The Man With The Web Tattoo (San Miguel, El Salvador)

This is one of my favorite stories because it shows the lengths God will go to seek out ONE person and how He lets us partner with Him in the doing.....

This story takes place on a YWAM outreach in El Salvador. The picture here is taken in the plaza where the story takes place....I am preaching (not pictured) and Josh (pictured) is holding the speaker for my mic (as if I ever need one. It's not like my voice doesn't carry!!).

So. Ok. Our YWAM team was in the plaza in the late afternoon, doing what we do. After a few testimonies from teammates I got up to preach. While I was preaching I was also praying (like all good YWAMers are taught to do) and asking God if there was anyone in particular I should talk with after the service. He kept highlighting this one man, who had on a sleeveless shirt and a HUGE spiderweb tattooed on his tricep. I knew I was supposed to talk with him.

But after the preaching we did our dramas and then it was dusk. And rapidly getting dark. When all was done I left the stage and started trying to find the man with the tattoo. I didn't see him. Then Jason grabbed me and said I need you to come translate for me. God highlighted a man that I'm supposed to talk to but I can't find him. I answered that I could not go with him as God had highlighted a man to me too. I asked Jason who his man was & he said some guy with a spiderweb tattooed on his tricep. I was startled and said I'm looking for the guy with the spiderweb tattooed on his arm! So we decided to look together. A few minutes later Jessica came over to us and said I'm looking for a guy with a spiderweb tattooed on his arm. Have you seen him? Oh my gosh! God had three people looking for the same guy!

By now we realized that this guy seriously needed to be found. So, we stopped to pray together. Knowing that GOD knew where this guy was. So. We prayed and I felt God telling me he was on the other side of the plaza and said so. We all looked over there. By now it was dark and there were drug deals going down over there. And the prostitutes were starting to surface. It looked a bit...well...interesting. So, I went to our leader to get permission.

Ed said we could go but had to be back in 10 minutes. So we ran to the other side of the plaza. And suddenly all three stopped like we had hit a wall. Uh.... I said I think we need to pray again. So, we did and Jason informed us that God told him we should go to the right. So we all started running right.

Once again we all suddenly stopped like we'd hit a wall. So, we prayed again. Jessica said God told her he was on the other side of this particular booth. So, ok. We went around that booth and sure enought there he was!!!

With less than 5 minutes left we quickly told him the whole story of how God had directed us to him and Jason told him dude! God is really after you! You need to give your life to Him! He admitted he had been a Christian and had fallen away so re-dedicated his life on the spot. We gave him some prophetic words that the Lord was telling us, handed him info on a local church and dashed back.

His name was Oscar. We pray for him to this day. The man that God pursued so obvioulsy by pointing him out to three different people and then leading them across a dark plaza, step by step to find him.

Annacondia & The Demon (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

I'm choosing to tell this story next, not because it's such a great bedtime story for children (it's not) but because most people find it hilarious....especially if you know me well.

The actual story takes place at a Carlos Annacondia deliverance conference but you need a little background to understand my reaction.

Larry & I were working with a ministry in Argentina who had a "deliverance week". Now, I had read about deliverance in the Bible but had never seen it done before. So, this "week" had me a little on edge to begin with and things went very amuck. At least in my thinking. People who were "getting delivered" screamed 24/7 for days because they couldn't get the demons out (turned out they forgot to get the person saved first) and other people got "stuck". I hadn't know you could get stuck. Anyway. With all this going on and the deep compassion of the ages welling up in my heart it was a rough week for me. I stayed curled up in the little grey boxcar (see picture below) that was our house for hours on end crying for people and not wanting to ever have to deliver someone....quite sure I wold fail if it was that difficult.

So! After this tramatizing week my dear friend Teresa, an American who's husband was in Argentina on business, had the brilliamt idea that we should go to the Annacondia service that was going on that night. I knew Don Carlos was the deliverance minister in Argentina and I had had quite enough of that type of ministry. Larry, being not so helpful, thought going would be a great idea. So. Off we went.

The service was so packed that we ended up in the overflow room. And, for real, you could feel the electrified air even in overflow, which put me even more on edge. But, then, as nothing particularly...uh..."exciting" happened during the sermon I started to relax and take in what was happening in the room.

There was a woman in front of me that I felt the Lord was asking me to pray for. I shook it off convinced I was not really "hearing God". But towards the end of the service Teresa leaned over and said "I really think God is telling me to pray for that woman." Of course, it was the same woman. O great, I thought, now I have to pray for someone. Oh well. No harm in just praying for someone, I guess. So I told Teresa the truth that I had sensed the same thing.

We were all standing by now so I reached out, placed my hand on her head and opened my mouth to pray something safe like Jesus, please bless this woman but had only said Jesus when she suddenly manifested a demon, threw herself onto the floor at my feet thrashing around and slinging chairs everywhere. And me? Did I do the wonderful, Godly ministery thing and try to get the demon out? Oh no...I stopped breathing then yelled Oh S*@#! at the top of my voice (thankfully in English) and bolted out the door.

God is merciful, however, and Teresa told me that the official deliverance team came and helped her. I, though, swore I would never again be involved in deliverance much less with any Argentina people.

Fast forward to APS July 2004 or 2005. We have a class deliverance training. I suck it up and decide to go. And in God's never-ending sense of humor, (He just will not let the thing rest!) the person teaching the deliverance seminar had been trained....you guessed it...by the Annacondia people. Ah well! :)

(so for those of you who wonder what all the giggling was about in the seminar...now you know...it was the amusement of those who had heard this story!!)

Cake Is Not Cocaine (Santafe de Bogota, Colombia)

This story tends to be a favorite so let's start here....



When I was about 20 years old (roughly 17 years ago) a friend of mine and I were moving down to Colombia, South America. We planned to live in the city of Villavicencio working with the family here in this picture. (I am 3rd from the left in a chair).



So. My friend went down to Colombia for a few months in the summer and I was to go down in October to tie up loose ends for a while and then we were to move down the following January.

While she was in Colombia that August it was her birthday. I got together a really simple box of things...like a t-shirt, snacks and etc to mail down for her birthday.

Well, at that time most packages were still going overseas by ship and took about 3 weeks. (and, yes, it's true we did not have Internet yet, email, cell phones etc! This was "real missions" with letters the only form of communication and they took weeks to arrive too. You could be dead a long time before your family found out! :) ) Anyway. The package did not arrive in time and come September the missionary down there (Bill) contacted me and asked what he should do with the package. I told him to just hang onto it and I would bring it back with me in October. Sounded reasonable to me.

October came along and I traveled on down to Colombia. When it came time to leave I put the battered little shoebox package into my carry on luggage, thinking my friend could open it when I got home. Better late than never, I mused.

Now, the Bogota airport, at the time, searched you and everything on you the minute you walked through the sliding doors from the street. Bill dropped me off at the door, waved and left me there. My Spanish was still very rusty but passable in normal situations. I walked through the door thinking nothing and placed my bags on the table to be opened and searched. They patted me down while they dug about and then pulled out my little shoebox gift.

Mr Aduana Man jerked his head up suspiciously and says in rapid Spanish what is this?
I promptly explained it was a birthday package I had sent my friend that did not arrive in time and I was taking it home for her to open.

He continued to look at me suspiciously and I thought whoa. I guess does look a little weird. An unopened package that had been mailed to a Colombian address and now was being carted back to the USA? Oh Jesus, help. I'm in trouble.

I was now starting to get a little nervous but then he asked if he could open it. I said yes of course, knowing there was nothing shady actually going on. Instead of opening it, however, he pulled a jackknife out of his pocket, stabs it into the side of the box and pulls it out....accompanied by white powdered looking something.

This is one of those moments in life when time goes into slow motion. I go into stark fear realizing what this looks like and thinking oh sweet Jesus! Why did I put in white Little Debbie Cakes? I am never going to see the light of day again while the customs man is yelling at me about smuggling cocaine out of the country.

I burst into tears and start rapidly (or a reasonable facsimile with my limited Spanish) explaining that it was CAKE for my friend's BIRTHDAY. He did not believe me and calls another man over. Now they are both accusing me of smuggling cocaine. I am crying, realizing that I am a very young girl alone in a Colombian airport and about to go to jail for smuggling drugs. This is not good. No one would ever even know what happened to me.

Now I am crying, praying and continuing to argue about cake -vs- cocaine and begging the Aduana to just taste it and you'll see. No go. Now a female (thank GOD) customs official with a dog comes over. I start explaining the whole story to her saying you're a girl. You understand. Surely you give cake to your friends on their birthdays.

By the grace and mercy of God she agreed to taste the white powdered stuff (i.e. - the absolutely pulverized little Debbie Cake that'd traveled 3 weeks in the cargo hold of a ship!) and started laughing as, lo and behold, it was cake after all! She gave some to the guys who also started laughing. I did not find this funny at all but hey, laughter is better than Colombian prison!

So, they let me go. And I must say that even though I am afraid to fly, I had never been so glad to get on a airplane. And to this day I do not mail Little Debbie Cakes.....