Friday August 31^st: - Arrival and resting up.

Saturday September 1^st: - Meeting Jonas Clark; travel to and our first meeting in Leon, AND Elsie's miracle healing!

Sunday September 2^nd: - First Sunday service and praying for Pastor Alba and Deborah - the beginning of an extraordinary supernatural encounter!  

Monday September 3^rd: - WOW! The mind-blowing SUERNATURAL MIRACLE (read the details here) .

Tuesday September 4^th: - Praying for the Police; Hurricane Felix, rain and a great church service.

Wednesday September 5^th: - Travel back to Managua and then on to Matagalpa and Selva Negra (Black Forest)...

Thursday September 6^th: - "Chance" ministry opportunity and an outreach near a shopping plaza in Managua - souls saved!

Friday September 7^th: - Fantastic meeting with a born-again national congressman - amazing man.

Saturday September 8^th:- DAY OFF

Sunday September 9^th: Amazing church service; visit to orphanage to give gifts away and hang with the children there.

Monday September 10^th: - Fly back to Houston - what was lost was not lost at all!

 

 

We arrived in the evening in Managua safe and sound after an uneventful flight from Houston. Arturo Sanchez, our main contact here picked us up and took us to his home.

 

We spend the morning at Arturo’s home adjusting to the new location and had breakfast with Apostle Jonas Clark who is based in Florida. This Man of God has a real heart for the nation of Nicaragua and wants to see the kingdom of God invade every aspect of this nation. He is a major supporter of Arturo Sanchez and has ministry here in Nicaragua.

 

In the late afternoon we drove out to Leon about 2 hours away and one of the oldest cities in the country and where Arturo has a church pastored by Pastor Alberto. We did our first meeting there and had a wonderful time of ministry. Ramesh spoke on the extravagant out of the box love that God has for us and he used the text from the prodigal son parable, except he referred to it as the story of the “Foolish Father”. Many people were impacted and then we had a ministry time of praying for the affectionate love of the Father to be revealed to his children. It was a sweet time of ministry and many hearts were touched.

 

Earlier in the meeting during the worship, which is very exuberant even for Latin standards, one of the energetic young people landed quite heavily on Elsie’s toes! She was in tremendous pain and began to have visions of going to a Nicaraguan hospital and having to walk on crutches! It was so bad that she couldn’t walk to the podium when we were being introduced. Seeing her obvious discomfort the church gathered around and began to pray for her. Within a few short minutes the pain was dramatically reduced and the healing process was significantly accelerated. She able to walk to the podium and bring greetings! Praise God! Already we were experiencing the supernatural!

 

After the meeting, we stopped at a corner vendor to enjoy some Nicaraguan chicken “tacitos” before driving about 20 minutes to the Surupaya Beach Hotel on the Pacific coast where we were to stay for the duration of our time in Leon. If you don’t mind sorry excuses for shower heads and the lack of hot water and frequent power outages, you’d enjoy your stay there because it was right on the beach - which was beautiful. As we settled down before going to bed we enjoyed an amazing “light show” as we watched a lightening storm for several hours over the Pacific Coast.

 

We drove back to Leon for the Sunday morning meeting where Elsie spoke very effectively on the Call to Intimacy with God. This is a very receptive church to the things of the Spirit because they were really tracking with Elsie and all that the Lord was imparting through her talk.

 

The really fun stuff started after the service! We were asked to go to the hospital to pray with Pastor Alberto’s wife, Pastor Elba. She was in the hospital for a hysterectomy. The surgery should have been earlier but there was an infection in the operating theatre and so the surgery had to be delayed. We went and prayed with Pastor Elba and renewed acquaintances with her. We prayed that God would heal her supernaturally.

 

As we were spending time with her another member of their church came in quite distraught because she had a sister in that hospital who was suffering with a tumour in her cerebellum which had been there for seven years! She was now at the point of death and was expected to die very shortly. Seeing how troubled the sister was, we had to go and pray.

 

We went up to the floor where her sister, Deborah, was and discovered that a large number of her family members (most of whom were believers in Jesus) were there as well. There was a pall of sadness and depression over the ward which had about 10 women suffering from a variety of ailments. We gathered about her bed and began to talk with her. We found out that her Catholic priest had come and administered last rites to her… She was expected to pass at any moment.

 

Arturo, who also served as our translator, began to share the gospel with Deborah. She was very resistant and just wouldn’t go along with his cajoling her to accept Jesus. This went on for quite a while – probably half and hour or so. Elsie and I then prayed our tried and trusted “Kingdom of God come” prayer and then got ready to leave. As we were doing so it just seemed that we all ended up moving to the other beds and began praying with the other patients there. It turned into a wonderful time of experiencing the sweet presence of Jesus as we began to share with these ladies with some of them saying the sinner’s prayer and receiving Jesus into their hearts.

 

We eventually left to return to our hideaway on the beach where we had a restful time and fellowship with Arturo. Again, we had a brilliant lightening storm as the heavens declared the glory and power of the Lord Most High.

 

I was quite impressed at how calmly Pastor Alberto responded when we came out of the hospital to discover that his bicycle had been stolen even though it was chained to the hospital fence!

 

We had a lazy morning relaxing and walking on the beach amid preparing for the night’s service. After lunch in the mid-afternoon, we headed back to the church in Leon and received some extraordinary news!! The sister and mother of Deborah, the lady we prayed for the day before came to us and shared the exciting news that Deborah had had a visitation from Jesus during the night! 

 

Jesus came to her and said, “Why are you so rebellious? OK, I’ll make a deal with you. If you give me your life I will heal you and give you many more days on this earth.” She agreed to the deal… She also said that Jesus was very handsome…

The mother and sister said that when they went visit the next morning Deborah, who had suffered with this brain tumour for seven years, was like her old self. She was lucid and “in her right mind”. She was convinced that she was healed and the doctors were going to conduct tests to see what had caused this dramatic change!! Awesome Jesus!

 

Ramesh taught on the Going From Orphans to Being Sons and it went over very well.

 

On the previous Sunday we had prayed for a Christian lady who was just being promoted to the Police Commissioner of another district about 30 minutes away from Leon. She had asked us to come and pray with her so we arranged to do it today.

 

So we drove out there and had some delicious surprises. Because of Hurricane Felix which was ravaging the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua and Honduras the Police Commissioner was delayed in meetings. In the meantime, they gave us tour of the police facilities and I have to say that after seeing the squalid jail cell in which people are kept I’d really want to make sure that I was on the right side of the law! If you could get sick being in their hospitals, you could become a criminal being in their jail cells!

 

The members of the police force were all open for us to pray with them and Arturo led them all in the sinner’s prayer. Immediately, one of the police officers confessed that he had recently given his wife, who was three months pregnant, a drug so that the baby would be aborted. We led him through prayers of repentance, and pronounced forgiveness over him. We also prayer for healing and the breaking off of any trauma off that baby (who hadn’t died) so that he or she would be normal and healthy and grow up into a powerful man or woman of God.

 

We got the chance to really pray over and prophecy over many of these police officers and it was a real privilege to do so.

 

Because of the heavy amounts of rain that was falling by this time as we drove back to Leon, as a result of Hurricane Felix, we were not sure how many would come out to that evening’s meeting. However, there were many more people than we had expected and indeed one of Arturo’s churches from Chinandega, another city about an hour away, make it down in spite of the conditions.

 

Elsie ministered on the Nurturing Heart of God and many people were deeply impacted by this message. This aspect of God’s nature, and it’s implications for our own hearts and lives, is almost a foreign concept in these parts and it was a very welcome revelation. A lot of tears were shed that night as people began to receive the nurturing love of our wonderful God. Bless his Holy Name.

 

Our time in Leon is over and the church gave us lovely gifts and a nice fried chicken meal as a token of their appreciation and love. It was precious.

 

Next morning we headed back to Managua because Arturo had had some unexpected business to which he had to attend. Around mid-afternoon, we headed out on the three hour drive to Matagalpa, one of our favourite places in the nations. It is high up in the mountains and the church there is very passionate and prayerful following in the footsteps of its pastor, Miguel.

 

We had a great meeting there. Ramesh was battling a slight stomach infection and was feverish, however, he preached a bit on following the example of King David who was a great warrior (spiritual warfare is the major focus in the churches here) but who was also a great lover of God. Elsie then prophesied over the church corporately and then over every individual. It was a fantastic meeting and the presence of God was rich in that place.

 

We then had to rush up to Selva Negra (Black Forest) a coffee plantation which also has a resort type setting. It is owned by a family of German ancestry and is a lovely and restful spot. Because Ramesh was still battling this infection we went straight to bed. Also, probably because of Hurricane Felix, the place had shut up earlier that usual.

 

We woke up to enjoy a lovely breakfast at the restaurant overlooking a small lake with ducks noisily enquiring after some of our meal. It is a tranquil haven in the midst of the pressures and stresses of life and ministry in Nicaragua and we love going there even if it’s for one night.

 

Last time we were here two years ago, we took the opportunity to go on a horseback ride through the coffee plantation but this time we couldn’t. However, we did go to visit the horses in their stinking stable!

 

We took a drive further up into the mountains to enjoy the ruggedly beautiful views and God gave us another divinely orchestrated ministry opportunity. We stopped at a roadside vendor that Arturo knows to have a little chat and taste a sampling of the local fare. It turns out that this Christian lady’s brother was brutally killed three months prior and she was deeply troubled by it. So we got the change to pray with her and her daughter and we saw Jesus come and touch and encourage her heart. It was a precious moment.

 

We got back to Managua in time for the outreach we had planned near the shopping plaza close to Arturo’s Managua church. For some reason there were not as many people shopping as there had been on previous outreaches. Nevertheless, we went ahead. We had rented a sound system and so we started off with some great local worship and praise music. Then Ramesh preached; three young men gave their lives to Jesus. One of them was the brother of the pastor’s wife in Matagalpa, so that was special for them. We then prophesied over a few of the church people who were there and prayed for healing for some more. A family of four who all had AIDS came for prayer and we felt that God did something for them – especially the wife - but of course the doctor’s tests will confirm or deny.

 

It turned out to be a great time of fun and celebration!

 

We drove out to Masachapa where Apostle Jonas Clark, the brother we met the first morning we were here, owns a retreat centre called La Paloma – the Dove. Arturo had arranged for us to meet a national congressman who many are saying could become the next president of the country. It was somewhat intimidating initially thinking that we were going to meet this famous politician but that sense of intimidation quickly faded to the background as our security in the Father’s Love came to the forefront and we resolved to simply be who we were.

 

We had a lovely chat over lunch with this brother, his wife and an aide who also was a believer. It was fascinating listening to his conversion story which included an angelic encounter. He’s only been a follower of Jesus for sixteen months and married to his wife for fourteen but it seems like the Lord is fast tracking him into a position of significant power in the nation. We had the distinct privilege of praying over them and prophesying into their lives. It was awesome!

 

Elsie and I are now taking the rest of the day off as well as tomorrow. We will stay here at La Paloma and rest up. Arturo comes to pick us up for the Sunday morning service – our last official meeting – before going to the Managua orphanage on Sunday afternoon.

 

Day off…

 

I’ve missed having access to the internet and the outside world but it has been good to relax today and take it easy. Elsie and I are taking the Alpha Marriage Course somewhat informally and haphazardly but it is a great blessing and help to us. After five years of marriage we’ve discovered that we have developed patterns of behaviour that can be irritating to each other so we are working on getting those sorted. Even after having watched only three of the seven sessions, we would highly recommend this course to any and every married couple.

 

 

Today’s service was amazing!! It started at 11 am and went until 3 pm, which is even unusual for them! Many of the pastors from Arturo’s churches came in to Managua for this our final meeting. Miguel from Matagalpa, Ruth from Chinandega, Alberto from Leon, plus a number of others that we did not know. In addition, that congressman we met on Friday came along with his wife. So it was a special meeting to say the least, and the Holy Spirit did not disappoint!

 

We had an extended time of worship and it was physically quite hot in that church. Ramesh preached on the Father Heart of God. We then asked the Holy Spirit to release the Father’s Love (Rom 5:5) and we asked Jesus to reveal the Father to the people (Luke 10:22). It was wonderful and electric to see the people connecting with the presence of the Father as he swept into the room.

 

Then Elsie had a prophetic word for the church and the nation of Nicaragua. The place was explosive as we invited the leaders of the churches and leaders in the community to come to the front. We then gathered the rest of the church around them and began to intercede for this word to come to pass.

 

After this, Elsie and I went around laying hands on the people and that got even more ballistic! It was awesome.

 

Deborah’s mother and sister (from our episode the previous Sunday) also came to the service from Leon and testified that the doctors said that they don’t understand it now but they can operate to remove the tumour!! Prior to our prayers (all of our prayers) there was no hope and the Catholic priest had even come to administer last rites! Amazing Father! We trust that when they go to operate they will find nothing there, in Jesus name!

 

We then went to the orphanage to deliver the gifts which came from the Sweetwater Christian Fellowship in Houston. The orphans were delighted to receive the gifts they got and I’ll include some photos of our visit there later on.

 

All in all it was an incredibly good visit to Nicaragua. Some people came into the kingdom, others were physically healed, and yet others were impacted by the messages of the love of our Heavenly Daddy. We are quite happy and Arturo would be delighted if we could come back to do a full on school for a week with his leaders.

 

To all intents and purposes the trip is over now and we are in our hotel across the street from the airport. Our flight back to Houston is at 6:45 am. I am working to upload this diary to our website since they have internet access here.

 

We are back in Houston, Texas after an uneventful flight. Our friend, Anna Eaton picked us up from the airport and we are now in their home. Buck is off at their church premises as they are renovating certains aspects of the buildings.

 

One nerve wracking thing did happen though. When we were packing up this morning we discovered that we had misplaced our camera. Amid the rush to get to the airport on time we looked everywhere for it but to no avail. We finally settled down to the conclusion that we had either misplaced the camera or that someone had stolen it... the first seemed the more likely possibility. We went through the process of forgiving anyone who may had taken it, forgving ourselves for losing it - and all the pictures that we had taken on this trip. We then asked God to replace what the enemy had stolen from us. 

 

We it turned out that the camera was not actually lost! It was simply misplaced in our checked luggage. Somehow, inadvertently it had fallen from my knapsack into my luggage and this went unnoticed! 

 

At any rate, we have our camera and I will be uploading some photos of our trip to this page by tomorrow. So come back now y'hear.