Author: Harvest of Faith Church
A Spirit led community following Jesus as Lord
Baja Healing
Dear Burd & AP,
Yes, I’m way better, praise Jesus. I want to thank you for praying for me. I started to feel better when I got the emails and have continued to get better. I’m going to mop the whole house today so I am WAY better. This thing was supposed to have lasted a lot longer.
A week or so again, that day I was locked in the car with no knobs , we had to be at the accountants office really early( for and office in Mexico anyway) it was like 7:30am, and this guy’s office was DIRECTLY in front of the open side door to the HUGE Catholic Church downtown, the one with the big huge bronze statue of Jesus. You’ve seen it.
So, anyway the Church bells started to ring. It was cool because they do it the old fashioned way, their was a monk or something standing on the sidewalk pulling this like 300 foot long rope to make the bells ring. Frank was in the office when the music started coming out the side door of this Church.
Immediately I felt an overwhelming urge to go in there and pray. (I have never actually been in a Catholic Church.) Right on the heels of this weird urge, I heard the Word. “God doesn’t live in temples made of human hands, now He lives in us.”, then I heard Holy Spirit say , “You know I am right here in this truck with you. I am in you, but there are my people in there and so I Am in there right now as well..” So I started praying in tongues in the truck. And after about ten minutes, He said real clear, He is in everyone that believes in there, too” He said ” Yes, many are there due to being under condemnation and tradition, and religion . But I Am LOVE. I love them, go in there now. “
Believe or not I like an idjit answered back, “But we dont have that much time before we have to leave and be at that appointment.” He said,” Fear not, I framed the ages, and I am in control of all time. Go ahead.”
So I walked across the street and it was pretty dark, but I figure there were maybe 30 people , most of them elderly and what I’ve always imagined them doing they were doing. It was pretty much half women half men and the elderly women were a typical picture of an old style Mexican woman, in a modest dress, very elderly and they were kneeling at the front, with their rosaries and lace veils doing penance.
I stopped about 3 feet inside and felt embarrassed to go (the devil) and the oldest woman who was kneeling with her eyes closed,(so how did she see me hesitating there?) got up and limped over to me.
Said, “Come in child.” and wrapped her arm around me and started leading me to the very front, where those steps are where they take communion. She knelt back down and I knelt down ,too. And the annointing hit me SO HARD, I couldn’t stop weeping. I looked up and saw this giant typical Jesus crucified, which has always hurt me and made me sad. But my eyes were drawn to it and I literally couldn’t look away. It was like I was frozen in that position I don’t know for how long, but I eventually realized I was praying quietly in tongues. Finally, after I guess about an hour , I felt released, I felt the fear and the burden of what’s going on just LIFT. Then the music stopped and Mass began. I got up and went out the same door I’d come in. This is where I left off with you BURD, here comes part 2-
Fast forward to going to the government offices and getting locked in the car for two hours . I almost died like chihuahuas do when they get locked in cars with windows rolled up. We had another appointment after my, near death locked in a car experience but we had two hours to kill and nothing to do, so we started driving around town looking for a shady place to park.
What do you know, we ended up finding the ONLY shady spot on the other side of Ensenada at another Catholic Church Building. It was the super poor part of town and although the building was ginormous, it was really run down, patched up with odd pieces of plywood and card board. Bizarrely enough, as we park under a shade tree, a guy sitting in a wheelchair was on the sidewalk with long rope ringing the noon bells. I don’t think in any way it was coincidence.
As soon as we were parked, I hear Holy Spirit say, “Go on in there now,”and I physically felt a hand lay on my shoulder and give me a gentle push. I thought it was Frank, but when I looked at him , he had both hands still on the steering wheel. I asked him,” did you just push me?” He said, “No.” So I told him, “I’m supposed to go in this one , too.” He said okay and I got out and walked across the street. The doors were wide open, it, like the other one, it was pretty dark, but I couls see it the carpet was totally worn out and there were only like 4 stained glass windows and two were boarded up from the outside In fact, Mary was boarded because once I got inside I saw it dimly. Definitely the poorest Catholic Building I have ever seen anywhere.
There were two people in there at first. In the very back row was another old man in a wheelchair. In the front row, another lady about 60 or so. She was sitting there head down I assume praying. I As I got halfway down this long aisle, a priest came out. It was like something out of a movie , because he said, “Come in my child. Do you wish to make confession?”
I said , “I am not a Catholic.” The Lord just told me to come in here and pray.”
He shook his head positively and said, “of course, you are here anytime.” Then he went about his business and disappeared out into some kind of side offices.
I went up to the steps where communion is given, and knelt on this frayed totally bald, filthy old red carpet. Again, my eyes were like transfixed upon this huge Christ crucified. The paint was flaking off of him even. But I could NOT take my eyes away I don’t for how long but it seemed LONG. I couldn’t help it, I started to weep and weep like no tomorrow. I felt this horrible sorrow for Him. I think He gave me the most minute taste of what He felt back then. Finally, I was able to bow my head and pray. Again I just prayed quietly in tongues for a while. But this time, it was more like groaning and travailing in prayer, quiet yet travailing. When the burden lifted I got up to walk out, along the walls were pictures of Peter and Paul and Andrew I couldn’t see them too good, and was curious, so I had to cross in front of the only lady there. As I did, she stood up and I saw she had had a stroke or something, her face was paralyzed, her whole left side. Get this: with her good arm she reached out a grabbed my arm AND SAID, “I have been waiting for you.” I knew in my spirit that if I laid hands on her she was going to be healed. And so right there, in the front of this Catholic Building, in the dark, I just laid hands on her and told the spirit of the stroke to GO. It went. She dropped her old wooden cane , and smiled a straight, not twisted smile and wrapped both arms around me and wept and kept saying, Thank you Jesus, Thank You Jesus……………not Mary, not a saint but Jesus. She hugged me so long and hard I started to get sweaty. Finally she let me go and walked without a cane up to the front, and knelt down and prayed.
I watched her for a few minutes then turned and made my way out the way I came.
I went to the truck and told Frank, what happened. And as we had to wait there some more until our appointment, we saw the lady come on walking out, she didnt have her cane anymore and she even had a little spring in her step. Praise Jesus.
Now I know why I was called into those buildings. To get prayed up, to see and be reminded of “By His stripes we were healed.”
That night I had a dream or a vision I am not sure. But I saw Jesus the King, His feet anyway, and He told me, ” I want you to tell the people , that although I Am the King of Kings, so many are forgetting or not taking into account ENOUGH that I WAS crucified for them, my soul was vexed for them, BUT many because they do not see healing or miracles , they have almost forgotten. I Am the Resurrection and the Life and the stripes , the bruising of my earthly body HAS HEALED them. Too many don’t REALLY believe THAT part. This is why I took you to see Me crucified, to cause YOU to remember, so that you would have the faith in My Stripes you have put out of your mind.” He wasn’t rebuking me, He spoke so lovingly I physically felt Him touch my head and He was gone.
Now I know that Harvest of Faith takes Communion all the time. He was not talking to everybody who remembers but to those who have either out of the pain it brings believers to think of, or inadvertently, or out of disbelief in His Entirety as Bruised , Beaten, Betrayed Crucified unto death, Resurrected, and now Reigning and Returning King of Kings,
We MUST believe in ALL of Him. Because He is all of that. In the last few days He’s talked to me a lot, and one important item of many that He told me, is that we should never, never be embarrassed or afraid to pray for healing , we should NEVER rule out where to do it when prompted, or make a judgement that this or that person won’t recieve because of WHATEVER reason, and especially among people in Churches that DON’T believe in healing TODAY. We must press in.
Other than that school has started here. We continue to feed the children. Right now just can afford 3 days a week because that is what we can afford at this point. But there’s always enough for whoever comes.
Vitamin Boy has moved away, I miss him. It’s hard to see them go once you get to know each one.
I heard Aquilino’s family bought his bride , so he is an adult now, soon to be a father.
Oh, we just got our electricity bill. It is $6,500 (and change) pesos.That’s about $590 US. It’s not just us. In the paper they call these loco recibos. Which means crazy bills. Frank stood in a hundred person line to see how much it would be because our bill got taken by someone. He talked to tons of poor people whose bills are $350 dollars and more. It’s ridiculous. Our light company here does this whenever it desires. A lot of it is the luxury tax. Electricity is taxed as a luxury in Mexico.
We need a miracle , so please agree with us that it will come. We are blowing the shofar in faith. The neighbors have tired of it, but we were told to do so by the Lord and they’ll need to deal with it.
We continue to get the bank thing fixed, seems it may take some time, as they are not in a hurry.
Praise Yahweh.
Blessings upon you all,
Frank and Detra
and the Church here in Baja
Let Your Joy
From the book of James. We are instructed how to go through the tests and trials of life and come out on the other side be complete and lacking nothing. In this part we see that the way we enter a test determines how we leave. Our joy must enter first if we are to see victory.
Dear Burd and AP and Church Family,
Dear Burd and AP and Church Family,
Boy , it’s been busy, but a nice cool few weeks, We’ve been seeing daily miracles of food multiplication and the weather is just wildly “cool”, max 80 degrees with a cool wind. I’ve been trying to send pictures all week as new children arrive and the playground is chock full of VERY early laughter and good use of the equipment so many of you contributed to get built.
Something happened I felt a particular urge to share with you tonite.
A couple of weeks ago. on a Friday (our Church day) a new 24 year old girl showed up with Theodora.. Theo explained that she was approx. 6 months pregnant (the girl Hilaria, doesn’t speak Spanish so Theo had to translate) She explained that this was Hilaria’s 7th pregnancy, that Hilaria was in a dual marriage , 1 man 2 women, and that her husband was very physically abusive, had beaten and kicked Hilaria that morning and Hilaria was having contractions and bleeding. Hilaria had gone to Sector de Salud, and been refused any treatment until she showed up with a sonogram.
Immediately, my jaded flesh smelled a quest for money. Money that we did not have. But there lay a surprise in store for me.
Praise Yahweh, Theo and her sister Catalina said they could each put up $100 pesos to help- but asked if we could pitch in the rest- about $150.00.pesos. ($15.00 US dollars) to get the sonogram done.
We obviously were so moved and excited that Theo and Catalina , struggling themselves to support very larg (or more truthfully, not too much) hesitation, pitched in the rest and got the sonogram done at a 24 hour lab and had her seen/ treated at SDS.
The pregnancy is high risk, Hilaria is so malnourished (her weight is 98 pounds at 6 months along) and she really needs our prayers that she can escape this abusive relationship. But the FRUIT in Theo and Catalina is so very encouraging to us.
The BIG DEAL here lies in seeing two very new sisters in the Gospel pull out their wallets to show love to a new believer. Unheard of amongst different tribes, UNHEARD OF. Remember they believe that there is NOT enough GOOD in the world for everyone so they scrabble amongst themselves to the death for the smallest scrap of blessing; a kilo of rice , beans, a sack of used clothing………and here we have these 2 offering to HELP a stranger.
I must remind you that we , Frank and myself are just people , people like you all. People with doubts and fears and very real bills to pay. But like you, whether you know it or not , people who know that others look to us as BELIEVERS for guidance by seeing how we respond to such pleas, and circumstances
Honestly, when they arrived and started telling me the circumstances that day, I thought, well I thought, it was just another way of asking “the Church for money” without really understanding that we/they/us ARE the Church,
We have no mysterious headquarters somewhere in the USA that supplies our every need. We don’t even really have a clue as to what money we we just know we better do ocome in to keep or not keep us going each month. It’s just us and a Very Awesome Great Faithful God and our mixing our faith (believing the unseen ) with actions (in this case giving what we could not)!
The oxygen sensor was just deemed “history” in our only vehicle, The brakes front and back are shot, I owe the dentist for my dry socket etc…but there was no IGNORING HOLY SPIRIT, saying “give, join your faith and actions with theirs.”
And so we did, and that we just as you are RELYING on the spiritual principles of sowing and reaping and of demonstrating our love and faith by loosening our purse-strings
I don’t think it ever becomes so EASY as I believe that we just come to KNOW that when we feel the nudge or the PUSH of Holy Spirit to give, well, we just do so.
As I recall, in none of the
Gospels did anybody pop up and give Jesus a pep talk when His spirit was vexed about going to the cross and dying that ugly yet unbelievably awesome death for us. No one showed up and URGED Him on or reminded him His flat bread bill was due (Feeding 5000 could not have been cheap.). He heard the Father, He knew the Plan and His part in it and He stepped up and took his place. Some folk have the thinking it was easier for Him than it would be for a regular “man”. But he was 100% man as I get it and He sweat tears of blood that that awful death would pass by Him.
He became like us and we must bit by bit become like Him and yes , we canA couple of weeks ago. on a Friday (our Church day) a new 24 year old girl showed up one day during a time while we were having visitors with Theodora.. Theo explained that she was approx. 6 months pregnant (the girl Hilaria, doesn’t speak Spanish so Theo had to translate) She explained that this was Hilaria’s 7th pregnancy, that Hilaria was in a dual marriage , 1 man 2 women, and that her husband was very physically abusive, had beaten and kicked Hilaria that morning and Hilaria was having contractions and bleeding. Hilaria had gone to Sector de Salud, and been refused any tretment until she showed up with a sonogram!
Praise Yahweh, Theo and her sister Catalina said they could each put up $100 pesos to help but asked if we could pitch in the rest- about $150.00.pesos.
We obviously were so moved that Theo and Catalina , struggling themselves were finally showing LOVE to their “neighbors” that we pitched in the rest and got the sonogram done at a 24 hour lab and had her seen/ treated at SDS.
The pregnancy is high risk, Hilaria is so malnourished and she really needs our prayers that she can escape this abusive relationship. But the FRUIT in Theo and Catalina is so very encouraging to us. I thought you guys would want to know that as well. Praise Jesus!!!!
We thank you all back there at Harvest of Faith for all you do for the people here..nd pray the Lord multiply your giving……….,
beyond our wildest imaginings. Hang on , stay the course and believe in the I Am. He Is whatever you need and more.
Much love and many many blessings,
Pastor Frank and Sis Detra
3 Keys to Communion with God” John Belt, Oklahoma City, OK
3 Keys to Communion with God” John Belt, Oklahoma City, OK
The Three Foundational Facets of Biblical Meditation
Psalm 1:1-3 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. (Photo via John Belt)
How important is what we meditate upon? With all the false practices of meditation associated with false religion some have wrongly categorized meditation as a bad thing. But the fact is that we are always meditating on something, thinking about something, or giving our thoughts over to something.
Psalm 1 makes it clear that there is a right kind of meditation that God wants us to engage in. In simple terms, where we place our thoughts determines how we will think, what we will act like, and where we will end up in the long term.
There are specifically three areas of meditation that we can engage in as Believers so that our heart and mind will be captured in the glory of Who God is. These areas include the Word of God, the voice of God, and the testimonies of God.
1. The Word of God
Psalm 119:1-2 Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord! Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with the whole heart! (Photo via Pixabay)
Everything begins with His Word. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was made flesh (John 1:1). In the beginning God spoke (Genesis 1:3). Understanding the power of God’s Word, we need to prioritize our lives to meditate upon it.
In Hebrews it says the Word of God is sharp and powerful to the division of our soul and spirit, bringing distinction to what is actually coming from our own self versus that which is after the Spirit. This gives us wisdom, discernment, and understanding for our lives to walk after God’s will and ways.
The Word of God:
– Cleanses, purifies, and protects the heart (Psalm 119:11)
– Separates the soul and spirit (Hebrews 4:12)
– Brings light of revelation, driving out the darkness (Psalm 119:130)
– Washes by the Spirit (Ephesians 5:26)
– Prospers our spirit, soul, and body (Deuteronomy 28:1-2)
– Brings healing (Proverbs 4:22)
– Revives (Psalm 119:25)
2. The Voice of God
Another powerful area of meditation is the revelation that God gives to us through His voice speaking personally to us. How is God speaking to you? Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice…and they follow Me” (John 10:27). This is the next important step: to walk with God, hearing His voice.
There are things outlined in the Word of God that are across the board in application to every one of our lives. Then there are the specific directions that God gives each of us according to His individual plans for our lives. This is where it is most important to hear His voice. (Photo via Pixabay)
Some might take the attitude that they are not important enough for God to speak to them. Nothing could be further from the truth. All of us are valuable. He is just looking for willing vessels. If you are willing, He is there and ready to use you. We have to make ourselves available for His plans.
Understanding that we have a role to play is foundational for us to even be motivated to seek the Lord and hear His voice. If we don’t have motivation, then we have no desire to hear. And we must hear the voice of God to obey. Have faith that God wants to flow through your life to impact others.
Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Our belief and faith give us the following action of diligent pursuit to lay hold of the reward that He has for us. Believe God, hear His voice, and diligently seek Him.
3. The Testimonies of What God has Done
As well, we have the area of testimonies of what the Lord has done to meditate on. Has He spoken to you? That is amazing in itself to meditate on! What prayers has He answered in your life? What is your personal testimony of coming to Jesus Christ? Then we also have all of the testimonies of what God has done in the Bible. These are our own testimonies as well, through inheritance. (Photo via Pixabay)
The world is filled with bad testimonies of defeat, sadness, and self-consumption. God wants us to meditate on the great things He has done! Because of all the bad testimonies in the world, we need to focus on the “good news” and the “good testimonies” of God’s goodness. This is how we give “witness” to the goodness of God, His nature and Person.
We see it all through the Psalms, how we are to remember the works of the Lord. We should meditate on all the things that Jesus did in His earthly ministry: the miracles, healings, deliverances, including other acts of His love and truth. The Book of Acts is a book of the things God did, how He worked through His Church, showing He is alive and active.
Choosing what we meditate on is hugely important because it is the difference between meditating and “communing” with the spirit of the world versus the Spirit of God. God has designed us for victorious living, but we have to make the right choices. In the Book of Deuteronomy God promises the blessings because of those who chose to make their meditation the Lord and the things that He values. We are not blessed just because we got the ticket to Heaven, but we have to live in pursuit of His Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven.
John and Brandi Belt
Overflow Global Ministries
Harvest of Faith 