El Salvador (Pt.1)

It has been over a month since I was in El Salvador. So much has happened and God has opened my eyes to so much. It was one heck of a trip and one crazy summer. God is so good.

We arrived in El Salvador on Thursday where we were blessed to stay in a nice hotel with hot showers and our own beds. The next day we had orientation and then hiked up a volcano! It was crazy. I felt like I was on the "island" from the show Lost! After dinner that day we went to the evening service at the church called Ruta 3:16. It was so awesome to talk in spanish with the Salvadorian people. I will never forget the first conversation I had with Juan, one of our translators. I was talking to him about why I was there and Catalyst when he told me that he saw an angel standing behind me.....an angel! He then proceeded to give me this word about my purpose in El Salvador. I was so encouraged! He then asked me if I liked to pray prophetic prayer or healing prayer more. I said prophetic prayer because I like encouraging people and I also hadn't see much miraculous healing before. He smiled and said to me, "That is going to change on your trip." He was right.

Our team did a lot in El Salvador so I will try to sum it up as best as I can. During the first week we visited this orphanage called "Tia Ana's House". Tia Ana is this incredible lady who used to be a prostitute until God radically changed her life. We heard her testimony that day and then played with a lot of the kids there. They were so cute and I loved being there!

That next day we prayed at two services. When we prayed we asked God how he had created the person and then told them. A lot of the people were so encouraged and it was awesome to hear what God thought of them. That day I saw God heal two people. The first was an older woman. I was praying for her when I heard the Lord say she needed healing. So I had my friend who was a translator come over as we prayed for her back. I simply said, "In Jesus name back be healed" and she said all the pain went away! Praise God. I was mind blown at that second. That evening we also prayed for this man who had breathing problems and he was healed as well.

During that week our team went to this one village called Comesagua in the mountains where we did a two day youth conference. It was beautiful up there. We prayed for a lot of the teens there and a lot of my teammates shared their powerful testimonies. On the second day we went on this hike with the teens through the jungle. It was beautiful and so much fun! I met this one boy named Daele and he was super cool to just hang out and talk with. I know God is going to do some wonderful things with those kids and the church there.

On our day off we did a lot of awesome stuff that I had never done before so I am going to take a brief moment to talk about that haha. I went ziplining for the first time! It was crazy. There were 7 lines than ran through this jungle/coffee plantation. At one point I was about 35 stories high over this valley! It was unreal. Then for lunch we went to this waterfall where one of my teammates was baptized. That was super cool.

One of the craziest nights in El Salvador was when we went to this one church near the ocean. It was freaking hot! That night we were going to pray at a healing service so before hand we asked God for what he wanted to heal and then made up a list as a team. The church worship went on for two hours. It was very lively and a lot of us were just trying to cool down. All the Salvadorian men had dress shirts and pants on. By the end of the service they were drenched in sweat because of how much dancing they were doing. When the message was over we called up people to the alter for healing. We prayed for this guy with back and side pain. I prayed a simple prayer asking God to heal this man and God completely healed him. He said that he felt a release of pain on his side. My teammate and our translator felt it as well. One by one people were being healed. The Spirit of the Lord was so evident in that room. Everyone was filled with the joy of the Lord. It was beautiful. Later that even we found out that everyone was 100% healed. I have never seen God move like that before. I couldn't believe God used me in that way. The end of the night was filled with dancing as we praised the Lord for what he did that night.