The Real Jesus is at the Mountain Church

MAY 2023

One day I made a map of the churches in the community around us. Thinking of the fruit that many Christians around us display and it was hard to see Jesus in there daily lives. I started crossing the diferent congregations off one by one, for things like: adultery, religiosity, witchcraft, stealing from the congregation, and spiritually abusing them etc..  When I looked at it again, I realized there was one other church besides us preaching about Jesus and the power of the cross. It's not about us judging other congregations, it's about taking care of and feeding the sheep their proper food, Jesus. You can't preach of a kingdom with out preaching about it's king. We are new creations, the old has been made new through Jesus Christ. I am going to share some examples of what I'm talking about and introduce you to some precious new believers.

    Ana is 70 years old and has recently accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior.  She was a deaconess at the Catholic Church in a town named Dulce Nombre (close to Platanillo).  Her priest told her she was abandoning her job of giving communion to the house bound.  She told her priest that she never knew how much she was missing.  She was finding out from attending our church everything that she inherited and received by Jesus death and resurrection for her!  He told her she could never take communion again and she said, “I am not coming back.”   She is telling people how Jesus is truly a life-giving Spirit.  She walks alone 2km uphill to get home every Saturday night from the spot where the bus drops her off after church.  Her family asked her, “Why did you go so far away when you have your own church in front of your house?”  She said,”I wish they were preaching the Jesus that they preach up in that mountain church.”   

Another person from Platanillo has started coming.  Dormon, a 77 year old man who had been going to the United Pentecostal for many years.  Recently a new minister was assigned to his church.  He gave the minister a very large offering to pay for a church project.  “I don’t want to see the sisters working hard, making and selling tamales this time.”  A week later he saw the women out selling tamales.  He went to the pastor who was with some of the church members.  Dormon asked him, “Why are they having to sell tamales?  What happened to the money I gave you?”  The pastor responded, “What money?” Dorman said, “You don’t remember? Here is the receipt you gave me.”  The minister looked at it and said, “That’s not my handwriting, I don’t write in cursive.”  Dorman was shocked.

    One Saturday evening he was riding the bus from Platanillo to Tuis to visit a friend.  He saw about 20 people  getting on the bus from different stops in Platanillo.  They all sat together as a group.  When he saw that Ana was one of them he said, “Ana where are you and all these people going?”  She told him about her “mountain church” and invited him to come.  So he changed plans and ended up following the group all the way up to Las Nubes.  After the service he got permission from Leo to speak. He exhorted everyone, “What I have witnessed here tonight left my previous church long ago.  The pure message of Jesus Christ and the fire and power of the Holy Spirit. Treasure this, His presence! Rejoice in it!” Dorm-on has been coming ever since.

I just want to add that we greatly rejoice over all the new families in Platanillo.  We spent the first five years of our ministry investing a lot of time and prayer.  We even held some cell church meetings in Dulce Nombre.  We even ministered to a teenager and his family while he was slowly dying of cancer.   He later went to be with Jesus. Dulce Nombre is also where several young men committed suicide at the beginning of our ministry.  I pray that Ana’s new love for the Lord be a giant light.  God is faithful wherever we plant his word, it will spring up and produce a harvest because the Word is a person, Jesus Christ.

    Amongst the new members that joined our church this summer, is the family of Macho.  He was visiting the prosperity gospel church in La Suiza.

    This church has hurt so many baby Christians, and caused the unbelievers to blaspheme the name of Jesus and look at all Protestant pastors as greedy manipulators.  I have written about this place often because we have had quite a few people escape from there.  The pastor teaches the men that when their wives and children refuse to submit: take away cell phones, then electricity, and eventually food.

   Macho didn’t know what he was getting into.  He is a musician as well as his son and daughter.  They were told by their “pastor” that if they wanted to be a part of the music ministry, they had to buy their own instruments.  They are a low income family and because of this they worked really hard.  Even the daughter went house to house selling tamales.

    They were finally able to purchase their instruments, a saxophone, a violin and a keyboard.  When they went to their first band practice, the pastor looked at Macho’s son and said in front of everyone, “Why are you in tennis shoes, I told you to buy expensive black dress shoes.  I don’t want people in poverty standing on my stage. You are disobedient to my instructions and you will not play that keyboard.”  The pastor called someone on his phone and told him to come immediately to band practice.  Macho’s son waited humbly while someone else was the first to play this brand new keyboard that he had worked months for.  When practice was over, he went to gather his keyboard and the pastor looked at him and said, “What are you doing?” The young man replied, “I’m getting my keyboard.”  And this pastor told him, “This is now kingdom property, I will not allow it to be taken from the church.” 

      They still attended the Sunday service, the daughter was going to play her violin. 

    As they were sitting there as a family.  The pastor spoke to the whole congregation and asked, "Is there anyone brave enough to take the place of these faithless people who don’t have enough to buy the clothes I asked for?”  He was looking straight at Macho and his family while he said this!  Macho’s daughter immediately went to the stage to get her violin.  The pastor gave her the same speech he had given her brother over the keyboard. But she didn’t care.  Jesus provided her that violin and she took it.  They began to leave the building but the ushers were ordered to block them from exiting with the violin and saxophone.  When Macho threatened to call the police, they let him leave.  They ended up coming to our church by word of mouth and brought more relatives with them.  Leo is wisely giving them time to be a part of the church before he allows them to minister music.