Amazonian Wednesdays 🌴
Going through the archives from my very first year as a missionary has stirred up a lot of memories. What a privilege to share them with you! This time I also have a scan of a photograph 👆 from that early chapter of my life and ministry. The following is one of the very first newsletters I ever wrote from the field, in October 1997:Â
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Six hundred pastors and leaders gathered to be refreshed and built up by God’s Word. They are gathered from all over the jungle region of Loreto for the first time in history. Half of them have traveled from the distant pueblos that fill the rainforest like the sand of the seashore. Some have traveled as much as a week to come and receive from God.
People are here from as far away as the borders of Brazil, Columbia, and Ecuador. A man who has never been to the city before introduces himself. Another who hasn’t been here for twenty-five years greets us excitedly, with a kiss on the cheek. It is the first ever jungle pastors’ conference, and I am here to be a part of it.
I’ve had many jobs this month, from creating nametags and food tickets for all the pastors that came to translating for Americans that came to minister to preaching the gospel myself and laying hands on the sick (I saw miracles this month that I had never seen in my life before, like legs grown out and vision healed!) I even fulfilled the role of photographer and filmed all the sessions of the conference with my camcorder! I wish you could have tasted the joy that broke out amisdst all those men and women of God! They filled the building with praises and danced in spiritual warfare for extended periods of time.
We had four follow-up campaigns directly afterwards. In the towns of Nauta and Requena, crowds exceeding 1000 gathered, and hundreds received Jesus as their Savior for the first time. Many others were healed of various physicall afflictions. I was sent with my missionary roommate Emi to the villages of Por Venir and Nueva Esperanza to prepare the way for the cam paign there. We went house to house and invited everyone that we saw to come, praying for the sick and evangelizing along the way.
Hungry people came to the meeting from five different villages to hear from and be changed by God. And a few hours before it was all to begin, Pastor Manuela invited me to preach! It was a tremendous time. After I spoke on the power of the Holy Spirit to change our lives, many came forward to be anointed with oil, consecrated, and changed, or to receive physical healing.
One young woman told me that she had been overwhelmed with sadness since the death of her parents, but that night she felt a new love in her heart and wanted Jesus to reign in her life. The next morning, I got to conduct my first-ever baptismal service. We baptized eight people in water, and several of them were baptized in the Holy Spirit as well when we laid hands on them and prayed for them afterwards.
I am scheduled again to travel down the river on October 20th to deliver and teach some discipleship material that we have been preparing. Thank you for your continued gifts, and even more, for your prayers, that are giving me the priviledge of working with you like this. Your prayers have been effective: I haven’t been sick at all, and the Lord is taking care of me emotionally and spiritually as well. I am very encouraged with what He is working in and through you and me. You are a group of very special people! You are my “hope, joy, and the crown in which I will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes.” I love and appreciate you!
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Feeding On Jesus 
What an awesome God we serve!! I am ministering to an elderly lady (a deacon’s daughter) who experienced complete physical healing (after years of severe spiritual abuse in the church) at the hands of an Indian guru who claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus. She invited me to read his book, right after telling me she was learning so much from my relationship with God and how I speak to Him directly – and not through an “avatar” like her. I saw the yearning in her eyes, also as she talked of her communion directly with God as a little girl. Just as the church prayed for you in this meeting, I now request your prayers for me and for her. God has asked me to read the book she wants me to and to let Him intercede in me for her and others as I do so. But oh how I need your prayers – I can only do this in the strength of the Almighty. Already I have noticed that God takes me through a humbling and cleansing weekly before meeting her – a humbling and cleansing speaking wisdom directly into her situation. Pray for an even deeper humbling and rooting and cleansing of my heart in Christ alone that His power might be glorified in her, in me and our midst.
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Goodness, that sounds like some intense spiritual stuff there. Here in the jungle, people experience real relief from their sicknesses when they go to witchdoctors too. The thing is that it’s not permanent. After a time, the symptoms come back, and they are worse off, and go back paying some more money for another “cure.” They end up in a kind of slavery to these individuals. I am praying right now for the Lord’s power to rest on you, and His wisdom to guide you in interacting with this woman that He so loves!
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It was so beautiful what unfolded in me expressing what God had given me to in prayer. She was so touched that I was willing to read that book, and then told me moments later: that you were willing to says enough for me, Anna. I don’t need you to read it. God always knew that too and again this week she referred back to how I took my fears to God and He had me reach out with that willingness. He wanted to extend her His compassion there: and that was enough.
Today, I asked her if I could pray with her for us both and she said: “Oh I was so hoping you would say that.” She told me it’s so surprising to her how safe she feels with me and I said: that’s God in our midst – for where two or three are gathered in His Name there He is too. Oh how I feel God’s love so present in our midst. He’s healing both our hearts. Again, she was going through something so similar to me that was exactly what God was speaking to me on my bike ride there. Just gob smacked every time how very present He is with us.
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I am rejoicing with you dear Anna! How beautiful is the work of the Holy Spirit!
I am currently working on a new device with a keyboard that is taking some getting used to. Somehow a moment ago, I got a message saying that the previous comment of yours that I was responding to was deleted, and I don’t know how to get it back. I apologize for that. It was the one in response to me sharing about giving the baby outfit away. I was just going to add, that another thing that sticks out is that we can’t outgive our Daddy. I ended up being given four different baby showers after that and I received so many baby outfits for Ester that I needed to give half of them away without using them because it was just so much! Such a tangible experience of connecting into Heaven’s economy 🙂
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Never forget the beginnings. This is where Father loves to remind us that He never changes, though we do. He is the same, yesterday, today and forever!
❤️&🙏, c.a.
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Amen and amen! Revisiting these old writings has really been something, that’s for sure. I don’t know that I would have, if the Holy Spirit hadn’t prompted me to do so for the blog! But so very glad that He did.
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Thank you ! The important thing is to build TOGETHER the Kingdom of God
Hélène MUnitedHeartsPBlood
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Amen and amen! I am grateful for His body 🙂
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Wonderful memories. Thank you for sharing.
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My pleasure! Thank you for enjoying them with me 🙂
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What a fantastic report, Jennifer! Praise God!
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Yes! We praise Him together!! (We just finished hosting a missions team, catching up on here now!)
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I believe you were already praying for all of this, when you felt God prompt you to pray for my physical health. The time we share together is so healing for me.
I now understand why I had to walk through the spiritual abuse afresh as an adult: when I biked to her house the very first time a song from that time at my old church arose in my heart and God spoke so firmly: see now my fullness of redemption coming. He humbled me so very much through those years at my church and thereafter (and still is today) and it’s only that humility and rooting in Him alone that has prepared me to be more in awe of my God than any scheme of the enemy against me or others.
This Word of redemption came after He uncovered the question I never dared voice to Him: why did You wait so very long to bring me home? How could You leave me so very long thinking what I did when I was only a little girl? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s me who chose to trust my parents more than my God, I know it’s my sin that blinded me and led me down my Prodigal path, but I couldn’t understand how this all fit with who my Papa God is: so very rich in mercy and compassion for me and for my parents.
But it’s then He began to answer me: “But this was the richness of My compassion and mercy for you all. I have been giving you your heart’s desire, that rose in you as a little girl, Anna: to know the depths of My grace for you and for My people. It was My grace that had Me wait so long: because in that I was working a greater miracle, for you and your parents and your little brother and touching so many more people through each of you and each of you through them, as I went about healing each of your hearts, setting you each apart unto Me, breaking each of your hearts open to see Me and love Me in those you never could before: to see not with your eyes but the eyes of My Word.”
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I am so grateful for the way He responds to us in such a personal, tender way, giving us the understanding our hearts so need!
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