The Divine Plumb Line

I have to offer my sincere apologies for not posting all of last week. I know that some of you really like to know what’s going on here, but last week was the most intense week of my training. We were busy all day, and then 3 of our weekday nights we had something scheduled as well. I don’t even know where to begin, but I’m going to start with last Sunday.

I have been trying to go to Auto Mercado here for a while now, and I finally got a friend in the other school here to take me. This store sells a lot of American brands, so I was curious to see if I could find any gluten free items. Amanda and I walked there and it’s about a 15-20 minute walk to Plaza del Sol, so we had some great conversation on the way. The super market was nice and extremely pricy, but I found some new things to snack on. We had a great time at El Panino, a little restaurant that serves great coffee, tea, and sandwiches. Amanda had coffee and she recommended an all natural tea with fruits and spices for me. The tea was delicious, and it was nice to get off base and have a deep conversation with a new friend. I was so blessed by her, and enjoyed getting to know her a little better.
As for our classes last week, they were based on The Divine Plumb Line, Forgiveness, Soul Ties, and Authority. The Divine Plumb Line teaching is based on Amos 7:7-8, and it was developed years ago by a YWAMer. When constructing buildings, builders use a plumb line to see if they are building straight. In the same way, God uses a plumb line to see if His people are lined up with His word. We are either living passively in sin (rejection) or actively in sin ( rebellion) The only way to “line up” with Him is humility.
As a part of this teaching we discussed many lies we believe, and sins that we have committed as a result of those lies. We spent the last 3 days of our week in public confession, cutting soul ties, and forgiving others. The public confession started on Wednesday, and it was a little awkward at first, but it was so good. Our primary teacher for the week, Vanessa, led us in the public confession. Basically, she would say if you have ever …, then stand up, and repeat after me. We did this first in English, then in Spanish. We got though the first two on the list Wednesday, only confessing sexual sin and sins having to do with the magic arts, witchcraft, new age, palm reading, horoscopes, etc. It was very humbling for me to stand up in front of others, and I was surprised at how many of use struggle with the same things. Well, we didn’t get very far because 2 of my teammates really needed some additional time of repentance, including one girl who had been housing a demon for quite some time. She was fighting this demon, and trust me, it was quite the struggle. After over an hour, I heard this demon say, “what about the others?” It was hard for me to believe that this sweet little girl had something that ugly living in her. I can’t imagine how much she had been tormented by these demons, and we kept worshiping, praying, speaking scripture over her, and a few primary staff spoke to the legion of demons to come out of her. The really awesome part was when some of our team picked her up and carried her to the cross. You guessed it, the demons didn’t like this at all, and they fought them tooth and nail. If you have never seen someone possessed by a demon, you may not know that they can violently throw the person all over the place, so several people had to stay with her, so she wouldn’t get injured. The girl said she only remembered about 20% of what happened, but she had to make a decision to accept Christ as Lord to fight this legion, and that’s what she finally did. Praise God, after much prayer and quite the battle, she gave her life to Christ, and the demons had to flee. Praise God for her deliverance, and new birth. That afternoon we baptized her and several others in a canoe that we filled with water outside our classroom. Vanessa wanted to baptize her that day, and the canoe was the best option to do so. She even told Toni, our DTS leader, that she wanted him to buy a cake and have a birthday party for our new sister, and have a “birthday” party for her and the others that were baptized. As you can imagine, Wednesday was a super tiring and emotional day. We even danced some Salsa and Merengue, and played games. Latinos really know how to party and that is just one of the many reasons I love it here!

I will post more later!