Stories of Dunamis: Pastor Felix and Pastora Darnell from Nicaragua

Have you ever wondered how people get involved in Dunamis or how it has impacted their life and ministry?

At the 2017 Dunamis Fellowship International Annual Meeting, we heard reports from teams from Korea, Nicaragua, Haiti, Estonia and the Czech Republic, and Central Asia about how Dunamis has impacted their ministry in those cultures.

Follow this series to read about the challenges of translation, persecution, and poverty and the blessings of empowerment, equipping, encouragement, and miraculous answers to prayer.

These first hand stories will help you know what Dunamis is about, the blessings of attending a local Dunamis Track, and occasionally how to get more information on attending a Dunamis near you.

Watch the videos below to learn how the husband and wife pastoral team of Pastor Felix and Pastora Darnell found Dunamis and how this teaching has helped them to minister to Berea Church and through Young Life in Nicaragua. Interviews by Earl Rutledge.

Pastor Felix

Earl: Pastor Felix, from San Isidro, Nicaragua; You pastor Berea Church, right?

Pastor Felix: Berea, yes.

Earl: And how did you come to know the Ministry of Dunamis?

Pastor Felix: Well, I’d say that I was introduced to it through two sources. The first one through Pastor Orlando; he was here in this region and he is the one who has promoted the Ministry of Dunamis.

But I knew the Ministry of Dunamis directly through the Young Life Camp. In the years that I shared in the Young Life Camp, teaching with the Young Life leaders, I met, well, the name in my head is Chris Walker, because I also had a very personal experience with God and with him, a healing experience in my body and that’s the reason I can’t forget him.

Earl: Do you want to share a little bit of that testimony, the healing experience in your body?

Pastor Felix: Yes, it was a blessing because when I was a teenager I fell off a pickup truck and I injured a part of my body, and that lasted a long time. I was in a lot of pain and I couldn’t run, I couldn’t play–my passion was to play soccer.

Then, at a Dunamis Project held at night at Young Life, with the ministry team that was there, brother Chris took the floor and said that there was one person who was at the meeting–I think there were, like, 400 people there–whose legs were being healed by the Lord.

So I waited for a while just in case someone would get ahead of me, but deep down I felt that my body was the one that received something strange and finally I raised my hand. I went forward, and brother Chris prayed for me and blessed me in the name of the Lord.

My leg wasn’t in pain anymore and I thank God for that blessing. How good, what a blessing!

Earl: That was one of your first experiences with Dunamis?

Pastor Felix: My first experience with Dunamis, yes. So good, and I experienced the power of God as well, in that moment.

Earl: Amen. And besides that healing, how has Dunamis impacted your life, personally?

Pastor Felix: Well, I want to thank the Lord because I think that Dunamis is a ministry that’s like an arm of the Lord to the church in Latin America, especially for Nicaragua.

I’ve seen the literature, at least the one [project] that has been translated, which has been a great blessing, and the presence of the brothers–Chris, Sam, and those who have come–have meant a way to change certain aspects of culture that I think the church has had as a church and that has impacted my life, let’s say, the way of working more directly.

It also impacted me the first time to know that Dunamis worked with a small group. I always had the idea that people liked to work with large groups and Dunamis works with small groups, and that caugh my attention because that makes the courses much more personal, more effective.

There’s more closeness, and the way of communicating the message of God through the ministry has been so good, and my life has been impacted. I think my faith is growing and Dunamis has helped me to grow my faith.

Earl: And your ministry, your church, how has it been touched or impacted?

Pastor Felix: Well, my church was impacted. I had another experience in the church also as a Pastor with Dunamis; three years ago–yes, three years ago–the Lord made me restless, showing me that we should’ve been working on the growth of the church.

So I read a book, and another one, read several things, and all of a sudden I found a summary of the Dunamis book on the internet, and so on that occasion I visited Pastor Roger in Jinotega, and by chatting with him I told him this and that, and that I found a book on the internet, I saw a summary that I identified with, and I identify with that idea, what a surprise!

And then Roger said: “That book, I can get it for you from Pastor Orlando. And also, we have an activity with that book, a Dunamis activity.” And it was a blessing because I was able to participate in the activity, to be in the course about Growing the Church in the power of the Holy Spirit and to have the book.

And I started to share it with the church–I shared that book with the church–and today we’re trying, it’s still not 100%, but we have the fundamental idea of the book, I believe, of the ministry in the church, that we all have to collaborate with the Holy Spirit to expand God’s Kingdom. So good, I remembered that testimony when Roger Luna shared it, and what a divine circumstance, right?

Earl: What are your expectations for the future?

Pastor Felix: I think that Dunamis is a small ministry now, but I think that the policy that the ministry of Dunamis has of not holding on to a church, to one denomination, it’s what Nicaragua needs; without focusing only on the functioning of one church, of the kingdom as something more than a church, as something more than one ministry.

I think that Dunamis has that fundamental element that allows us to be in different churches, in different places; I have faith that Dunamis will grow, that in Nicaragua there will be a lot of brothers, integrated, working, being a part of this team and I think that this ministry will grow.

My hope is that it will grow in Central America, that it will grow in South America, and that Latin America will be impacted with the essence of Dunamis which is, I believe, an arm of the power of God, of the Holy Spirit to bless us as a church.

Earl: Amen, I agree. Peace and blessings, Felix, thank you for sharing with us.

Pastor Felix: Amen.

Pastora Darnell

Earl: Darnell, you work with the pastorate of the church of Berea?

Pastora Darnell: Yes.

Earl: With Pastor Felix, and you are his wife.

Pastora Darnell: Yes.

Earl: His ideal help. What a blessing. Tell me, how did you come to know Dunamis?

Pastora Darnell: Well, I knew Dunamis through my husband; he worked with Young Life, with Dunamis in Young Life. He recieved healing in his leg and he mentioned Pastor Chris Walker a lot and we had the privilege that he came to out church and I met him, but I also knew Dunamis through Pastor Orlando and through Pastor Beverly.

I thank them because this material has also helped to strengthen our faith, our foundations. We’ve been working now with them hand in hand and we are here to serve them and I believe it has been a great blessing to be with Dunamis now.

Earl: So good, so good. How has the ministry of Dunamis impacted your own life?

Pastora Darnell: Well, first of all I want to say thanks, because thanks to Dunamis, thanks to the work that the team has been doing here and the work the team does outside of Nicaragua, we have grown. Everything that they have done for us, all of the material that we now know and we study, well, I thank them because this material has also strengthened our faith, our foundations.

My life personally, I think it has grown in an integral way, it has strengthened some aspects that, in some point, were weak and I think that now they are stronger. Also, it has strengthened our ministry because we can communicate better; we have the same guidance about where to be, to walk together.

And in the church we have seen the changes because the way we have been learning to work with Dunamis, we put it into practice in the church and so this has strengthened people.

Like how we’ve been working with the Ignite events that have been done, the flame has been lit and it stays lit, we think that in 2017 it will get bigger, we believe that Dunamis will keep going forward, will go to many more Nicaraguan territories and outside of Nicaragua as well.

Earl: That’s good. So, you have seen changes in your church, in your personal life, but you have other areas where you are a minister.

Pastora Darnell: Yes.

Earl: Have you seen any changes in the way that you can administer those other areas, other ministries?

Pastora Darnell: Yes, I also work with a Christian organization that is called CIET: Centro Intereclesial de Estudios Teológicos (Inter-ecclesiastical Center for Theological Studies). We minister to people, teaching people, and when it is my turn to minister to someone, now I know how to do it differently–I think I’ve learned to do it better.

I’m always careful, like has been taught to us by Dunamis, to not manipulate the Holy Spirit but to collaborate with the Holy Spirit and then to ask people if what we have said or done makes sense, and we are a little bit more careful when we are ministering in the Holy Spirit, when we are collaborating with the Holy Spirit.

Earl: That’s good. And, what are your expectations? You already mentioned a little bit that it may advance to other places, but something in particular about your expectations with Dunamis?

Pastora Darnell: Well, mainly I think that–speaking about the local church, our church–I think that through Dunamis we have the expectation to work with young people. And they have participated in the Dunamis course as well, and they are very motivated.

I think that’s important, but I also believe that our expectation as the Nicaraguan Dunamis team is to reach more churches, more churches here in Matagalpa, Jinotega, and in the places where we are invited because we are talking about Dunamis everywhere, for practice; the fact that we are from different denominations helps us to make the expectation greater that we can extend the building of the Kingdom to more people.

Earl: Bluefield.

Pastora Darnell: Bluefield. Amen. Somoto, Rivas.

Earl: Everywhere.

Pastora Darnell: Everywhere, to the entire Nicaraguan territory and beyond.

Earl: Thank you Darnell. Peace and blessings, thanks for sharing with us.

Pastora Darnell: Thank you for supporting us and for helping us grow.