In this post I have brought back a Testimony Journal from my trip to Puerto Rico in June of 2010. This was a powerful trip that the Lord orchestrated for Jonathan Shinkle and myself to go and minister in Puerto Rico. As I read through these testimonies I was blown away by some of the miracles that the Lord did in this trip to the Glory of His Name. Here is something to encourage you and strengthen your faith. This post is only of the first week of ministry, more happened the second week as well. Jon wrote one of the entries in this Testimony Journal

June 2010 Puerto Rico Journal

6/12

The Lord has opened some powerful doors for us on this trip. The first night I was able to preach to the group that was practicing music for the next Sunday. Also I will be playing the violin with them and leading them into a spontaneous instrumental worship. I had never done that before but did it that night and we will be doing it again this Sunday. I also preached Friday night on Ephesians 5:11. I referenced the letter to the church of Thyatira and Hebrews 12:11-16 as major points in the message. I also spoke of my testimony of how the Lord set me free from pornography, and gave me eternal pleasures. After all that I spent some time that night with youth from the church to celebrate some birthdays. There I got to share with some of them some of the signs and wonders that the Lord has been doing on the streets, healing the sick and performing miracles. Today it is Saturday and this morning we went out to evangelize on the streets I was reintroduced to the art of tracts, though not using them as my main message but just something for people to have after I leave, also the church’s phone number was on them. Before we headed out I taught some on healing and evangelism and the Lord really blessed me with the anointing to express it well. I am very grateful for the ease and comfort that I have had in the preaching of the Word in Spanish. I was actually concerned at how well I would be able to flow in Spanish, but I have been able to translate verses in my mind from English to Spanish as I read them out loud and flow pretty smoothly. In our time of outreach various people were encountered and impacted by us and it was a real blessing. One of the youth that was really hungry, desiring to see God move came with me to pray for a man and his wife. This man had been hit really hard by a rock while swimming in a river (creek). We prayed for him and after he checked it out to see if there was still pain, we asked to pray again. After we prayed for him the second time he was shocked because all of the pain left his chest, right over his heart. We preached the gospel to them and encouraged them to seek the Lord. Praise God! Tomorrow we will have an opportunity to share briefly who we are, and what we do, at the church, and next week we will get to work at the vacation bible school as well as spend more time teaching and exhorting the youth to seek the Lord with all that they are. Praise God!

6/15

Sunday morning was a powerful time of ministry. I played the violin during the time of the offering and the band accompanied me, it was my second time ever leading a musical group with the violin, the first time was the Thursday before during the worship practice. Ydsia shared the word that morning and she gave me the opportunity to briefly share who we are and what we do. After I had done so, I asked Ydsia if I could minister to the sick and then asked those who had lower back pain to stand up. About 20 or 30 people stood up. There were a lot of people there. I proceeded to ask those around them that loved the Lord to lay hands on them and explained that we have authority in Christ to heal, because of what He did in the Cross. After the first time we prayed I asked those who had experienced a difference to raise their hands and wave them at me. It’s a big church and from the stage I could only see two people waving their hands because the healing for my eyes has not yet manifested and I didn’t have my glasses. I was kind of shocked that only two out of the 20-30 that I saw stand up experienced a difference. Jonathan let me know later on that 10-15 people had raised their hands and waved them. We all prayed once more and many were completely healed, some came up to me later on and told me what they had felt and how the Lord had healed them. Then Ydsia called up to the altar everyone that needed prayer for healing. There I prayed for a man with a broken arm and I felt a lot of movement in his arm and there were tears in his eyes. When I asked him how he felt he said that he did not feel nearly as much pain and then said that he did not feel pain that his arm felt as though it were asleep. The Lord was touching his arm. Ydsia’s sister testified that after the second time we prayed for the lower backs all the pain left completely. A lady I had prayed for in the morning had her knee restored, and no longer clicked every time she walked. Her hands that were limited in movement received movement, there was only little bit of pain left on her hand, she was able to bend her middle finger all the way down to the palm like a normal hand would be able to. I know that the same Jesus who restored complete movement would finish His work in her hand. A man’s left blind eye was opened and last I heard he can read through that eye with glasses on. A lady’s hip was healed. Another man’s lower back was completely healed. So many more healings took place that we are unaware of, all glory be to Jesus. Praise God!!! 

6/15 (This section was written by Jon Shinkle)

Monday and Tuesday were amazing days! Many from the church work at a Christian school right around the corner from the church. Here in Puerto Rico, the government actually pays for the kids to go to school in the summertime, one of those schools being this school run by the church. Sebastian and I went to the school Monday and Tuesday to help teach and minister to the kids. We taught music classes and English/ reading classes with kids from 1^st to 6^th grade.

One highlight from Monday was the time after lunch; we had the chance to speak to all of the kids at one time and pray for them. Sebastian shared the gospel with them and talked about the love of Jesus and the Father’s heart. Then we got to walk around and pray for each child individually. Many of these kids are from broken homes, most have been abused and many have never felt the love of the Father. As I prayed for each child, I felt the tenderness and compassion of the Father toward them, and was moved almost to tears. The presence of God came strongly in the room, and many kids said later that they felt His presence.

Also during the lunch break, we prayed for 2 different teachers. One had intense spasms in both of her shoulders and she said she felt like she had heavy blocks on her shoulders; but when we prayed, the Lord completely healed her and took all the pain away! Praise God! She said she felt like she had been completely renewed, and the next day she told us she was able to sleep that night with no pain or discomfort!

On Tuesday we taught classes again just loved on the kids. In one class, we taught the kids what we do in Worship with the Word sets at the Prayer Furnace, and then we did Worship with the Word! We read Song of Songs chapter 1 together, and then sang antiphonally about verse 2.  The kids had never done anything like it before, some were a little nervous, but they all tried it and many enjoyed it. Watching the kids meditate on the Word and sing it really blessed me and I know that the Word entered their hearts in a powerful way. We also were able to talk with and minister to many of the teachers while we were there, and had the opportunity to talk in depth with one teacher during the lunch break. She told us that she arrives to school early to pray for the students every day and that she spends the first 20 minutes of every class teaching the Word and ministering to the kids. She explained that every child had been abused in some form, and she was so thankful for the Lord using us to minister to them.

6/16 (The rest was written by me)

Wednesday we went house to house, to pray for people from the church that were sick. It was a good experience and we as a group were a blessing to those who were sick at their home. At one house we went, the lady we had gone to pray for gave us the good report that she had come out negative from her last examination. I asked her husband if he needed prayer, the Lord told me that he had pain in his hands. When I specifically asked him if he had pain on his hands he said yes, that he had arthritis. We prayed and all the pain left, we also prayed for his lower back which also got healed. After our time praying for the sick we went out to eat lunch. As we were eating lunch a lady came in to the restaurant with a really bad limp, she came in to sell us some cake. I asked her why she was limping and she explained that she had diabetes and it caused this pain on her leg for which she had to get a shot frequently. After we prayed for her she said that she no longer felt the pain and then she was walking a lot better. That night I preached at the youth group on the Father’s Heart, the Lord had me change the message during worship. A lot of the youth were deeply impacted and during the altar call Jonathan shared some of his experience which many of the youth could relate to. As we began laying hands on the youth the Lord was doing a deep work of healing in many of their hearts. It was a beautiful sight. When I thought everything was done and it was time to go, the youth leader asked if we wanted to do some healing ministry. It was a pleasant surprise. So we did, we called out some words of knowledge that nobody responded to but when we invited everyone that needed healing to come up the specific words of knowledge came up. I had one word for pain in the upper part of the neck that even caused headaches and the person experienced a very fast, and for him, shocking healing. He said that he used to get headaches all the time. One kid had back pain that at first was very stubborn, but it had to submit and all the pain left. Jon called out a word of knowledge for someone’s back, and she got healed as well as a young lady got healed of sinus’ and of bleeding concerning the reproductive system. Praise God, He is Amazing!!!

6/17 Thurs- San Juan

This was our day off and still the Holy Spirit wanted to move. We went to San Juan to visit the downtown area with some of the youth from the church. At one point we were in El Morro, a fort that the Spanish built in San Juan, and there we saw a man that had a brace around his wrist. Jon and I approached him and his family (it was Daniel, his wife, and his three kids the oldest daughter Jessica being around seventeen, his son Alier being around sixteen and the little daughter around 11) and asked him if he would like for us to pray for his wrist so it could be healed. As we prayed his daughter Jessica asked if we could for her wrist, Daniel did not feel any difference on his wrist but as we prayed for his daughter he spoke with his wife telling her that the wrist had not changed but he felt great alleviation on his chest. Jessica was healed, said a bad word from the shock, we told her it was Jesus and then we continued on to pray for Daniel’s chest. After we prayed he was moving around, checking how he felt, dumbfounded at what had occurred and said in a stunned voice to his family as they looked at him, that there was no more pain. I began to preach the gospel to them and one of the things I said to them was, “We know Jesus is alive because a dead man cannot heal!” The man asked me to explain further because he did not understand all the implications of everything I had shared, so I shared more in depth from Adam to the cross, and shared that God is Holy and there can be no sin in His presence, and that because He wanted us (and still does) He sent His Son to take everything from us that hindered us from being near to Him. I then offered them the opportunity to meet Him. Daniel and his son both received the Lord Jesus, and Jessica (the daughter) in the Name of Jesus will do so some time soon. Praise God!! As I explained to them about getting with a church the son went to Jon and asked him to pray for his bicep which had pain. Jon and a girl from the church in Puerto Rico prayed and all the pain left. Praise Jesus!!! Later in the day we were given surveys by a lady named Carol. One of the youth wanted to reach out to her and I encouraged him to but he said he did not know what to say, so I gave him an idea, and he ran with it. After they spoke a little he did not know what else to say or where to go from there so I jumped in and helped him out. As I began talking to her the Lord told me that she had shoulder pain. I told her that we pray for people with pain and they get healed and then I told her that the Lord had told me that we would encounter someone with pain in their shoulder. She looked over at her shoulder shocked and then at us saying “That’s me!” I asked if we could pray for her and then had the guy that initiated the conversation with her pray for her. All the pain left. Praise God!! He confirmed His Word and Love toward her!!!

6/18

Friday was more a day of rest and prayer, that night I preached again. That night I preached on Malachi 1 and exhorted the church not to despise the priesthood and fall under the same predicament of Esau (who sold his birthright because for a bowl of soup because he did not value it) and the priesthood that Malachi prophesied about. I encouraged them to take up the torch and continue to stand on the wall. Before I began preaching, the Lord had given me a word of knowledge for someone with pain on the back of the leg over the knee. A lady responded and she began to experience partial healing. I also got a word for the right hip. No one responded to it but a lady told me after the service that she had so much pain on her left hip that it was hard to even get in the car that night. But when I called the word for the right hip she put her hand on her left hip and she received the healing. God is Awesome!!

In this post I have brought back a Testimony Journal from my trip to Puerto Rico in June of 2010. This was a powerful trip that the Lord orchestrated for Jonathan Shinkle and myself to go and minister in Puerto Rico. As I read through these testimonies I was blown away by some of the miracles that the Lord did in this trip to the Glory of His Name. Here is something to encourage you and strengthen your faith. This post is only of the first week of ministry, more happened the second week as well. Jon wrote one of the entries in this Testimony Journal

June 2010 Puerto Rico Journal

6/12

The Lord has opened some powerful doors for us on this trip. The first night I was able to preach to the group that was practicing music for the next Sunday. Also I will be playing the violin with them and leading them into a spontaneous instrumental worship. I had never done that before but did it that night and we will be doing it again this Sunday. I also preached Friday night on Ephesians 5:11. I referenced the letter to the church of Thyatira and Hebrews 12:11-16 as major points in the message. I also spoke of my testimony of how the Lord set me free from pornography, and gave me eternal pleasures. After all that I spent some time that night with youth from the church to celebrate some birthdays. There I got to share with some of them some of the signs and wonders that the Lord has been doing on the streets, healing the sick and performing miracles. Today it is Saturday and this morning we went out to evangelize on the streets I was reintroduced to the art of tracts, though not using them as my main message but just something for people to have after I leave, also the church’s phone number was on them. Before we headed out I taught some on healing and evangelism and the Lord really blessed me with the anointing to express it well. I am very grateful for the ease and comfort that I have had in the preaching of the Word in Spanish. I was actually concerned at how well I would be able to flow in Spanish, but I have been able to translate verses in my mind from English to Spanish as I read them out loud and flow pretty smoothly. In our time of outreach various people were encountered and impacted by us and it was a real blessing. One of the youth that was really hungry, desiring to see God move came with me to pray for a man and his wife. This man had been hit really hard by a rock while swimming in a river (creek). We prayed for him and after he checked it out to see if there was still pain, we asked to pray again. After we prayed for him the second time he was shocked because all of the pain left his chest, right over his heart. We preached the gospel to them and encouraged them to seek the Lord. Praise God! Tomorrow we will have an opportunity to share briefly who we are, and what we do, at the church, and next week we will get to work at the vacation bible school as well as spend more time teaching and exhorting the youth to seek the Lord with all that they are. Praise God!

6/15

Sunday morning was a powerful time of ministry. I played the violin during the time of the offering and the band accompanied me, it was my second time ever leading a musical group with the violin, the first time was the Thursday before during the worship practice. Ydsia shared the word that morning and she gave me the opportunity to briefly share who we are and what we do. After I had done so, I asked Ydsia if I could minister to the sick and then asked those who had lower back pain to stand up. About 20 or 30 people stood up. There were a lot of people there. I proceeded to ask those around them that loved the Lord to lay hands on them and explained that we have authority in Christ to heal, because of what He did in the Cross. After the first time we prayed I asked those who had experienced a difference to raise their hands and wave them at me. It’s a big church and from the stage I could only see two people waving their hands because the healing for my eyes has not yet manifested and I didn’t have my glasses. I was kind of shocked that only two out of the 20-30 that I saw stand up experienced a difference. Jonathan let me know later on that 10-15 people had raised their hands and waved them. We all prayed once more and many were completely healed, some came up to me later on and told me what they had felt and how the Lord had healed them. Then Ydsia called up to the altar everyone that needed prayer for healing. There I prayed for a man with a broken arm and I felt a lot of movement in his arm and there were tears in his eyes. When I asked him how he felt he said that he did not feel nearly as much pain and then said that he did not feel pain that his arm felt as though it were asleep. The Lord was touching his arm. Ydsia’s sister testified that after the second time we prayed for the lower backs all the pain left completely. A lady I had prayed for in the morning had her knee restored, and no longer clicked every time she walked. Her hands that were limited in movement received movement, there was only little bit of pain left on her hand, she was able to bend her middle finger all the way down to the palm like a normal hand would be able to. I know that the same Jesus who restored complete movement would finish His work in her hand. A man’s left blind eye was opened and last I heard he can read through that eye with glasses on. A lady’s hip was healed. Another man’s lower back was completely healed. So many more healings took place that we are unaware of, all glory be to Jesus. Praise God!!! 

6/15 (This section was written by Jon Shinkle)

Monday and Tuesday were amazing days! Many from the church work at a Christian school right around the corner from the church. Here in Puerto Rico, the government actually pays for the kids to go to school in the summertime, one of those schools being this school run by the church. Sebastian and I went to the school Monday and Tuesday to help teach and minister to the kids. We taught music classes and English/ reading classes with kids from 1^st to 6^th grade.

One highlight from Monday was the time after lunch; we had the chance to speak to all of the kids at one time and pray for them. Sebastian shared the gospel with them and talked about the love of Jesus and the Father’s heart. Then we got to walk around and pray for each child individually. Many of these kids are from broken homes, most have been abused and many have never felt the love of the Father. As I prayed for each child, I felt the tenderness and compassion of the Father toward them, and was moved almost to tears. The presence of God came strongly in the room, and many kids said later that they felt His presence.

Also during the lunch break, we prayed for 2 different teachers. One had intense spasms in both of her shoulders and she said she felt like she had heavy blocks on her shoulders; but when we prayed, the Lord completely healed her and took all the pain away! Praise God! She said she felt like she had been completely renewed, and the next day she told us she was able to sleep that night with no pain or discomfort!

On Tuesday we taught classes again just loved on the kids. In one class, we taught the kids what we do in Worship with the Word sets at the Prayer Furnace, and then we did Worship with the Word! We read Song of Songs chapter 1 together, and then sang antiphonally about verse 2.  The kids had never done anything like it before, some were a little nervous, but they all tried it and many enjoyed it. Watching the kids meditate on the Word and sing it really blessed me and I know that the Word entered their hearts in a powerful way. We also were able to talk with and minister to many of the teachers while we were there, and had the opportunity to talk in depth with one teacher during the lunch break. She told us that she arrives to school early to pray for the students every day and that she spends the first 20 minutes of every class teaching the Word and ministering to the kids. She explained that every child had been abused in some form, and she was so thankful for the Lord using us to minister to them.

6/16 (The rest was written by me)

Wednesday we went house to house, to pray for people from the church that were sick. It was a good experience and we as a group were a blessing to those who were sick at their home. At one house we went, the lady we had gone to pray for gave us the good report that she had come out negative from her last examination. I asked her husband if he needed prayer, the Lord told me that he had pain in his hands. When I specifically asked him if he had pain on his hands he said yes, that he had arthritis. We prayed and all the pain left, we also prayed for his lower back which also got healed. After our time praying for the sick we went out to eat lunch. As we were eating lunch a lady came in to the restaurant with a really bad limp, she came in to sell us some cake. I asked her why she was limping and she explained that she had diabetes and it caused this pain on her leg for which she had to get a shot frequently. After we prayed for her she said that she no longer felt the pain and then she was walking a lot better. That night I preached at the youth group on the Father’s Heart, the Lord had me change the message during worship. A lot of the youth were deeply impacted and during the altar call Jonathan shared some of his experience which many of the youth could relate to. As we began laying hands on the youth the Lord was doing a deep work of healing in many of their hearts. It was a beautiful sight. When I thought everything was done and it was time to go, the youth leader asked if we wanted to do some healing ministry. It was a pleasant surprise. So we did, we called out some words of knowledge that nobody responded to but when we invited everyone that needed healing to come up the specific words of knowledge came up. I had one word for pain in the upper part of the neck that even caused headaches and the person experienced a very fast, and for him, shocking healing. He said that he used to get headaches all the time. One kid had back pain that at first was very stubborn, but it had to submit and all the pain left. Jon called out a word of knowledge for someone’s back, and she got healed as well as a young lady got healed of sinus’ and of bleeding concerning the reproductive system. Praise God, He is Amazing!!!

6/17 Thurs- San Juan

This was our day off and still the Holy Spirit wanted to move. We went to San Juan to visit the downtown area with some of the youth from the church. At one point we were in El Morro, a fort that the Spanish built in San Juan, and there we saw a man that had a brace around his wrist. Jon and I approached him and his family (it was Daniel, his wife, and his three kids the oldest daughter Jessica being around seventeen, his son Alier being around sixteen and the little daughter around 11) and asked him if he would like for us to pray for his wrist so it could be healed. As we prayed his daughter Jessica asked if we could for her wrist, Daniel did not feel any difference on his wrist but as we prayed for his daughter he spoke with his wife telling her that the wrist had not changed but he felt great alleviation on his chest. Jessica was healed, said a bad word from the shock, we told her it was Jesus and then we continued on to pray for Daniel’s chest. After we prayed he was moving around, checking how he felt, dumbfounded at what had occurred and said in a stunned voice to his family as they looked at him, that there was no more pain. I began to preach the gospel to them and one of the things I said to them was, “We know Jesus is alive because a dead man cannot heal!” The man asked me to explain further because he did not understand all the implications of everything I had shared, so I shared more in depth from Adam to the cross, and shared that God is Holy and there can be no sin in His presence, and that because He wanted us (and still does) He sent His Son to take everything from us that hindered us from being near to Him. I then offered them the opportunity to meet Him. Daniel and his son both received the Lord Jesus, and Jessica (the daughter) in the Name of Jesus will do so some time soon. Praise God!! As I explained to them about getting with a church the son went to Jon and asked him to pray for his bicep which had pain. Jon and a girl from the church in Puerto Rico prayed and all the pain left. Praise Jesus!!! Later in the day we were given surveys by a lady named Carol. One of the youth wanted to reach out to her and I encouraged him to but he said he did not know what to say, so I gave him an idea, and he ran with it. After they spoke a little he did not know what else to say or where to go from there so I jumped in and helped him out. As I began talking to her the Lord told me that she had shoulder pain. I told her that we pray for people with pain and they get healed and then I told her that the Lord had told me that we would encounter someone with pain in their shoulder. She looked over at her shoulder shocked and then at us saying “That’s me!” I asked if we could pray for her and then had the guy that initiated the conversation with her pray for her. All the pain left. Praise God!! He confirmed His Word and Love toward her!!!

6/18

Friday was more a day of rest and prayer, that night I preached again. That night I preached on Malachi 1 and exhorted the church not to despise the priesthood and fall under the same predicament of Esau (who sold his birthright because for a bowl of soup because he did not value it) and the priesthood that Malachi prophesied about. I encouraged them to take up the torch and continue to stand on the wall. Before I began preaching, the Lord had given me a word of knowledge for someone with pain on the back of the leg over the knee. A lady responded and she began to experience partial healing. I also got a word for the right hip. No one responded to it but a lady told me after the service that she had so much pain on her left hip that it was hard to even get in the car that night. But when I called the word for the right hip she put her hand on her left hip and she received the healing. God is Awesome!!