Sunday, February 19, 2006

Testimony from ministry at Pastor Pedro's church



Sunday night my husband was ministering in a little church in Villa Altagracia just outside of the capital here in Santo Domingo. It was a busy Sunday and I knew that we would get home late so I was packing PJ’s for the kids and stuff as we prepared to go (one hour trip). Anyway as I was busy packing I thought to myself that I should grab my CD with my soundtracks so that I would be prepared to sing if the Pastor asked. But in all my busyness I forgot and we ran out the door to church.

When we arrived, sure enough, Pastor Pedro (who is on our ministry staff and a very close friend) sat next to me and asked if I came prepared to sing special music. I looked at him with a nice smile and I just simply said, “NO.” He said, “No?” and I again replied, “NO.” Well the service started and I felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit. I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, “That was kinda ugly, Rennae.” (that is just how He talks to me sometimes!) I responded, "well I am not prepared, I don’t know what to sing." Then the Spirit reminded me of the morning service. In that service someone spoke about the problem of divorce in Dominican society and as they talked about it, I felt such a burden because I have seen how the enemy is tearing up the family of this society. I left that morning with just a new determination to intercede for the families in our churches and society in general.

So I felt as though the Lord would have me to share this burden and then the Spirit put a song in my heart. “Yo tengo un Nuevo amor”. So at the time my husband is about to minister, he calls me forward to give a greeting and I just shared my burden with the congregation. I told them that the Lord had given me this song, “I Have A New Love” but when I finished the song I wanted to intercede for unity in marriages and families. The Holy Spirit came and people were weeping tears of intercession and one woman in particular just wept and wept.

After the message we had a time of ministry in the altars and this same woman who was weeping came forward with her husband and two girls and the Holy Spirit moved powerfully and the whole family fell under the power of the Spirit. After they got up, the father looked at me with tears in his eyes and just smiled and went to his seat. I just thought, "how wonderful to see the whole family in the altar receiving such a blessing." That was it. So I thought.

After service I was speaking with Pastor Pedro (apologizing!) and he told me “the rest of the story”. Pedro was so excited after service. Evidently, that was the first time that that man had been in the church! His little girls were faithful to go to church and the mother had just started coming here and there. A few weeks back, one of the girls had asked the Pastor to pray for her daddy because he was an alcoholic and he would fly into rages and beat her, the sister and her mother. She also told Pedro that God gave her an idea that whenever her daddy would get really angry, she should get her Bible. She would tell him, “Come here daddy let me read to you from my Bible.” And you know, she said it worked every time! He would always calm down. Well this was softening this man’s heart and Sunday night he finally gave in and came to church. with his family! Sunday night he gave his life to Jesus!