October 2008

October 2008
Dear friends and family:

When Padre Pablo (Father Paul), the priest from the local parish, read Danza Divina (the book I self-published in February) he immediately invited me to join me for a special meeting. I call the meeting special because it was a gathering of his people, at a critical moment, and he wanted me (and InnerCHANGE) to be a part of it. Pablo picked me up in his personal, rather run down jeep. He picked me up because the meeting was held in my neighborhood, yet in a particular section higher on the hill that I’d never been to. When we pulled into a narrow alleyway which seemed to appear out of nowhere, we were greeted with friendly waves and ‘gritos’ (yells) of welcome. With the help of some young men Pablo managed so squeeze his car enough to one side of the path to allow the flow of pedestrians.

The purpose of the house meeting was to re-start two of their small, neighborhood bible groups. For most of the meeting I just sat there, at Pablo’s side, watching him do his work. I didn’t really know what to expect. What I did know was that Pablo trusted me enough to be there with him, and he wanted his people to know me.

At one point in the meeting, as the group was expressing their desire to go out weekly to visit homes, Pablo invited me to speak. “Hermano Juan y su equipo tienen mucha experiencia en eso.” (Brother John and his team and a lot of experience doing that.) This was the first and only chance I had to speak in the meeting. I didn’t know what I would say until the words came out of my mouth. “In our experience of visiting homes, one of the things we’ve encountered is people with spirits.” With a few more words I explained what I meant, which wasn’t hard. Virtually every head in the room was nodding in obvious resonance. They, too, knew of about demonic spirits.

The following week, teammate KT McClure and I went to a follow-up meeting in another home on the hillside. This time we met in a more in-depth, personal way with six women who are the core group of one of the re-started neighborhood bible groups. The leader of the group, a woman named María, probably approaching 60 years of age, was open to us. Because of what I shared the week before in the larger gathering, she said this to me (in front of her group): “Every time I try to do my personal prayers, an evil spirit manifests and stops me. Will you pray for me?”

We arranged a time for her to come to our office to receive prayer. God is so good. In short, KT and I were able to minister deliverance from the evil spirits that had been tormenting María. Then, God went even further. María’s daughter, Carmen, complained of a painful, aching in both arms from her neck to her hands. She had not experienced any relief from the pain for over three months. She asked for prayer. As we prayed for Carmen, I saw in my spirit that Jesus was present, standing behind Carmen and with loving arms touching each shoulder at the place of her physical pain. When I spoke this out to Carmen, she literally jumped up from her chair, turned to me with the biggest smile on her face and proclaimed: “That’s exactly what he’s doing!” Not only was Carmen’s pain gone, she was doused in God’s love for her! Pretty cool! Before they left, Carmen said to her mother: “Thanks to this experience with Brother John and KT, if any more evil spirits bother you, now we can take care of them ourselves. We know how to pray.”

Even before this exciting episode with María and her daughter, María had invited me to do a monthly teaching/training with her group once we returned from our summer furlough in the US. Please pray for this wonderful open door, that God would continue to move with his love and his power…that many would turn and know Him!

Thanks for your partnership in the gospel!

John and Birgit Shorack