Remember how sometimes you don’t hear from me for months and then suddenly you get two or more updates in less than a week?

Yep.

So life’s been interesting these past what? Two days since I sent out the last update? For most of you that seems about right for me. But it’s actually been more interesting than normal. But in a good way.

Saturday night we had youth group out at the home. The retired pastor who’s working with us leads it. It can be…long. It finished up around 9:30 or so and I was talking with one of the guys out by my truck when we heard the guys start singing again. My first thought was, “Are you kidding me? We’re doing church again?!”

So we wandered over to the dining hall where everyone was gathered, and right away I noticed one of the guys with Miguel wasn’t doing well. He was twitching and jerking around and obviously in a bad state. I knew right away by the way things were proceeding that Miguel and the pastor believed that some kind of demonic activity was happening. At first I wasn’t sure I was convinced. The way his hands were clenched and he was convulsing I thought he might be having some kind of seizure. But as things proceeded, I became more convinced that Miguel was right. I was trying not to overstep my boundaries, but I was anxious to go over to the fellow and pray for him. But…this is Bolivia and so I waited until I was invited to participate. I understood what Miguel was trying to do, but I kind of felt he was going down the wrong road in dealing with this. He and the pastor were trying to get the guy to say that he accepted Christ as his Saviour. But the kid wasn’t in any kind of place to be able to do that. What did convince me that this was a spiritual issue rather than a physical one, was when I did have the opportunity to pray for him, I just put my hand on him and started taking authority over whatever was attacking him in the name of Jesus and commanding it to leave. Eventually the pastor and Miguel understood what was going on and joined in. Even though I was praying for him in English, right away there was a difference in his countenance. It took a few minutes for him to completely calm down, but that was definitely the moment when things started to get better.

It was an interesting experience. I don’t want to sound like this was all about me or that I knew exactly what to do. I’ve just done some reading about all of this and that’s given me some insights when these moments come along. I don’t think I’ve ever run into anything quite this obvious, but to varying degrees you run into demonic activity fairly often down here. It kind of comes with the territory, with the experiences and backgrounds these guys bring to the home.

Miguel asked if I would sleep in the dorm with the guys that night. Often after an experience like that, Miguel was worried that some of the guys would freak out and take off. So I just tried to be relaxed (actually I really was…this whole thing didn’t really get me that worked up…chalk it up to the whole peace beyond understanding thing) and talk with the guys. I explained that this was more about Satan trying to mess with us and make us afraid…and that this was really something to celebrate. Our brother was free now. Greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world. Then I puffed out my chest and said, besides I was sleeping in the dorm that night and I was a pastor and we can do anything. Ha…not so true, but it made them laugh anyhow.

It did end up being a late night though as there were a few guys who wanted to talk. I noticed one guy making the rounds walking and not going to bed. I took him aside and asked him if he was okay and if he was a bit afraid. He put his thumb and finger together and said, just that much. =) So we talked and prayed and eventually he was ready to sleep. I mostly just listened to him to be honest. It was late and I was tired. I was only understanding about every third word. But it seemed to work. =)

I went back out to the home on Sunday afternoon and the fellow who’d had the problems was out playing futbol with the guys. He seemed to be doing okay. I’ll talk more with him tonight when I go out there. Interestingly, he was one of the guys I wrote about last time who wanted to have a Bible study with me because he was tired of all the stuff going on in his life. So we’ll talk more about that.

The other thing I wanted to mention quickly was church on Sunday morning. I took a fellow with me, thinking it would be a good experience for him. It was…but not in the way I expected exactly. I knew this guy struggles with being in situations where he thinks people are watching him or even aware of him. It goes back to some of the issues from his past. But I didn’t realize how deep it went until we sat down and church started. He was very agitated and tense. Then during the offering time (everyone comes up to the front to put their offering in a box and it’s sort of a greeting time too) one of the girls came over to say hi to us. She did the normal kiss us on the cheek thing and asked this guy his name. He could barely say his name. Then another girl came over and he couldn’t even speak. He just looked at me with the most ‘deer caught in the headlights’ look I’ve ever seen. I just introduced him and it was mostly fine.

The reason I mention this is first of all, to ask you to pray for him. But to also say that it’s cool how God uses every situation for good. We’ve been talking through his past and whatnot and this gave me the opportunity to explain to him that this is not what God wants for him. He deserves to have a family and community of Believers that he can be a part of. Satan wants to take that from him. It was a good conversation and he’s committed to returning. The funny thing is, he really liked the church and wants to be a part of it. So like I said, if you could pray for him, that’d be great.

My only other comment is….I got pulled over by the police again today. Supposedly my windows were tinted too dark and the officer wanted 200 Bs. That’s A LOT! So I said let’s go to transito (the police station). He really didn’t want to do that… =) But then….neither did I. It would take a long time and be annoying. So we agreed that maybe 100 Bs would be okay for me to pay. That’s still way too much ($20) but I just figured I was doing my part to forward the Bolivian economy. Marcee (my co-worker) was with me and we had a good laugh about it as we drove away. Ah life….

So…that was my weekend. I also had a couple of great opportunities to talk with a couple of the guys. One fellow that’s been my favourite for a long time but just can’t kick his drug habit, showed up this weekend. He comes and goes as his addiction dictates really. When he’s clean he’s one of the greatest guys you’d want to meet. But…every few months the addiction kicks in and away he goes for a few months. We talked about this and I hope I was able to encourage him that freedom and change are possible. You can pray for him too…

Thanks for reading and praying. I appreciate it! =)

Ken

PS….Oh yea…I bought a cool new cell phone (mine was stolen while I was in Canada). It’s a dark red and silver and it’s got lots of good features. Who knew that red is a ‘girl’s colour’. I’ve taken more grief over that dumb phone. Guys can wear the pinkest shirts going and slick their hair into the girliest hairdos I’ve ever seen. But a red phone? Girly. I told my girlfriend that I don’t care and that I like my phone. She replied that that was good and she just won’t tell her friends that her boyfriend has a red phone.

Good grief….