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Brad Stoner is a veteran with E3, having been on trips all around the world – spreading the Good News of Jesus to unreached people groups across the globe. Psalm 67 has played a large role in shaping his worldview and has offered him greater understanding of God’s blessings:

One of the verses that was read at my wife and my wedding ceremony was Psalm 67:7 –

God blesses us so that all the world might fear Him.

So, when I go overseas and see how poor so many people are, especially in light of how wealthy we Americans are, God has compelled me to use my wealth as He instructed in Luke 16:9 –

“Make friends for yourselves by the means of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.”

Or, as the New Living Translation puts it:

“Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.”

And I really look forward to the day when I get to heaven, because I’m taking the money that God has given me, and I’m investing that in other missions to different places around the world. And I truly do expect that God is going to use the resources that He has given me as I bless others, so that other people will come to know Jesus as their Savior.

You see, we all are wealthy. Not just those who God has blessed with lots of money, but we Americans are among the most wealthy people who have ever lived. We should use this wealth that God has blessed us with so that we can bless others.

One tool that I have used to help guide my heart and actions in this is a book called Operation World: The Definitive Prayer Guide to Every Nation. It offers a daily prayer guide that has opened my eyes to the needs of people around the world. Through prayer, even though we get up and go to work and do our own things here in the United States every day, we can still take part in global evangelism… and so can you!

Psalm 67 is very near and dear to many of us who are involved in global missions. For many of us, when we see the plight of people groups around the world, and the extreme poverty that they live in, it makes us wonder why God has blessed us so much here in the U.S. The answer is in Psalm 67:1-2 –

May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face shine on us—
2 so that your ways may be known on earth,
your salvation among all nations.

God blesses us for His higher purpose of bringing the nations to Himself.

Next, we hear one of the most unusual stories to every come out of E3 Expeditions from Peru:

Early one morning, we met a woman who was sobbing incessantly. Her daughter was sick, and she was pleading with us that we would come and pray over her. The woman and her entire family were Christians – except for her oldest daughter, who we found out was demon possessed. The girl had been engaged to get married five years earlier, but he boy broke off the engagement when she began acting out due to the demons within her.

Well, this was a shocker, to say the least!

So, instead of simply continuing to their house, we rallied our team together and prayerfully prepared to go to spiritual battle. But, as some of my team members and I were walking toward our meeting place where we were going to prepare, we were stopped along the path by four dangerous looking dogs! It was so strange, because the whole time while we were in Peru, there were dogs everywhere, but they were never aggressive nor totally black like these. My first thought was how cool this was. It was almost like something out of the Chronicles of Narnia: two came from the left, two came from the right, with teeth bared, looking ready to attack. Then, I quickly realized how “uncool”, and actually dangerous of a position we were in.

Yet, we were never afraid. We simply continued to walk to meet our team to pray. Just then, this white dog who was laying along the path got up and walked in front of us.

When we were a mere ten yards away from where we were supposed to meet our team, the black dogs held their ground, growling at us. The white dog then strode up to the two black dogs in the middle – nose-to-nose – while the two black dogs on the outside were staring at us, growling and baring their teeth.

Just then, the white dog began to bark and scared the black dogs to the point that they cowered at the sides of the path, literally with their tails between their legs.

We walked between them like the Israelites walking through the Red Sea, with the white dog as our leader. When we joined our team, we looked back and all the dogs had run away – never to be seen again.

It taught me that as long as I obey God’s will and serve Him, I have no need to be afraid of anything in this world – nothing at all, because God has our back!

When we eventually went to the house of the demon possessed girl, we prayed over her for nearly an hour. Then and there, she was healed and made the decision to devote her life to Christ.

As a sort of “bonus”, as we were praying, my mom laid her hand on the shoulder of the girl’s mom who had been crying the whole time. My mom was simply praying that the Holy Spirit would fill her, meet her, and comfort her. What she didn’t know at the time, but what was revealed to us later, is that the girl’s mom had been suffering from severe back pain for years and was immediately healed when my mom laid hands on her and prayed for her.

It was so amazing to see God use us in ways that we never had been used before and had never even imagined. We saw several miraculous healings and God providing protection for people throughout our entire stay. It left an undeniable and permanent reference point for me to understand God’s protection and power.