Blog #46 - Our Lord goes before us!

“It is the Lord who goes before you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or abandon you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”     
Deuteronomy 31:8 AMP

Dear family and friends, beloved ones near and far, blessings of peace and joy be with you through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!

​My heart is bursting with joy and overwhelming gratitude as I sit to write this record of what is happening here in Paraguay!  Not that our lives are without challenge and buffeting, but for this reason, we have the encouraging words found in Hebrews:

“Just consider and meditate on Him who endured from sinners such bitter hostility against Himself [consider it all in comparison with your trials],
​so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”     
Hebrews 12:3 AMP

In March this year, we made a short visit to the USA then flew to the UK, and in 6 short weeks visited 6 churches!  It was such an encouraging trip, as everywhere we shared about Paraguay and what the Lord is doing, people were excited, interested, and wanted to be involved!  Our brothers and sisters in the body loved us and ministered to our battle-weary souls!  A big thank you to Nathan and Amanda and family for giving up half your house and all your food to host us while we were in Oklahoma!  Such a heavenly bond we sensed with you all.  And dear Johnny and Lulu, Ewan and Lara, for allowing us to stay in your holiday cottages as a gift to us, and for feeding us yummy meals!   We love you all so much!  
There were miracles in every church we ministered at, as the Lord poured out His love; broken hearts receiving comfort and being restored, physical disabilities healed, pains and chronic illnesses left as we declared the powerful name of Jesus  - glory to God!! 

​We also had a very precious time with our relatives, both in Florida, USA with my brother and his lovely family, my Aunty Beatrice and cousin Laura, then in the UK with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and even a brand new precious cousin, Theodore, or “Tiny Teo” as Gabriela calls him!  We LOVE our family, and to see the cousins all together, and our children with their grandparents, fills our hearts with such joy! This is our greatest sacrifice - for twenty three years now - to give up our flesh and blood for the sake of the Gospel.  Thank you Mama and Papa for hosting us in our delightful family home!  The children miss Grandpa’s porridge and Abuelita’s cuddles!  And just in case we have never said this before, we are a very close loving family, which makes our sacrifice much harder!  Many tears are shed, especially at the airport!

As we embark on the return journey, I always ask the Lord to give me something to hold onto for strength, to keep me focused on the ‘why’ of being in Paraguay; a scripture, a song in my heart, a word.  This time, it came through Daniel, our eldest who is living in Australia (until July), who happened to be praying for us as we began our journey.  (NO small feat - 14 suitcases plus other hand luggage including a beautiful violin, 7 passengers, three flights!) Daniel had a powerful vision that really touched our hearts.  He saw a drop of pure gold falling from the sky onto the land of Paraguay, and just like when water falls and makes ripples on the surface, this drop of gold had a ripple effect across the nation.  He said, “Mama, you guys are that gold!”  “Wow!” as Miss Rhonda Knox says!  We know that we are nothing of ourselves, but we continually empty our hearts of any selfish ambition, and aim to keep our motives pure here.  And thus the gold!  It represents something refined and costly - the treasure we bring to Paraguay is our Lord Jesus Christ, and we desire with all our hearts, to be known by Him and make Him known!  
So we arrived back at the end of April, beginning of Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, and jumped back into our calling here, filled up and ready to run again!  We have churches to build, more outreaches and discipleship as always, and upcoming international visitors!
​All very exciting!
We have finally finished our homeschool year (phew) and are entering into a time of ‘projects’ both in ministry and at home.  When it’s ‘holiday’ time we like to go out more on the field with Daddy, and be more of a physical help in the office and on the field as opposed to most of the time being the praying back up team!
Esther has gone on a furlough now to Germany, and will be starting a bible study course that she will do on line from home here in Paraguay.  We are so blessed by all of Esther’s help and love for what we do!  Please pray for her as she embarks on her bible studies!

The Lord has been truly going before us and in this update, I wanted to share a few of these powerful and encouraging testimonies with you here!   To set the scene a little of what our world looks like, so you can appreciate the Lord’s going before us in the fulness, I would like to describe to you a few details of what we face as we ‘go’.

For thousands of years, Paraguay, as with many nations still unreached with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is still on the whole ruled by principalities of the prince of this world. We have almost reached a third of the indigenous villages with the Gospel, and there are other Christian works here, but the places we are reaching are still under that darkness until the Gospel is proclaimed.  Therefore we face great opposition.  Just as a natural army must be fully equipped and armored up before battle, we also prepare in prayer and dress up, holding as precious and vital our spiritual position in Christ.  Thank God the battle is the Lord’s and through our Lord Jesus, we already have the victory, but we are the boots on the ground marching and staking out the banner of love!  
So what that means is, satan tries every which way to stop us. The weather. Sickness. Random attacks. Vehicle challenges. Fear. Lies. Etc, etc. Anyone in ministry will be familiar with this.  On top of the above, being a small team, we face a mocking big hairy giant, an impossible task, and constantly feel like we are juggling.  But by the grace of God, strengthened by Him, and in awe of His goodness, not only does the giant fall, but we cut off his head by releasing soul after soul from satan’s grip!


“I will go before you and level the mountains; I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron.”  Isaiah 45:2 AMP


As a team, we gather and pray, and these meetings have over the last year been filled with times of intercession and intimate worship, that I can only describe as heavenly.  In this worshipful atmosphere, as we lift up all the villages, ones we have reached and those that are still waiting, we pray as the Holy Spirit guides us, and I know that through these times, the way for us to ‘go’ is opened:


“Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”
Romans 8:26-27 NKJV

(I have sat with Peter, and taken notes on these accounts I am about to share with you, as for some I wasn’t there:)
The first time we experienced in a very real way the Lord going before us, was just before the covid pandemic hit Paraguay.  Emily had just gone to heaven and we were still deeply grieving as a family.  We had met up with Pastor Cipriano and Ña Carmen, and were waiting for the chief of this new village to lead us to his people.  This was our first visit here.  It was raining, and cold but we were brining food to cook and blankets.  Suddenly I realized that we had to cross a river with all our equipment, huge pan, and supplies, walking on a narrow pair of logs, held together by wire, which also served as our hand rial.  With nervous giggles and determination we made it!  As we were beginning the climb up to the village, we began to notice little brown curious faces peeking through the forest at us.  The children were very shy and seemed afraid, as if perhaps they had never seen white people before.  As we shared the Gospel, they received the message of the love of a Saviour with great joy, but one senior lady was particularly interested.  She had had an incredible experience some time before which she explained to us later after we had been visiting this village for some time.  This older lady had fallen down in her field as she was working and died.  She saw a bright white cloud and a voice spoke to her from that cloud.  The voice said to her, “You must go back; I am sending my messengers to teach you about my Agape Love.”(Despite not knowing a word of Greek, this lady understood this to mean ‘God’s kind of Love’)  When we arrived in her village, she saw on us the same white light she had seen in the cloud.  She thought we were angels!  God our mighty Father had gone before us, I believe because you and I pray, and had prepared the way for this tiny and hidden away group of people to be able to come into His Kingdom!  They were not forgotten or hidden to our Father of Love! 

Back in 2022, another remarkable door of ministry opened up supernaturally to us.  The chief and witch doctor of a village had sworn he would never allow preachers in to his area, as some time ago, some local pastors had told him that what he practiced was of the devil.  True but not helpful.  And it meant the door was shut not only for this man, but for all his people.  When Peter arrived at his village, this angry chief said “No” to the preaching of the Gospel - this was the first time out of hundreds of villages that a chief didn’t give permission for his people to hear the message of salvation.  Peter and I are always deeply concerned for the souls of this land and so we were committed to seeing this situation change.  We faithfully prayed as a team for this man to have a change of heart, for the Lord to reveal himself to him, for the door to be opened up!  About a year later, Peter called P. Cipriano, asking if he wanted to go with him to visit this chief.  P. Cipriano was also keen to go.  On their arrival, the chief asked, “What have you come here for today?”  P. Cipriano began to explain, “Brother Peter has brought provision for the whole village.”  The previously angry chief began to weep (in a culture where emotions are very rarely shown).  He finally spoke, “Last night I had a dream, and God told me that today He was sending His messengers with great provision.”  The chief not only welcomed us this time, and the Gospel of salvation that we had come to bring, but received us as messengers from Heaven, and told his whole community that from now on we would always be welcome, and that he wanted his people to listen and receive our words.  Praise God! This village has remained open to us till today. 

Another trip that year that I specifically remember, was when we were on our way to a village and we found a new little group on the side of the road.  They were staring at us with great interest, we thought because we do look rather interesting - two large high end vehicles, roofs loaded up, and white happy faces smiling and hands waving out the windows.  Peter stopped to greet the people - if you know my husband, he has a huge heart and stops for the one, so despite the agenda for today he made time for them.  They warmly welcomed him, without much suspicion, and Peter told them who we are and what we do.  They wanted us to come and visit them also, so Peter agreed.  We made room for them in the plan of the day.  We have learned to go with the flow of the Holy Spirit, and not hold on too tightly to the agenda.  As it happened, the Lord had gone before us - this small village knew we were coming to them before we did through dreams from the night before!  What a Master Planner we serve!  So, we finished up the ministry in the neighbouring village, packed up and went back to this new place.  It had started drizzling, so we thought perhaps they will not want us to come in the end, but despite the rain, they were by the road watching out for us.  We reassured them we hadn’t forgotten about them, and decided to wait in the car until the rain calmed down, so they wouldn’t all get wet.  They were such a brand new village here, that they hadn’t managed to assemble their huts yet fully, and we could see recently burnt trees to make a clearing for themselves.  Finally, the rain calmed, the sun came out again and we all slowly climbed out of the vehicles - as they were less than we were as a group, we tried to approach very slowly, full of smiles and aware of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ on us to be His messengers.  But the adults were not afraid, only the children a little weary, which is for good reason.  Strangers are strangers.  So we were offered various different types of things to sit on, and managed to get down some of our very useful black boxes that we use to carry our supplies, but serve as great seats as well.  We chatted small talk for some time, then gently began with the presentation of the Gospel.  I couldn’t help notice one of the younger ladies; hair cut very roughly and short, her face pale, long and thin showing a deep brokenness and pain, her clothes of a mini skirt and scant top suggested she was being used as a prostitute.  And yet she stood in the shadows, within ear shot of our words, “…a once perfect world made by our Creator, sin entered, man fell into hands of satan, the Love of our Heavenly Father, who sent His only Son to die for us and rescue us from satan’s grip…if we choose Him.”  The people received healing as we prayed.  Time for us to hand out our gifts - a tangible show of this Father’s love.  Then in the moments that followed, the older gentleman, their witch doctor, motioned to Peter that he wanted to talk with him saying, “You know how we as spiritual leaders receive messages in the spirit realm…” and he began to share he had dreamt that God was sending His messengers to their village.  Then his son spoke up.  He had dreamt that two shining military-type vehicles would be coming to them.  Finally, the young lady (the one I had noticed) came out from behind the tree, and shared her dream. She had seen blood, but it didn’t scare her - we immediately understood that she had been shown the covenant blood of our Lord Jesus that was poured out for her!  One who had only known lust and being taken from, had heard surely for the first time of a love so pure and powerful, that it could redeem her and make her whole, make her a beloved daughter of the most High God!  Soon after, on another visit to this village, she gave her life to the Lord!  Glory to God!

​In another region one day, Peter and his all man team, were trying to get to a village when he noticed the bridge across the river had been broken up.  There was now no way across accept through the water, which happened to be flowing quiet deep and fast then.  Peter had a tough decision to make: abandon the mission of reaching two villages over on the other side, one in discipleship, its neighbour on the plan for first preaching of the Gospel, or take a great risk and plunge our expensive off-road truck into the river hoping its gear of snorkel and winch would help them cross successfully.  There are no options of help around if he was to get stuck.  No AA (UK), AAA (US) to call.  Not even a nearby tractor.  And knowing Peter as most of us do, you know he chose the latter - truck verses souls?  Into the water he went after a good long wade through and reconnaissance trying to find the safest route.  Apparently, the bridge was taken down to stop drug traffickers coming through, someone told them later.  Despite the various challenges, including a steep, rugged and slippy bank to navigate on the other side, they managed to cross and make it to the village.  As Peter sat while the people gathered, he felt an overwhelming sense of irresponsibility, thinking of all the 'what if’s' and the potential journey back across the river, this time in the dark.  However, the lady chief began to share that the night before the Lord had told her in a dream Peter was coming.  She had been thinking about this and waiting all day, as she had remembered the blessing of the previous visits.  She was was so excited to share this, but what she didn’t realize was that her words blessed Peter so much as it confirmed for him that it was of the Lord that they had been led to cross the river and take that risk.  These villages are so remote and have no running water or electricity - and yet the Lord knew them and had Peter and team get to them so that they too could know His love!  What a mighty God we serve!

This May, Peter and P. Cipriano made an epic trip to the Chaco.  For a while now we have been praying regarding the timing of this, and asking the Lord for wisdom and guidance, as the Chaco is a bit like the Wild West, full of of unpredictable circumstances, intense off-road driving, and few and far between gas stations.  The need for the Gospel in the Chaco region is huge - around 50% of the indigenous people live in this western desert region, and many of their communities are a lot more populous than the ones we have been reaching to the East of Paraguay.  We may need new strategies from Heaven how to reach the people there.  There are many different tribes, that all have their own language, cultures and belief systems.  Most of these people groups won’t even understand the Guarani language we studied, so we will have to find translators, or hope that one of them can understand Spanish to translate for their people what we say.  Needless to say, there is much to plan practically.  Also, the Chaco is another notch or two up in intensity spiritually speaking: there are whole regions of very little if any functioning law and order, where criminals hide to avoid justice, and drugs abuse and alcoholism are much more of a problem.  Darkness likes to hide and remain unexposed, but the Gospel brings light and freedom.  


The Lord gave Peter this very powerful scripture in Isaiah 35 a few days before he set off, and literally watched it being fulfilled before his eyes, the Lord truly going before us again.  I have included the main verses here, but please take time to read the whole chapter:


The desert and the parched land will be glad;
    the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.

Like the crocus, 
 it will burst into bloom; 

 Say to those with fearful hearts,
    “Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
    he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
    he will come to save you.”

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
    and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
 Then will the lame leap like a deer,
    and the mute tongue shout for joy.

And a highway will be there;
    it will be called the Way of Holiness…


There are so many thirsty souls in the Chaco region, under darkness for generations, and Peter managed on this first trip to reach three communities with the Gospel, and make contact with another four.  On their first night in the middle of nowhere or ‘Timbuktu’, after a long day of being stuck in the mud and some precious ministry, Peter was asking the Lord where to go - back through the mud, which really was impassable or onward more into the unknown?  He felt to go on to the next village, marked on GPS, and by the map preparations we had done before.  As he pulled up slowly, he was greeted by a man who asked if they were pastors - he was a believer.  The Lord had led them to a refuge, among brethren, a safe place in the middle of the Wild West!  They were offered a couple of hammock type beds under a shelter, and were able to rest after their long and challenging day.  In the night that same kind man heard a vehicle driving wildly through the mud, apparently following their tracks - we suspect to rob them, but God had tucked them away and hidden them from harms way!  Remember the Highway of Holiness?  Isaiah 35:

The unclean will not journey on it;
    wicked fools will not go about on it.

No lion will be there,
    nor any ravenous beast;
    they will not be found there.
    But only the redeemed will walk there,

and those the Lord has rescued will return.

We serve a mighty God!  Hallelujah!

Most recently, Peter, Cipriano and some missionary friends visited 3 unreached communities in a whole new region. The second community was ancient and set in a beautiful national park area. As they arrived and spoke to the chief, they were welcomed and the community began to gather. The witch doctor, hearing about the gathering, came angrily to confront them asking, "Who told you to come here?"  Within a few minutes though, he remembered the dream he had had two nights before. He had seen a new group of people coming to their community and was afraid. In the dream, he then heard a voice telling him that these were bringing good things and not to be afraid. As he remembered, he turned to Peter and said "God sent you to us!" Peter replied, "Yes he did!" There were many salvations and miracles as the people heard and responded in faith to the simple gospel message in that unreached and potentially inhospitable village. The Lord God had truly gone before us and prepared the way - Hallelujah!!

I hope you are filled with joy reading these testimonies, and that they have ministered to you great hope for your own personal journeys of faith!  We are convinced that there are many more testimonies like these but we will have eternity to find out about them!  How exciting!  God is ALIVE and actively going before us all as we seek to do His will on planet earth today!   

Dear family in Christ, please continue to stand with us in prayer in the Spirit and as you are led!  In the next few weeks, we will be inaugurating a beautiful new metal church that the believers are so excited to be able to gather under, and will be starting to build one out of wood in another region, as well as reaching out to more and more places with the Gospel.  We also hope to hand out more blankets and clothing, during our discipleship trips as we have been having a very cold winter. 

God is so good!  Let us continue by grace, full of love and gratitude to the Lord!  

God bless you all!