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Flowers and Prayers from a Distance

These past couple days in Chicaman have been quite peaceful. My team and I spent the first days figuring out how to live in this new place. We learned about the market, where to get purified water, how to work the shower water, and the layout of the town. One of my favorite stories so far in being here was the farmers market on Saturday.

My teammate and I (Maggie or her Spanish name she recently acquired, Margarita) decided we wanted to ATL “Ask the Lord” and go to the market. I had seen a man selling flowers from his truck. I told Maggie it would be great to buy a bundle of the flowers and hand them out to people and also ask if we could pray for them. As we were separating the flowers, I saw a women watching what we were doing. I went up to her and told her that we were going around handing flowers out and asking people if they had any prayer requests. We were able to pray for her and continued handing out flowers. We started giving them to little kids, ladies that were shopping, and I loved the feeling of putting a smile on their faces.

 

We stopped to pray for an elderly man and he was such a joy. Afterwards we saw two children on the sidewalk with no sight of an adult. My soul was unsettled and I began to feel uneasy. We tried talking to them but the oldest one did not want to talk to us. We gave a flower to the little one, and I told Maggie we should pray for them from a distance. A little later, we met two sweet girls who were so happy when we handed them flowers.

After we finished with our flowers, I felt happy that we were able to find an easy way to make people smile. I know the Lord is going to stir things up in Chicaman. Later onto our day, as we were walking, we saw a man passed out on the sidewalk. Maggie and I stopped to pray for the man from a distance. Something the Lord really pressed onto my heart after this day was that you do not always need to bring someone to the Lord right away, but serving others and showing them they are loved is important. Another thing the Lord showed me was that prayers from a distance are just as important and valuable as laying hands on a person. Being on an all girl team means we have to be aware of certain situations and there will be several times we cannot go up to a person and ask if we could pray for them, or maybe people do not want to be prayed over. That should not stop us from praying from a distance. Our prayers are heard no matter what and I found that so valuable that day.

As we begin our ministry, please continue to keep my team in your prayers. I am also VERY close to being fully funded!! If God is leading you to give, I would be so grateful! Blessings from Guatemala!

12 Comments

  1. So awesome!! Love the idea of using flowers to remind someone of their beauty and that they are loved and fully known. I also love how you incorporated praying for them when you handed them flowers. This is by far my favorite blog because I felt the love that you and Margarita had for the people of the village! Miss you jojo!

  2. Joana thats so awesome! What a beautiful way to serve the Community and beautiful lesson you learn through it. Thats so awesome how God led you girls to that on your ATL (by the way I just learn yesterday what ATL meant, I didn’t even know about ATL days lol).

    Miss ya!

  3. Joana, your awesome! Such an encouragement to those around you and to us. Praying for you ????
    From Jordan’s Dad & Mom

  4. Wow! This is awesome! I love how you girls are going after it and spreading prayer throughout the city. What a gift to get to be available for prayer! Proud of you!

  5. What a beautiful way to show the Love of Jesus, giving a beautiful fragrant flower and being the beautiful fragrance of Christ! What a great idea for all of us. God’s blessing as you minister and pray over the people of this city. We will continue to pray over you, from a distance as well.

  6. Love it Joana,
    What a perfect gift of love, a simple beautiful flower -like a cup of cold water given in His name, opening up opportunity for the prayer of faith to intersect t some man or woman, nin yo or nin ya with a miracle from a God who sees them, knows them, and wants them to know Him. A PERFECT ATL

    Oh yeah , what a timely and insightful reminder, that incognito stealthy prayer from a distance is just as powerful and holds equal weight in Gods Kingdom economy

  7. This is God’s love in action! The Lord is with you guys. I pray the people of Guatemala to have an encounter with God each time you go out and share his word and love. Miss you!

  8. Thankful for the impact that flowers and prayer brought to people this day! Thank you for being the hands and feet of Jesus!!!

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