Battling in Prayer

As a young couple, Edgar and Isabella did not set out to pastor a church. They saw a desperate need in their urban community in Colombia, and they wanted to address that need.

“I remember that I gave all my clothes and shoes away because I understood that many of the people didn’t only need Christ; they needed a pound of rice, they needed a shirt,” Isabella said. She was especially moved by the young women, even girls, reduced to prostitution. “They sell themselves for a plate of food,” she said.

But as they met physical needs, they didn’t forget the deep spiritual hunger of the people around them. Isabella and Edgar shared the gospel as they passed out food and clothes. The first time they hosted a house church meeting, 15 people showed up.

“From there this adventure, this wonderful adventure, started,” Edgar said.

Evidence of the Light

As the group outgrew their home, the couple found a larger meeting place to rent for the growing church. The joy and generosity that were hallmarks of Edgar and Isabella’s ministry made them well-liked in the community but also drew the attention and anger of Marxist guerrillas in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

One day in 2013, a guerrilla commander called Isabella.

“If you give clothes, if you give shoes, if you give food, … you must have a lot of money,” the man told Isabella. He demanded a vacuna — a vaccine — FARC slang for protection money. She refused.

“The threats got worse, very progressively,” Isabella said. She came home to find a dismembered frog on her doorstep with a note saying she would end up the same way. Groups of three or four FARC guerrillas would gather in front of her house to intimidate the family. One emptied the bullets from his gun, dropping them one by one into his hand. “Every single one of these is going to go into your head,” he told her.

Isabella stood her ground, despite their menace. “There is [a kingdom] here that needs to fall,” she told the thugs, referring to their violent cause.

From that time, Isabella awoke around midnight every night. For three years, she felt the conviction that she should pray for hours, often into the early morning. Her midnight prayer times became a source of strength throughout the community.

At one point, Isabella had a dream of a strong demon attacking their house. She awakened Edgar, and they prayed fervently until 6 a.m.

In the thin morning light, they went outside and saw that their wooden roof had collapsed. A few days later, a stranger came to their door. She identified herself as a Christian. She was also the sister of a neighborhood witch doctor who had repeatedly tried to lay a supposed curse on Edgar and Isabella. The stranger informed Isabella that her brother had died two days earlier — the night of the demon attack.

“Why are you coming to tell me this?” Isabella asked the woman.

“Because there has to be evidence that the darkness cannot win against the light,” the woman answered.

But the darkness put up a fight. FARC guerrillas continued to harass and threaten the couple, especially targeting Isabella. One man broke into their house and told Isabella he would sexually assault her and kill her, but a neighbor was alerted to his presence and scared him off. Others prohibited her from preaching in certain areas of town. They started forcibly recruiting local children, whom she loved and discipled, into their ranks.

Peace in the Pain

When the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020, Edgar doubted whether his wife, weakened by ongoing illness, should risk her health with her public ministry.

Then one day a Christian woman from a distant city arrived at their home in the middle of the night and told Isabella, “The Lord is telling you that you have to go out and preach the gospel. … He is going to be with you.” Then a non-Christian neighbor showed up.

“I heard God! I heard God!” she yelled. “God said go out and preach. God will keep you. Nothing will happen to you!”

Edgar was struggling internally, unsure about staying in ministry himself and unwilling to risk losing his wife. But slowly Isabella began doing ministry again. She soon gathered more than 200 people for open-air worship services four days a week, and she started doing prayer ministry among abused and vulnerable women — a ministry that continues to this day.

They said the community has changed dramatically, with drug sales and prostitution declining rapidly. The guerrillas’ influence was waning as, one by one, their leaders were being arrested or killed by Colombian authorities or rival groups.

People knew that Isabella was a woman of prayer and conviction, and the FARC leaders concluded that the damage being done to their organization was her fault. They branded her a witch, and she was again targeted for retaliation.

Meanwhile, a tragedy struck Isabella’s family. Her brother-in-law, a low-level FARC drug distributor, shot her younger sister seven times and killed her over a misunderstanding. Isabella rushed there to be with her family. When her brother-in-law saw her, he blamed her for his failing income. With a gun in hand, he dragged her to the street in front of her sister’s house.

“Cursed woman, I am going to kill you!” he screamed. “Since you got here, everything has fallen. Since you got here, you have taken our power.” He fired the gun at Isabella’s neck. There was an explosive sound, but she was miraculously unharmed. Isabella closed her eyes and committed her life to the Lord’s hands as her brother-in-law checked the gun and put the muzzle in her ear. When he pulled the trigger, the same thing happened: noise but no bullet. He tried the third time with the same result. Finally, Isabella broke free and a neighbor grabbed her brother-in-law to stop his attack.

The trauma of the attempted murder didn’t silence Isabella or stop their family’s ministry. They found a new home and carried on. Isabella’s particular care for women in vulnerable situations led her to launch a special ministry to serve them and help them find resources.

“I know that guy wanted to tell me to stop bringing these souls to Christ, but I have it clear,” Isabella said, adding that she was committed to following God’s will at any cost.

Edgar’s conviction has likewise been crystal clear. “How can we stop?” he said. “Really, God has already answered. In the pandemic, he told me, ‘I’ve called you’ — not audibly, but with the evidences. Every time that a soul receives Christ, every time that a home is restored, I know that … it was God who called us. … God called me, and even through the pain, even through the tests that we have gone through, it is a privilege to be called by God.”