Keeping up on blog posts is a challenge when one has a shortage of time to write. Since Day 1 it has been "Go! Go! Go!" for us here, but God has blessed us with a day of rest on this our seventh day.
Processing the whole experience personally, I have to say, it has been neat to see our development as a team and our growing cohesiveness as we go along. Watching team members minister to each other in time of need -- like when fatigue and frustration with things outside of our control puts one of us to tears or close to blowing up, or when one of us is dealing with insomnia, migraines, stomach issues, or news of sudden emergencies on the home front -- has been such an awe inspiring thing.
There are so many experiences I would want to write about, (and I will get to them later) but will stick with one for now. One day I sensed God moving particularly strongly in the area of my ministry (I have been doing more music on the streets) I remember the 3rd night, when we were going to Las Aguilas park for the second time, and I was going to be sharing the invitation in Spanish (with it all written out on paper to read from) and to play flute and sing worship with Pedro, a guitarist and one of the teens from the church here. I had one of my bad migraines coming on, and that usually means that I need to lay down immediately and sleep for the night with a heat wrap on my head but I was not going to get that. I had visions of getting to the park and puking on the side of the newsstand, or not being able to go at all. My teammates prayed for me, and gradually the headache began to subside. The time in the park was blessed, but a neat thing happened at the end. We went and did our group gospel presentation with testimonies, music, and As the others were walking around stopping to share Jesus with others, Pedro felt impressed of the Holy Spirit to walk around with the guitar and just play a repeated chord progression and asked if I wanted to join him on flute improv. It was a no brainer for me, as the prompting of the Holy Spirit was strong. The anointing seemed so strong to me, as we walked around just declaring praise and doing what I can only call instrumental intercession to the Lord in that place through our instrumental. I was playing and a new tune came on my heart which I played to fit the chord progression, a tune of intercession. As I was playing the words that came to me matching the tune going through my head were "Rain (Reign) down". Maybe it sounds odd, but I had a sense of interceding in instrumental praise that night as with my flute I was impressed to ask God to come with intensity and move upon the hearts of those present. It flowed so smoothly with everything else that was going on. I have found that there is something so powerful about declaring praise through instruments. Not sure if I can articulate it well, but I am reminded so often of Psalm 150:4 "...praise him with the strings and flute", and I had such a sense of how powerful praising Him with instruments is. Even without words, God, in His word, has ordained that we can praise Him through instruments, and I feel so convicted that God uses the instrumental praise to work in hearts in ways that words cannot. He called us to do it in Psalm 150 and has ordained that it might lead hearts to be open to Him, that "everything that has breath praise the LORD." (v.6) Leading worship with a heart to draw all who have breath to praise of the LORD is indubitably evangelism at the core. So amazed at God's ways.
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