The Kingdom of God in Power in Bolivia!

Hello friends and family in Christ! I am writing this blog from Bolivia where I and 2 other brothers in the faith from Nicaragua have been for almost two weeks now serving and building up our brothers in Christ here in this beautiful country. Through another sister in our fellowship in Nicaragua I met John, our connection here in Bolivia, when he came up to Nicaragua from Bolivia to see first hand what the Lord has been doing in Nicaragua this past year in growing His kingdom through signs, wonders, and transformed lives. Johnathon attended a Kickstart event our fellowship held while he was in Nicaragua and through his time walking with us and witnessing 1st hand what God was doing he also caught the fire and went back to Bolivia ready to share the Good News with everyone and anyone who would listen! After a few months Johnathon and his amazing wife Carly had shared the Gospel with dozens of people and had seen many baptized and born, but still . . . there was something missing. A few months after Jonathon had been back from his trip to Nicaragua his wife Carly felt that she too needed to come to Nicaragua to attend the same 3 week Pioneer Training School I had attended back in January to deepen her understanding of the truths she had so recently received through biblical instruction and hands-on experience in the streets walking alongside others.

Since April Jonathon and I have been communicating through WhatsApp, sharing testimonies, praying for each other and encouraging each other in the Lord. One benefit that I have had in all this over the past year and a half that Jonathon and Carly had not so much experienced yet was the blessing of walking in fellowship and communion with others; learning together and daily sharpening each other as we encounter various trials and strive to meet needs of the family spiritually and physically together as one body. Jonathon and Carly have basically been running with only one other amazing couple, Paola and Boris, that were both recently born again when Jonathon came back sharing the real full Gospel after his Nicaragua trip, and their two sweet teenage daughters also got born again, but outside of that they encountered the same problem that we faced in Nicaragua once we had so many people choosing to get born again;

“What do we do now with all these babies in Christ? How do we disciple them?!”

So, my brothers Josh and Andrew and myself were invited down here by Jonathon and Carly to spend some time walking with them and sharing with them any and all of the wisdom we had gained after walking together over the past year and a half as God has done so much in expanding His kingdom in Nicaragua. At the Brown family ministry center/home we held a Kickstart event pretty shortly after our arrival and although it wasn’t attended by as many folks as we had previously thought would attend, we believe it strongly encouraged those who were present and further equipped them to begin walking more consistently in obedience to the commands of Jesus as His disciples. We saw healings in our time out in the streets, shared the Gospel, and two were baptized and born again to a new life in Jesus Christ! Hallelujah!

Our last day here, what was supposed to be our last day, we were taken to see a waterfall a few hours away from the ministry base. We never made it to our destination, however, because we were detained by the police for traveling within the country without our physical passports on us. We still aren’t sure if this is actually a law or not, Carly and Jonathon had never had an issue with this before with any of their visitors, but there we were in the makeshift police station (photo below on the left when we were detained) detained for about an hour. Thankful to be together and in good spirits we just patiently waited and consented to the angry policeman’s orders, explaining how sorry we were and that we had no idea about their supposed law. He let us go telling us in a not so sarcastic tone to be happy that he didn’t have an actual cell or it would have been worse for us and to make sure that we went straight to the airport that night with no messing around. That was indeed our intention but during a rather strange encounter we had with another couple that we felt that God wanted us to visit on our way back to town we were notified by Copa Airlines that we had been taken off of the flight manifesto for our flight that night!

We were supposed to leave 3 days after the Kickstart event but due to a miscalculation/distraction on our parts (mostly my part) we didn’t get our PCR Test results sent to the Nicaraguan government in time and therefore we weren’t allowed on the flight back. This was a big disappointment for us as we were expecting this to be a rather short, yet purposeful trip and soon realized that our mistake was going to extend our stay here in Bolivia another week and a half! To be honest with you, I felt terrible about this, considering I had left my amazing wife back home in Nicaragua with our three kids, one being our 1 month old little girl Isabella. But . . . what was done was one and there was no changing it and we then began asking the Lord to take our week and a half we had gained in Bolivia and to use it to His glory in whichever way He chose! The 3 of us had been feeling that the Lord was calling us into to give the next 3 days to the Lord in fasting and prayer, which we did and the day after we concluded our fast we went out in the streets to share the Gospel and heal the sick and the result of that time was seeing two more (a mother and daughter pair) get born again and set free from demonic oppression! Praise God! We still have 5 more days left in our time here in Bolivia and long to see the Lord do even more than He has already done! Thank you for praying for us here in Bolivia and for my darling wife and kiddos back home in Nicaragua! What is also so encouraging to hear is that another was added to the family of God in Nicaragua while we have been gone as one of my mother in law’s old workmates decided to die in Christ and get born again in Him during our time away!

God is so Good! His kingdom is unstoppable!

-Michael