Last week, we loaded our YWAM Louisville family up and took a road trip down to Orlando, Florida for our annual Eastern North American Gathering (ENAG) conference! Staff and students from over 20 bases came together to worship, learn, and be in community together for the week. We slept in tents, walked around during free time, met some awesome people, and played sports to our hearts’ content. But ultimately, we learned new things about God and grew deeper in our relationships with Him. There were ways God marks us individually and as a community while we were there, including physically healing some of us. Here are a couple stories of what God did:
“One day at ENAG, I had worked up the courage to open up for the first time about an area in my life that I had struggled with. I finally felt able to talk openly with someone who would understand and want to listen, however, I still didn’t feel completely free. I needed some sort of way to know for sure that I was changed. That night, during the session of teaching, the speaker asked us to stand up if we had any physical pain. I stood up and said my back and feet have been hurting for a while now. People circled around me, laid hands on me, and prayed. After a few seconds, my feet started to feel lighter than they ever have, like they were disappearing and then they returned back to my body. I had a rush of adrenaline instantly and I started shaking. Once the session ended, I put on my heavy backpack and walked out but my back didn’t hurt at all! My legs and feet felt brand new, like I was trying them out for the first time. I kept on saying “I have new legs! I have new feet!” It was unbelievable. I wanted God to show me that I was made into a new creation and that’s exactly what he did!”
– Kathryn, DTS Student
“Three years ago I was playing basketball and I was going for a layup. I got shoved right after I jumped and I came down directly on the side of my foot. I heard it pop three times. I went to the hospital and they told me I had strained three tendons in my ankle and cracked my growth plate. I rushed the recovery because I was going on a missions trip to New York City shortly after and it never fully healed. It always ached and it had been getting worse. At ENAG last week, I raised my hand when one of the speakers asked if there were people who had physical pain that wanted to be healed. I was skeptical at first because I had never witnessed healing, much less for myself, but God showed up in a big way! When people laid hands on me and prayed, I felt a numbness on my ankle and I was blown away! The pain was completely gone!!! God healed me and it’s something I will never forget. It makes me so excited for heaven where our earthly growing bodies will be no more, and we will heaven a heavenly body with no pain.”
– Travis, DTS Student