Anna M. Aquino

  I don’t know if you’ve figured it out yet or not, but God is in the mountain removal business.   For some that are not familiar with the terminology, I am not just talking about a physical mountain here; though removing of a physical mountain is possible.   But I’m speaking of an obstacle; something that you can’t see around that is blocking your vision of what is beyond it. This morning in prayer this scripture kept rising up in my spirit. Psalm 97:5 The mountains melt like wax before the Lord , before the Lord of all the earth. That’s a pretty awesome image if you think about it, but then as I meditated on it I began to think about the word of God.   God’s power is on the inside of me.   He told me that I could move mountains too, and so can you! Matthew 17:20 He said to the m, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain , ‘Move fro...

  There are many going through a season right now where God is relocating and shifting them into new places and seasons.   It can be an exciting time, but it can also be a little scary and frustrating.   I think that many Christians live their lives in fear.   They are afraid of missing God and His will for their lives.   That fear becomes bondage, and isn’t from God.   A dear friend of mine reminded me this week of a quote from one of my hero’s in the faith, Hank Kunneman.   He says that “God’s ability to talk to you is greater than your inability to hear”.   Meaning God will talk to you, and He will lead you.   You have to trust in that.   As I look back on my life and I think of some of the wild divine stories he has orchestrated in my life, it gives me great courage to know that somehow despite all my questions and lack of a clear picture at times, God still got me right where I needed to go.   When you stay sensi...

Dear Friends, I am so excited to be back at my keyboard. I am still traveling and have a booked calendar for the next few weeks, but I am more centralized in my travels now and am back at writing blogs to you. We have had an incredible two weeks and I can’t begin to say everything in one blog. However I would continue to appreciate all prayers as I continue to travel and minister. God is so faithful. As many of you know I got the amazing opportunity last week to visit my publisher Destiny Image in Shippensburg, PA and spend a few hours including lunch with one of my hero’s in the faith, Don Nori Sr. I suppose it may sound like a small deal to some but to me it was amazing how God orchestrated the whole thing. To those of you who follow me on Facebook, it may take me a month to upload the photos but I will when I get back to FL (I know I should have taken a pict on my cell phone.) Many of you may or may not know that my husband is 1st generation out of Italy. My mother-...

This afternoon Dan, the girls, and I found ourselves behind the counter of a Firestone store/shop. The time had long since come for us to replace the front tires on our car. Tire buying is up there with one of those ‘necessary grownup purchases that one has to make but who really wants to’ with me. I mean I know I’m a guest minister with a book tour coming up and the idea of keeping bald tires on the car isn’t a good idea. So we bit the bullet and went to get them replaced. The funny thing is that as we left the car there and walked to the mall, I had a flashback of another time where we spent a lot of time in a Firestone store. It was Christmastime 2000. I think it may have been only a few days before Christmas and I sat in the uncomfortable waiting area almost in tears. Dan and I had only moved into Central Florida a few weeks prior, and the likelihood we were going to have any family or friends to spend the holidays with was slim to none. We’d gone to a Firestone to have ...

On Friday afternoon I got an expected phone call at an unexpected time. The shipping company had my books from the publisher and they needed to set up a time where they could deliver them on Monday. While I have been expecting this phone call, it’s a week early. I confess I had a bit of an emotional moment went the shipping man kept repeating, “That’s a lot of books!” Many people have said to me, “Wow aren’t you excited?” Truthfully it’s hard for me to describe how I’m thinking. It’s true, for once I’m having a hard time vocalizing my inner feelings. I am excited. I’ve spent since I was 16 years old moving forward to write the books God put on my heart and I’ve been actively doing that since I was 21. So yes, I’m excited. I’m a tad overwhelmed. I keep thinking of all the things I have to do, I wonder how on earth everything is going to come together. I’m a bit nervous. I keep wondering how people will receive this message. I feel like this is such a NOW word for the chu...

My girls had a “dress like the 80’s” day at school yesterday. I went about finding leggings and a skirt for them both to wear. Then doing side high ponytails that were semi ratted and semi curled that defied gravity, and then I curled their bangs to do the same. To which my oldest kept looking in the mirror going, “Mom are you sure this is what the 80’s look like?” “Yes dear, I’m sure.” “How do you know?” I could hear the fear in her voice. I realized that according to today’s style she was going to stand out at school. “Hun, I was there. In fact, I was your age. You’re going to half to trust me.” I kept working on their look. While they looked good, I instantly regretted I did not have an armful of jelly bracelets to give them, or puffy layered socks, or my husband even suggested a huge boom box they could carry. “But mom, are you sure.” I suppose it was then that it could have occurred to me to Google some pictures online. However, I did not. Later when I picked th...

While my family and I were spending time with my parents in Ohio, I was reminded of a valuable lesson. My daddy all through growing up would jokingly call my sister and I “skunkypoleon’s”. We would wail and giggle and say we weren’t, and it was a big game in father daughter land. I never thought to ask what it was; it just was something I was sure I wasn’t. Now that my sister and I have our own children, daddy does the same thing with them. For several days I could hear my daughters and nieces’ go back and forth that they weren’t skunkypoleon’s. In the car driving to an Amish store the game with my daughters continued. Daddy was calling them skunkypoleon’s and likewise they were saying he was one. Then wisdom from the back of the car piped up in the words of my oldest daughter. “Grandpa? What is a skunkypolen anyway?” I paused laughing and turned to her. I had never thought to ask what one was. All eyes turned to my dad waiting for a response. Surely after all these years of skunkypole...

Drum Roll Please……tada! I’m very excited to get to unveil the official book cover for by book coming out in March called, “Cursing the Church or Helping It? Exposing the spirit of Balaam.” Many of you know my story. God called me into ministry at 12 and laid it on my heart to write my first book at 16. The funny part about all of this is I not only argued with the whole idea of me ever writing a book, but I absolutely bucked the idea of me ever writing a non fiction Biblical teaching book. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but I had set out to write my dad’s story on Vietnam. I thought it was going to be easy and the publishing field would just open up to me like Moses facing the Red Sea, but it wasn’t. It was a lot of years of writing many books that range in genre and topic. Doing something like I’m doing today was far from my idea. God just directed me here. While I’ve had a few things published in compilations this is my first full length book that’s been publi...

Told and retold in my families history is an encounter between my grandparents when they were newly a family. My grandparents married very young and had my dad early. My grandfather has an amazing ability to acquire random things. I have decided that it really is an anointing because I’ve watched him over the years have the ability to resell the items for more than he got them for in the first place. As the story goes my grandmother sent him out to get a part for the car. She was a new mother, and money was more than tight. Grandpa came back with a horse. Honestly I don’t know how exactly that exchange went down, but knowing my grandmother I’m sure she wasn’t too pleased with the outcome. The story is still told today in the midst of laughter and family time. Many people feel that often God does the same to them. They pray and pray for one thing, and then get angry or upset that it seems something else may manifest. While a horse was not what my grandparents wanted it was ...

It is well known in my family that I have a history of issues with motion sickness. I don’t remember when we officially discovered this: Maybe it was the time that I spent the day at the pool in the sun and then was put in the back seat of my grandparents fairly new car to travel through the hills of Southern Ohio and I puked everywhere that told us this, Or maybe it was the time my uncle decided to travel through the mountains of Gatlinburg with the side door open in the van. Perhaps it was the issues I had with vertigo as a child but whatever it was it was learned early on that I would be fine as long as I got to sit in the front seat. I am better as an adult however; I still cannot read in a long car journey. Many people suffer from spiritual motion sickness. They have become nauseous spiritually and they do not understand why. Just like how one gets motion sickness in the physical it applies spiritually. James 1:6-8 (NIV) 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, b...

Last week my girls had a day off of school. It was a beautiful fall morning. The breeze was flowing and the sun was shining. The girls and I rode our bikes to the park. We had a good morning. When we were on the way back my youngest decided she didn’t really want to leave and I was trying to encourage her to stay focused. Instead of trying to leave she started finding weeds that resemble flowers and picking them to give to me. It was sweet, and at first I kept saying “Thank you, now let’s go.” She’d move a couple of inches and then find me more flowers. I started to get frustrated. She started to get caught up in finding me more flowers. “We’re leaving!” I tried a different approach. Finally after getting quite frustrated with her I found myself saying, “I want your obedience not your flowers!” I was trying so hard not to squish what she was doing yet when it came down to it she wasn’t obeying what I was saying. In a sense her heart motive was sweet because she was trying to bless me, ...

I am blessed to have such a super awesome daddy on this earth. As many of you know my dad served a tour in Vietnam in 1967 and 68. He wasn’t just a drafted army man, but was a grunt soldier for most of that time where he lived in horrible conditions. My dad just also happens to be quite the prankster and the story about the pig poop and grass hut in my family happens to be one of my favorite. Daddy’s company was coming into a village and he and his friend Rob went to go checkout a hut that was a bit away from the village and up on a small hill. Now typically when you checked out a hut you were supposed to have three men, but this day it was only dad and Rob. It really was a difficult scenario. Many times the huts were entrances to the system of underground tunnels and you never knew what was in that hut, or who could be waiting. Dad snuck up one side of the hill, while Rob took the other side. It was in these moments of silent fear Dad noticed that one side of the hill had p...

It has been a difficult week for me and I thought I would share. It is always hard on me leaving the North after I have been there for an extended period. It is mixed with emotions and difficulties of readjusting our mindsets that we are continuing to commit to be where God wants us. Then this morning both my daughters started school. That is right. I said both. My baby started kindergarten and my oldest 5th grade. Over 10 years ago when Dan and I felt that I needed to stay at home with the girls for that season of time, it was not an easy choice. I tried to come up with all the excuses why it was unrealistic, but really, we knew it was what we felt God wanted us to do. I struggled for several years with that choice. Sometimes it can feel like seasons last a lifetime and it continued to be an on again off again struggle. Sure sending my oldest to school for the first time was difficult, but this time it was harder because my youngest is my baby. This morning as I d...