guatemala the next day. I tried taking authority over the sickness. I rebuked every spirit I could think of. I threw up. Toward morning, I realized I wouldn't be making it to church. I called a few close friends to have them pray. One faithful saint was actually prompted by the Holy Spirit to leave church, drive to my house, anoint me and proclaim healing. It was an awesome, powerful time of prayer. Full of faith, I rose up and walked to the bathroom, had myself a shower, got dressed and passed out on my bed. My mother finally showed up and after looking at me for about 2 seconds said, "You're NOT getting on that plane." I argued. I told her about my prayer warrior friend coming over and that God had healed me. She just looked at me with those mom eyes and I started crying as she called the airlines to cancel my trip.

And, I'm glad she did.

That same night I awoke with excruciating chest pains that lasted all through the morning. Turns out I developed pleurisy, which is an inflammation of the lining of the lungs. I had started off the week with strep throat, caught a little head cold, then barfed a lot and this was the result. How bizarre. Across the board, everyone's reactions were, like the Body of Christ itself, completely varied. Whether it was an outright demonic attack, God's perfect protection, just a fluky, weird time of catching EVERYTHING that's been going around or a spicy gumbo of all three, it has kept me from going to Guatemala at this time. I thought I might be able to go in a week or two, but even if my lungs were miraculously healed by then, the nightmare with ticket prices, etc ... it's not even an option. So, I wait.

In the meantime, God has just completely blown my socks off. Tonight I received a message that I will be getting quite a hefty monthly supporter and that puts me up to 81%. Woo-Hoo!!

Who Prayed?

I am glad to announce that, due to some fervently righteous prayers, my passport came on time. Yippee!! See, a while ago, God had given me the dates March 12-April 23 to attend language school. I was quite forlorn because of the passport delay, wondering if I had, indeed, heard the voice of my Shepherd or not. When my passport came early Thursday morning, I felt the tender nudge of that same Shepherd to go ahead and call the language school and see if I could by any chance register for school for Monday morning. Normally they ask for 2-3 weeks advance notice so that they can find a family for the students to live with and get the right teacher. But, see, we have an amazing God. I called the school and Gerardo at the other end said in beautiful English, "Of course you can come Monday, we have space AND a family! Not only that, but we will come pick you up at the airport when you arrive at 4:35 a.m." How humbling. The next best part is this: when I went online to see how much the plane tickets had gone up in price, I thought my eyes betrayed me when I saw that the price had gone DOWN almost $100 !! I quickly booked my tickets and ran to Wal-Mart to buy everything I needed to go cross-cultural for 6 weeks. I will update next time from Antigua, Guatemala.

P.S. I am at 48% of my monthly budget and 35% of my one-time budget. Keep those prayers coming!!