Some experiences

God’s provision: Uiliam went to buy roast chicken at a food stand one day. A woman saw his landscaping pickup truck and said she needed fertilizer. After some haggling, they came to a price and Uiliam was able to buy a big chicken from the money he had just earned and he had a new customer. Money does not fall from heaven, but God works special encounters to provide.

Other encounters we experience. Twice already we have experienced that we were driving in the car and suddenly someone fell down on the sidewalk near the car. The first time it was a woman who fainted while walking and landed hard. Uiliam jumped out of the car and prayed for her and she recovered and at the same time right in front of us a police car stopped and they were able to help this woman further.
The other time one evening a young man fell down and had some kind of epileptic seizure with convulsions. We jumped out of the car and cast out the evil spirit. The moment we did the seizure stopped. We heared that he had taken a lot of drugs. A car was quickly stopped by others and they carried him off to the hospital. But what if we hadn’t been there? Would he have come out of the attack?

It has been said before that in Brazil we would meet the right people at exactly the right time. Unexpected scheduled encounters arranged by God.

When you live with a Brazilian family, you sometimes get taken somewhere. During a birthday, we were told that people in the neighbourhood were having problems and did want prayer. This was convenient because we had just been introduced to a Brazilian custom. The beautifully presented birthday cake is cut only at the end of the party. In this case, at midnight. So at 11 p.m. we walked over to the neighbours to pray together.
This family had had several problems since 3 months. For example, the wife suddenly had a sore and swollen leg, her little son and husband had sleep problems. And her husband suddenly disliked his wife and heard strange noises. Also, he had recently broken his hand while doing chores. Hmm, this again sounded suspiciously like the work of the enemy.

We asked what had happened 3 months ago, and the wife told us that she had then had an argument with her stepmother, who is engaged in occult practices. Well, if you have a quarrel and work with dark powers it is apparently quite normal to then use them and harass people. These things are reality, also in the Netherlands. Only in our sober little country it is not recognized as such. And we are quick to label it as medical, psychological or coincidental.

When we hear such stories we always become happy. Not because of the situation, but that the power of God is about to become visible. For the name of Jesus is above every name and every dark power must bow before His name. How wonderful to be able to minister to oppressed people on behalf of Jesus!
We broke the curse on this family’s life and pronounced God’s healing and peace on them. The man told us that he felt a change in his hand and the next day we were told that the leg was completely healed. Praise God! Deliverance through Jesus.

Life in a warm country often goes a little differently than in Holland. One day we were driving uphill to cut down a coconut tree on Uiliam’s land, when the engine of the car started to sputter. Oops, we forgot to put fuel in, so we had to turn around. Downhill there was still enough in the tank to make it to the house. There was a jerry can there with some fuel. A few hours later we went to town, but oops the jerry can was still full at home. Forgot to use it.
The first gas station also turned out to be closed. The next one was several kilometers away. In the excitement and tropical heat, Uiliam also turned on the air conditioning, to which Aryane said he had great faith. And yep, there the car started sputtering again and we kept rolling out as long as we could and finally came to a stop.
The landscape near Paraty is pretty hilly, so pushing a pickup uphill is not an option. We all prayed for the car and while sputtering, the car started again to great cheers. At a brisk pace we drove into the grounds of the next gas station, knocking over a sign and then stood triumphantly still in front of the pump. We all had a good laugh.