This is just copy of the generic letter I am sending out to people. I still hope to put my journal pages up here. I just have not had the time to undertake that task. I have been so busy with work and friends and just crazy life business. :]
I am so sorry it has taken so long for me to send out this letter. I got back from Puerto Rico and had to jump right back into school and work. I am now on spring break and have found a bit of time to recollect on my trip and tell you all about why we went to Puerto Rico and what we did. We spent 8 days in Puerto Rico. The team was made up of 13 people. 10 of us were from Ill and 3 were from Tampa, Florida. We spent the first 4 days in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. We stayed in rustic Villa’s that were within a short walking distance from the beach. While in Mayaguez we worked with a Vineyard church there.
During the days we did servant evangelism at the local university. We simply handed out candy and a card with the church’s info on it. We handed out over 11,100 cards and had an opportunity to pray with a number of students.
After servant evangelism we usually got lunch then had some free time to swim or do whatever. One really cool story is that one day my friend Amber and I were walking along the beach just talking and she made a comment something like “Do you think God is wooing us right now?” And I asked her what she meant, she said “You know in the book captivating when they talk about how God is constantly wooing us, with sunsets, flowers, just beautiful things in general. You think maybe He is wooing us now with the coast and the water and the sky and everything?” And I said “yeah I think so.” Then Amber says” Maybe we will see a whale, or a starfish.” I replied “I don’t think we will see either of those here.” Then Amber replies” Well if we see either then we know God really loves us.”
I should have remembered that God likes to show of. Sure enough not 2 minutes later I found a starfish on the beach. It was the only one I found the whole time we were there. I guess God wanted to remind me that He does love me, and He is wooing me. :)
At night we went to the church and did Prophetic ministry. Prophetic ministry is simply prophesying. It is taking time to hear from God, and in this case we ask God to speak to us for a certain person. This was our main focus for the trip. Let me just explain what the prophetic ministry looks like.
What we did (this is the model that we used) was, we broke up into groups of 4 or 5 people. Keep in mind that the group still hardly knew each other; we were all from different churches and even states. Each group went into a different room or area and each person in the group as given a note pad and a pen. The pastors of the church would then send in people in want of ministry one at a time. We would then ask only there name and then explain what we were going to do. We then prayed and asked the Holy Spirit to come and speak to us for this person. Then any words or visions we got we wrote down and passed the note pad to the group’s leader/ lead chair. They would read it and simply pass it back. The lead chair read what we felt the Holy Spirit spoke to us, simply to make sure everything is appropriate to share. Sometimes people get words about past abuse or even sins like affairs, and those are to be brought up to the pastor for him to counsel the person on, it is not something for us to address, we wanted to only encourage the person. After that we would go one at a time and read to the person what we got. After we each shared then the person had time to comment on anything we got and we would then pray for them.
The cool thing about this is that, we would each write down what we got and not show each other, yet we would always have similar things that pieced together perfectly. Sometimes we had the exact same thing just in different wording or in pictures or such or times we had things that related closely to each others but were not quite the same but all the words always went together and made sense to the person. They weren’t things that you could know simply by looking at a person. These were words about their families, their personal relationships with God, their personal prayers, things of a unique personal meaning. The words were sometimes so simple yet touched the person’s heart, words about mended relationships, healing, release of stress, or the reality of how much God really loves them. The words were so different yet personal for every person.
We did this for two of the nights in Mayaguez, then on the 3 night our group held a conference in which we taught the church how to do prophetic ministry. We wanted the people to realize that God speaks to everyone; it is just up to the person to listen. Then the church had the option to pray for our team and give us words that God gave them for us. That was awesome.
We left Mayaguez the next day and headed to San Juan. In San Juan we also worked with another Vineyard church. The girls stayed at the house of the English speaking pastors and the men stayed with the Spanish speaking pastors. While we were there we also did a conference but this time we did it the first day. It was really good. We did a demonstration for the entire church right after so they could see how the model worked. It went so well.
The next day we had church in the morning, two pastors from our group preached, one in Spanish and one in English. Then we had lunch and went back to the church for a few hours of prophetic ministry. It was supposed to last about 4 hours or so. We ended up going for about 6 ½ hours straight with no real breaks. It was so incredible. God totally showed up and spoke. My team met with 13 people and as a group we met with 56 people total including couples, and every time God spoke and it was dead on. We saw a lot of people really get touched. It was beautiful. It not only touched the people who we were ministering to but it also touched us. There were a number of times we were fighting back tears. God totally gave us His heart for these people and we felt an unbelievable attachment to them. I wish I could fully express what it was like to be a part of what God is doing and to have a piece of His heart. It is so beautiful. God is not dead or distant. He does speak and I spent a week in full observation of that.
We formed such an attachment to the churches there that when it came time for us to leave we felt like we were leaving long time friends. The people were so humble and giving and just open. They didn’t have the crippling arrogance that some many of us in the states have. They allowed themselves to be completely broken before God.
The group had the next day off. The group leader surprised us with a trip out on a small boat cruise were we got to go snorkeling around some reefs. I don’t think a single one of us went to bed that night without sunburn though.
The next day was our last day and we had a few hours to roam around Old San Juan before catching or flights home. Leaving was a sad part of the trip. The group got so close during the week. It felt like we were saying goodbye to family at the airport. We all had to give each other very light hugs to avoid aggravating one another’s sunburn and hold back the tears.
The trip was a good time from start to finish. It was fun swimming in the ocean and searching for treasures on the beach, snorkeling and exploring Old San Juan, yet I would have to say that all of that meant almost nothing in comparison to being a part of what God is doing in San Juan and seeing the power of His love change these peoples lives. That is worth more than anything I have yet experienced.
Thank you so much for your support that helped to send me on the trip. You helped touched so many people’s lives.
-Hanna
