On our recent trip to South America we went village-to-village teaching, providing dental service, giving 330 pairs of eyeglasses, doing the dramas, showing the videos and much more. We played with the village children, and gave gifts to them as well as little Bibles and treats. After we had been in all the villages once, we began to go back and revisit. It seemed to me that the second visit was better than the first. We were not new to them on the second visit…we were like returning friends or family. As we rode up and down on the lake in the speedboat we would see them line the banks to wave to “their gringo friends.”
I believed for some time that one of the keys to firmly establishing Christianity in these areas was to stay long enough to really get acquainted with them and to allow them to know us. The response in each village was overwhelming. Village after village responded in a positive way and in each village we watched as God raised up leaders. That was my greatest hope. We found men and women who wanted to be leaders for God. Some of them had been waiting for someone to come and teach them about the true and living God and help them become ministers. In every village we found one or more whom God had been preparing for this position.
Then in the last half week we began our work in the village of San Martin where we had a camp meeting. This was awesome. It was a miracle. Six hundred and fifty people attended the camp meeting in total.
From the very first service it was apparent the people were hungry for God. We are new at this. We should have had more services and will do so next time. We will have two services in the morning, two in the afternoon and one at night.
As the hours went by we saw the people wanting more of God. In every service people were coming forward for prayer and salvation. But we weren’t preaching to them enough. We just couldn’t believe how much they wanted to hear the Word of God. On one Saturday the men of the villages came to the boat to ask us to come and preach to them some more. We did. The Power of God fell in that little tabernacle and shook the people. Young men came forward and fell as the power of God filled them with the Holy Spirit. Some received sitting and others received standing. Many were weeping. No one had preached on the Holy Spirit baptism, let alone speaking in tongues. They knew nothing of “falling out in the Spirit.” It was just a sovereign move of God unlike anything I had ever seen. We baptized 40 in water…mostly adults, but a few children too.
Joe and Judy Mercer, South American Call
Project Number 0650125