A story of TLIG evangelization
04 October 2000 22:13
This lengthy but remarkable story comes from Benito Prieto in Venezuala. It has taken some time to be translated and only today has it been finally corrected ready for mailing. It is, no doubt, not a coincidence that today is the feast day of St Francis!
- Kavanayen
- A Catholic Mission of the Capuchin Order in the jungle of Venezuela, reached by True Life in God, following the instructions of Jesus Himself.
Kavanayén is an Indian village of no more than 800 members, located 700 miles away from Caracas. A Catholic Mission is settled there, ruled by the Capuchin Order and the Venezuelan Franciscan sisters. The Kavanayén Indians do have contact with civilization, and the mission is the centre of a web of small villages distributed in a very large area. The Capuchin Parish has the responsibility of attending thousands of square kilometres, and there is only one Capuchin father (who in spite of his 80 years is still full of strength, even after having been in the area for 50 years) helped by a Capuchin brother and 4 Franciscan sisters, who are engaged with the feminine sector of the mission.
To this mission arrived True Life in God, together with an image of The Holy Virgin Mystica Rosa, on the 27th of June 2000. This arrival was not a chance, or the result of any anticipated planning; it obeyed an expressed wish of Jesus. And this is the story.
William, (as per his Christian name, who does not want his full name to be known) is a young 18-year old man who is a seer and receives locutions from the Lord and the Holy Virgin. Several specific and exceptional events have confirmed that Jesus really uses him as an instrument for the expansion of the Reign of God and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
William does not live in Caracas, but in a town that is 4 hours distant in car from the capital. Since 1999 he has been organizing TLIG prayer groups in the cities where he practices his apostleship, and when Vassula visited us lately, he managed to organize an important number of pilgrims to listen to her. He was among the few whom travelled by night to be able to see Vassula, in Coro as well as in Caracas. He has been persecuted by the clergy and by his own bishop because of his dedication to TLIG. Only a priest is with him, and helps him in his apostleship of TLIG. One of the most appealing facts of his life is the conversion of his parents, especially his father, who was a mason. In his family, witchcraft was an old tradition going back to old times (maybe 5 generations), and he was called to practice this profession, but Jesus intervened in a direct manner when he was 14. This information might be enlarged, but our goal here is not to talk about him but about the mission to Kavanayen.
In early January this year, a month after the visit of Vassula, William gave me a telephone call and informed me that Jesus had asked him to take TLIG to the Mission in Kavanayén, and that TLIG had to be accompanied by the Mystica Rosa image of The Holy Virgin. As I always give credit to his words because I know that the Lord is with him, I told him that in August, during my vacations, we would go to accomplish the desire of Jesus.
Just before the celebration of the Eucharistic Congress in Coro, last June, under the title „The Eucharist: Sacrament of the True Life in God.“, William called me again and pointed out that Jesus had reproved him, in a serious but loving manner, for not having accomplished yet His will to take TLIG to Kavanayén. So we took a decision: as he was attending the Congress in Coro, when this finished we would go together to Kavanayén. So I would ask for two-week vacation at work: one week for attending the Congress and the second one to go to Kavanayén.
On Sunday, June 25th, while night was falling, William came to my house to spend overnight with us, in order to leave very early the next day, after attending the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass and taking communion, praying the Lord to travel with us. We prepared two sculptured images of The Mystica Rosa, 50 centimetres high each, as well as the books of TLIG.
As a gift for Father’s day, celebrated some days before, William brought me one statue of Saint Francis of Assisi of 40 centimetres high, elaborated as per William’s vision of the Saint. He asked me if I was a devotee of Saint Francis to which I answered that I admired him very much but that he was not among the saints to whom I commended myself daily. I thanked him, and put the statue in my altar of saints. After that, he read me a message that he had received that same Sunday morning, in which Jesus reproved him, always in a firm but loving manner, for not having prayed enough to the success of this mission, and recommended us to continue praying with more intensity. The message was written in a notebook, which was recently destroyed by Satan in muddy waters, in one of the events which occurred during this trip.
It was planned that the priest that helped him in the diffusion of TLIG would come with us, but finally he had to stay to replace a parson who was absent because of serious reasons. This fact worried William, because he thought that the presence of a priest would help in introducing the TLIG message, but the Lord, in the same locution that he read to me the Sunday of his arrival, said to him: „What are you worried about? Am I not the Highest and Eternal Priest?“ In fact, in spite of the distances and difficulties, we received the Holy Communion every day: Jesus took care of that.
The 26th of July, at dawn, we headed to the Chapel of Belen school, headquarters of TLIG in Venezuela, for the 6 a.m. mass. But the priest crashed his vehicle, and that made him be very late, so we decided to go to another chapel to hear the 6:30am mass. I consider this crash Satan’s first attempt to prevent us from going to Mass, but we arranged to go to another chapel. I say this because, as we will see, Satan would not save any effort to impede our arrival to Kavanayen.
Leaving Caracas, we had a trip of 800 miles way to go. 200 miles from Caracas, in the State Anzoategui, while we prayed the rosary, the fourth sorrowful mystery, William stopped reciting his part, and I thought that he had fallen asleep. I waited for 15 seconds, and then he followed, as although nothing had happened.
After finishing the rosary, William told me that when he had „fallen asleep“ he had had a dream: he saw an enormous rock that fell from the altitude, and in the moment it was about to stamp our car, it vanished as sand and dust, doing no damage to the car, nor us. My comment was that if this was a signal of Heaven, it looked quite positive to me, as it was showing us that Jesus would not allow that any harm be done to us during the trip. Nevertheless, even knowing that Jesus was warning us that nothing and nobody would harm us, we did not know about the nature of that which could harm us. We continued our series of rosaries. This first day of travel would be of about twelve hours, and spending that time in prayer was a special attraction of this mission, especially as Jesus had claimed William that we had prayed too little for it.
About half an hour later, in a straight section of the road, an enormous truck passed near us at high speed. It carried crushed stone to elaborate reinforced concrete. In the moment the truck passed by our side, one of the stones fell from it, and hit as a projectile the front glass of our car. The impact was awful, as well as the sound, and the glass should have broken
into pieces. But the glass remained intact, as though a feather had hit
it. Fifteen minutes later, the same thing happened, but this time against
one of the side windows. As before, no harm at all was done to us. We
smiled and even joked, but we had the absolute certainty that the dream of
William was a real prediction; i.e. that the Lord would protect us from all the obstacles that Satan would put in our way, obstacles that, as you will see, were going to be great in number and very tough.
That day we arrived to our first scheduled stop around 7pm, the Callao town, near the Guyana frontier, very near to the jungle area. After unpacking in the hotel, we saw that the town’s church was opened, so we entered with the Oficio de las Horas to pray it there, and to make a Holy Hour. We did it, but during all the time we spent in the church, a chorus of some 70 children was singing without interruption, as a rehearsal, the song of Saint Francis of Assisi: „Make me an instrument of Your peace, make me an instrument of Your love“, so much were they repeating it, that the song remained impressed on our minds.
Next day, the 27th June, we woke up very early, took a light breakfast, and started the more arduous part of our trip.
First of all, we had to cross the El Dorado area, where the most dangerous prisoners of Venezuela are imprisoned in farm colonies. Something comparable to what in its time was the Alcatraz prison in the USA. After 88 kilometers along this road that enters into the jungle, in the last gasoline station before Kavanayén, a young man asked us to take him to the camp of the company that is building the electric line towers up to Brazil. He was a dynamite explosion specialist employed by the company, and he had no means to reach the camp. After thinking about the pros and cons, we decided to give him the opportunity. It happens that, sometimes, escaped prisoners maraud in the area. They are capable of killing you in order to take your car and escape. The camp was 45 minutes away, and when we arrived to the point where he would get out, we found out that he had been reading the volume VI of TLIG, which was at his side, on the rear seat. He asked us with much emphasis to give him the book as a present, because he had been touched with what he had read. We gave him the volume I of TLIG., and we are certain that God touched him strongly, judging from the expression on his face when he received the book. He was going to work in the jungle, and we are sure that there God would be doing the rest, not only on him, but maybe also on other camp residents.
We continued our way, now in the middle of the jungle, with impressive ups and downs, wild fascinating scenery, and sometimes overcast and sometimes open skies. This road is wide and paved, leading to the frontier with Brazil. Now and then we crossed a vehicle that came from the frontier.
By noon, we arrived to the crossroad that led to Kavanayén. The sign on the road indicated that the mission was 50 miles away, and we thought that this section would also be paved. Our vehicle was a Chevrolet model Esteem, small, with a 1600-cc motor. After 5 minutes, the paved road was gone and we fell into something that was supposed to be an earth road, full of holes and puddles. We were in the rainy season, and we had to go through 50 terrible miles, in which holes, ditches, and even ponds of up to 20 meters long and 50 centimetres deep were normal parts of the road. We reduced our speed to 5 kilometres per hour, and advanced cautiously. There were no other cars at sight in the horizon, and we had not cared about buying food nor drinking water, as we thought that around noon we would be arriving happily into Kavanayén, looking for the one who would be receiving the commission, the one that in some way God would point to us.
Time passed and we advanced three or four kilometres per hour. Around 2 p.m. we had our first serious accident. Our car stuck in a puddle, with no chances of being moved. When we got out of the car, William put his shorts on, in order to be more comfortable for working. He decided to climb a hill in front of us to see if there was any vehicle coming. That was very unlikely, as we were in the middle of an infinite extension of land and trees, plains and pasture grounds, hills and rocky slopes.
I, after seeing that the edge of the road had a steep slope, had the idea of opening a drain ditch, thinking that if the water of the puddle we were in was drained, maybe the unmerciful sun would dry the mud, and the car would not slip.
With our hands, with sticks and sharp stones we managed to open a small ditch, and the small pond began to drain. While we were working, a cloud of mosquitoes, and flies of every size and type, that literally sucked our blood until the marrow, attacked us. As William was wearing shorts, his legs became red and full of stings, to the point that only a red mass was seen, and the same happened to my arms, hands and face. Even by cuffing and chasing the insects away with every kind of rag, it was impossible to get rid of the pests. We ended up pierced like a sieve, but an hour later the water had descended two thirds of its volume through the ditch that we had opened into the slope.
Exhausted, we saw how all of a sudden a threatening cloud appeared, which, in less than three minutes, was throwing tons of water, leaving the pond fuller than before. We protected ourselves in the car, closed the windows and remained inside in an unbearable hot place. As by that time it was already 3pm, we prayed the Divine Mercy prayer several times. At the end of the third chaplet, down the hill, a column of 9 four-wheel traction wagons, with their lights on because of the storm, appeared all of a sudden in front of us. A few minutes after, they were close to us.
Of course, they helped us, and in seconds we were out of the pool, in the road. They told us that we had to cross those pools through the middle, even if there was more water, because this was the only place where the earth remained firm, mudless. They were an expedition of out of the way tourism, which was coming from the high waterfalls and big rivers of the area, having, of course, vehicles capable of crossing all types of terrain.
„And where are you going?“ they asked. „To Kavanayén“ we answered. „You
are crazy. You will never arrive to Kavanayén in that car. You will not
be able to advance, not even a half kilometre more, because the terrain gets
worse and worse. Follow our advice: return with us right away“ they said,
with worried voices.
William and I stared at each other and answered that we would stay there to think a little. The caravan started and in a few seconds it was out of our sight. William made the following comment: „Remember that when Vassula is on a mission for TLIG, she is attacked by Satan in many ways. The same is certainly happening to us. Remember that in the dream, Jesus was telling us that every difficulty will turn into dust“
So we did not had any doubt any more, and praying the rosary we started the car and tried to pass the great puddles and pools by the middle. But we arrived to a pool of about 30 meters long and maybe 50 centimetres deep in the middle, and once more we got stuck. The road matched the description made by the tourist caravan, so we stayed there with no other alternative than to pray and trust the Lord. We prayed several chaplets of Mercy until a Toyota pick-up, taking supplies to some camp of the company that is building electric lines towards Brazil appeared behind us.
They helped us to get out of the mud and they offered to follow us until Kavanayén. It was in that way that we arrived to our destination, after crossing 6 rivers over bridges of wood and tin which were no more than 2 meters wide. Jungle and plains came across in an astonishing monotony, under an almost black sky because of the rain clouds. It was around 6 p.m. when we arrived at the mission. One after the other, holes, ditches, sliding soil, puddles and ponds were the only landscape in front of us.
Touched by the good will of our guides, we asked them if they were Catholics, and they answered yes. We suggested that they took in charge a TLIG prayer group in the area, but they did not accept, because, they said, they were not established in the area. This was not the solution that our Lord wanted. Before arriving at the mission, William indicated to me that he had received a locution of Virgin Mary asking him that, as soon as we arrived at the church of the mission, we should look after an altar with an image of the Immaculate Hearth of Mary, and prostrate three times before her, kissing the ground as a sign of humility.
While entering the mission, we observed one of those old stone monasteries typical of South American landscapes, built by missionaries in remote times. We were received by a Capuchin brother, who indicated how to spend the night in the mission. But he clearly stated that those images were only a fashion, and that they did not have much to do with them over there. This was as cold as the good cold shower that we took, after our hard trip. The Capuchin brother told us that we had to go to the house of an Indian woman and ask her for food, and so we did. We had not taken water nor tasted any food during the day and we were dehydrated. We asked him who could give us the communion, and he said that communion was only given during the masses, but all the same that we could talk with the superior.
While I was fixing the room, and was about to take the cold shower, William went to the church, and opening the door, he met face to face with an old venerable Capuchin, who, without delay, said to him : „You, come to confess“. So did William, who told him also that we wanted to receive communion. After this, William explained to him the reason of our visit. The Capuchin father had never heard about Vassula, but was enthusiastic about the books, and asked us to leave him a whole series. He told us that he had been a missionary in the area for 50 years, and that he had occupied the position in Kavanayén for one year. He added that he was thinking of sending one of the images of Virgin Mary that we offered him to one of the missions, which had no images of Her. So William came into the room to look for me and we went together to receive communion and to take the image of Virgin Mary and the books to the Father. So we did, and after giving thanks to the Lord, we got onto our knees in front of the image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and fulfilled His will of kissing the floor three times.
After settling down, we heard the bell calling for the rosary, and we went together with the whole village to pray it. It was then that we saw the Franciscan sisters, who did know Vassula, and they immediately asked us for the books. We also gave to them the other image of the Mystica Rosa. They were fascinated with the face of the Virgin, and invited us for dinner with them. We did not accept, as we had ordered dinner with the Indian lady. Then they suggested that we take breakfast with them. We learned that they were very much wanting to have an image in sculpture of the Mystica Rosa, and that they had not been able to obtain one until that moment. And they told us that receiving TLIG in that place was a great hope, and an extraordinary grace of God to them.
As soon as we walked into the room, after having had dinner with the Indian woman, we fell asleep as we were so exhausted and stressed after what we had experienced during that day. It had taken us more than 7 hours to cross the last 50 miles of earth road.
The next morning we prayed Matins with the Capuchins, and attended a beautiful mass celebrated by the eldest Capuchin, who afterwards told us about the events of his 50 years of life as a missionary in the area.
That night, William had a dream in which Saint Francis of Assisi and Father Pio were in adoration in front of the Most Holy, and afterwards the voice of the Holy Virgin was heard saying: „By the intercession of my preferred son Francis of Assisi, my Holy Son Jesus has conceded the grace that TLIG and my sacred image reach this mission“. William told me this when we were leaving that morning, the 28th June, as we got struck for the first time in a slope that we could leave only by using stones and wood.
The last serious obstacle occurred when we reached a pool that during the night had received so much water that it made us sink in the middle of it while trying to cross it. Water was entering through the doors and into the motor. An absolute disaster. We thought that we would never be able to leave. Given the great power of the Divine Mercy, we started to pray it several times… lots of times… I do not know how many… until an old Jeep driven by an Indian suddenly appeared. Inside there were three young women: one was a Franciscan novice sister going to the Kavanayén’s mission carrying a supply of books, and the other one was a member of TLIG in Puerto Ordaz, a city 250 miles away, who was also going to the mission. When they learned that I was going through a problem, and knowing that I was the editor of the TLIG books in Venezuela, they begged the Indian to take us out of there. The Indian did, but with much difficulty, as the jeep had hardly any power to get us out of the mud.
However, even after being out of the water and mud, the car did not start. After ten minutes, we tried again and the car started perfectly, as it had never been in trouble. We do not know how water did not enter into the engine.
We continued our way back, and half an hour later we saw an enormous bird of prey that flew toward us holding a serpent in its talons. For a moment we thought that it could throw the serpent over the car, and that the serpent could fall inside, through the windows. So we closed the windows as fast as we could. Suddenly, the bird turned another way. This was the last fright of the road.
When reaching the paved road we stopped and gave thanks to God solemnly. We fell on our knees giving thanks for the graces and gifts He had conceded us, specially for having protected us from all the obstacles that Satan put in our way trying to prevent the will of the Lord to be done. With prayer and confidence we could win everything. Not a minimal doubt remains in our minds that Jesus and the Holy Virgin had driven and protected us every moment, and even if they permitted trial after trial, we insisted in our desire to carry out the mission because it came directly from Him. The dream of the rock that was about to crash us and became dust was fulfilled.
To corroborate this, there is a detail: next day, when we reached Caracas, the car’s radio started all by itself, and there was no way to put it off. It was making a hellish and strident noise that tormented us in a terrible way. After ten minutes, I thought fleetingly „Lord, if this mission pleased you and really corresponded to Your will, let me know it by making the noise of the radio disappear“. I was still finishing this thinking-praying when the noise stopped immediately. I thanked God for all that kindness and mercy, because He was not obliged to listen to a prayer like that.
Nevertheless, there was a last surprise: in my house the statue of Saint Francis, the gift that William had given me before leaving in mission, had been embroidered with gold in the centre of the cross that the image carries in his hands, and in its neck. One more reason to thank and glorify Jesus, who did not stop to give us signs of His approval and satisfaction because of the accomplished mission.
All this is told so that it is understood that the mission of True Life in God is very demanding, but God wants it at any cost, and asks us to get involved in this apostleship with great earnestness, knowing that Satan will always place difficulties of all types, which will at the end be thrown down by Jesus Himself, with no compliance at all. It is only necessary to pray a lot, work hard, and trust Him.
For all this, William and I praise, bless, glorify, adore and give thanks to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and to the Holy Virgin, for the powerful intercession and help they gave us and continue to give us in this mission of TLIG.
Benito Prieto, Caracas, July 2000
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