This scripture came to my mind these past three amazing and powerful days! Early Tuesday morning we left to go to a business retreat in the state of Cochabamba the support base of the leftist government in Bolivia. We stayed at the same resort the Bolivian President and his entourage uses when he visits that area. Can you imagine what must have been happening in the spirit world when we showed up with the Holy Spirit?
We took time to intercede before the event started, which was very intense. Then for two days we ministered to 14 staff members of the pharmaceutical company; all of them received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and were delivered from demonic oppression.
During our stay in that resort much was going on. There was a National division of the soccer team staying at the hotel, there were members of the leftist National Government present attending some very important meetings for the upcoming elections, who by the way were offering up their ritual sacrifices, and last but not least there was a transvestite (cross-dressers) meeting going on.
Our focus was on the retreat, but as a team we agreed we needed to pray and act out the love of Jesus Christ towards the great variety of visitors there. On our last morning at the breakfast buffet our team moved into action as the soccer players on one end and the transvestites on the other end of the dining room were finishing off their breakfast.
Some team members directly ministered the Gospel to the soccer players leading them into a prayer of salvation; it was a precious sight, seeing all those players bow their heads and hearing them pray. While that was going on, one team member marches over to the transvestites and politely asked them if we could have a few minutes before their morning meeting to give them some gifts, she was graciously received by these individuals and they agreed to let us have eight minutes of their time.
Another lady and I directed our attention to the trainers and sponsors of the soccer team. This was somewhat challenging because one of the sponsors had a bad experience with religion and was resisting the love of God. Two of the men ended up praying the prayer of salvation; the other one gave us permission to pray for him but was not ready to go any further. It was a humbling moment of great joy to know this team would never be the same, because of Jesus Christ.
Then we prepared ourselves for the meeting with the transvestites. We had gifts left from the retreat and booklets with the promises of God. We took time to pray and make a plan. Maria, one of our team members would speak of how precious they were in God’s sight and then I would end with the prayer of salvation, after which we would give each of the 30 individuals attending a gift.
We were welcomed and then introduced one to another. Maria started telling them of the love of God, and His acceptance of them; however she made a mistake by addressing them in the ‘masculine tense’, so she was corrected by the leader who emphatically asked us to address them in the ‘feminine tense’. We did so even though it was a puzzling situation; speaking to men who thought they were women! Most of the individuals there had better female figures then we did.
When Maria was finished I stood up and spoke to them that in the same manner they wanted us to recognize them verbally by what we said, God wanted each of them to verbally recognize Him through Jesus Christ. While praying I made sure to add “change us and transform us to the image you, God have of us” I realized before I prayed I would not be able to say transform us to the image of Jesus, because He was masculine and that is what these individuals are running from.
My team members said that the majority of those present prayed to receive Christ Jesus. When we were finished I clearly felt led by the Holy Spirit to kiss and hug each one of these men, blessing them personally with the love of God and as I did so, some of my team followed my example. We sensed the love of God in that place and know His Kingdom was established in many of those attending.
It was an amazing experience. We as a team sensed God ministering to us to lose our preconceived concepts and reach out to sinners and ‘rejects’ the same way Jesus did. It is so easy to observe, comment and laugh; it is a whole other ball game to overcome uneasiness, inner criticism and disapproval to truly show the love of God. We as a team grew and were changed tremendously by these events. The world is a place of great hurt, most people do not know where to go and what to do, are we ready to show the love of God, no matter what?