MEXICO 2011 - Two Villages Touched by the Finger of God

Actopan, Mexico
Thursday, October 6, 2011
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Two Villages Touched by the Finger of God

From Mexico City our Iris Latin America team drove two days to Actopan in Veracruz, with some major run-ins with the police along the way who wanted to pull our caravan over on numerous occasions and take our money. Even with these kinds of inconveniences, we set our faces like flint toward our destiny to bring God’s love, glory and revival throughout all of Central and South America.

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We arrived in Actopan on the day of a major fiesta celebrating Saint Francis of Assisi. Although we were tired from maneuvering our RVs and pop-up trailers down narrow gravel roads and setting them up in our hosts’ covered patio area, we wanted to join in the festivities…of course, we celebrate Jesus and the freedom that He brings, so in this very vein Jesse, Breck, Taylor, Ben, Rose, Liz and I went to the center of town where we saw a crazy crowd of people chasing and being chased by a hand crafted bull carried by joyous Mexicans. As if that wasn’t enough of a spectacle, the bull had fireworks attached to it and sparks were shooting out onto all the people who were being chased by this bull. So what does the only group of white people do in a situation like this? Start chasing the bull, of course! The Mexicans went crazy and started cheering us on. At the first chance that we had, we grabbed a hold of the bull ourselves, put it on our shoulders and began chasing the crowd. They loved it, cheered us on and each of us guys had a chance to take the bull and chase people. On top of this, people were lighting fireworks all around us and the fireworks themselves were chasing people, which is pretty dangerous I must admit….so dangerous that Taylor ended up getting his finger burnt by one of them.

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The Village of Chicuasen

The first full day that we spent in the Actopan area we visited two separate villages. The first village that we went to was the village of Chicuasen. Our team went door to door inviting people to a meeting we were to hold at 1pm. We visited people’s homes, prayed for the sick, and even led many to Christ before the service even started. One Mexican from the local church and I went to pray for a man that was completely blind in one eye and could barely see out of the other eye. After we had prayed three times for him, he began to see out of the blind eye, enough to follow my hand as I moved it, and then could see perfectly out of the other eye. What an amazing miracle! As the people gathered for the service at Paco’s house, our team played games with the children in the front yard. They were all so full of joy! Then we started our service off with a special treat. The men on our team have been so heavily influenced by Nacho Libre and Mexican wrestling that we have all bought luchador masks. We performed a sweet drama about a wrestler (played by myself) whose tag-team partner is Jesus Christ (played by Ted). Three other luchadors came in to wrestle me; sin (played by Ben), sickness (played by Taylor) and the religious spirit (played by Breck). I kept being overcome by these wrestlers all the while Jesus is sticking out His hand for me to tag Him and let Him fight for me. Finally, after getting beat up pretty badly, I slapped Jesus’ hand and he beat up and overcame sin, sickness and the religious spirit. The courtyard was packed with adults and children who loved our skit. I explained the more of the meaning behind the skit. Then Jesse explained the gospel even further. Nearly everyone present raised their hands to make a first-time decision to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which was about 50 people altogether. Then we had prayer for the sick. Many were healed.

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The Village of Coyolillo

After ministering in the first village, we drove another 40 minutes to a second village called Coyolillo where we heard that the villagers there were black. Come to find out upon arrival, they just had darker skin than in other villages. We also noticed that many of them had blue or green eyes. We had heard that there were witch doctors in the village and we could definitely feel a spiritual heaviness as we took the same approach as in the previous village by going door to door, praying for the sick and inviting everyone to a meeting that we were to hold at 7pm at the Salon Social. The team that I was on prayed for a man’s back and leg to be healed. He was completely healed and ended up coming to the meeting. At the meeting there was a time of worship followed by our luchador drama, which we are perfecting as time goes by. This time Rowan played the part of Jesus. Again, the skit went over well. The people loved it. Breck preached the gospel afterwards, Gillian gave a testimony of healing and Jesse gave an altar call where about 15 people entered into a personal relationship with Christ. Tons more came forward for healing, too. The service continued on into the night as the Holy Spirit was poured out in that place. As we all sat around the dinner table that evening to share a meal together, I pondered the day’s events and knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt that two villages had been touched by the finger of God.

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Christian Young