This month our squad is in Honduras, and I’m with four teams at an amazing ministry called Zion’s Gate. Tony and Nidia, the couple that run it, take in boys that have been living on the streets. They currently have 13 boys living with them, loving them, discipling them, and changing their lives by just being parents.
There are two 7-year old boys here that we are all completely in love with: Will and Anderson. They’re more hyper than any other kids I’ve been around and they definitely keep us on our feet! But man, are they something special. A few nights ago we had some prayer time for healing for the sick on our squad. We have two people that have injured their legs and have casts on. Will and Anderson were in the room when we started praying and I asked them to come join us and put their little hands on both casts. We prayed, and we finished. But as we were praying, I couldn’t help but picture God smiling so big at these two kids.
Last month, we did an evangelism outreach on the streets in Palacaguina, Nicaragua. We set up speakers in the street, did some skits, pretended to be clowns, played some games, and shared the gospel. It was mostly a bunch of kids that showed up. At the end of it all, like any good outdoor evangelism event, there was an invitation to join in a relationship with Christ. The kids stood up and then something amazing happened. Instead of asking us missionaries to come pray for them, our pastor told the children from the church to come and lay hands and pray for these other kids. So they did, and I saw Heaven come down and Jesus encounter six and eight and eleven year olds.
There’s something incredibly powerful about kids praying. They’re pure and innocent and their faith is great. They believe that God is big enough to do anything that He wants. I love when Heidi Baker says that “all children believe that God does miracles. All children believe that God can open deaf ears and blind eyes and take away cancer… All children believe it, until an adult teaches them that God can’t do it.”
And I believe that’s 100% true. I want to be more like a child, and believe God for anything. I want to be pure in heart. But I don’t really even think this blog is just about how we should all be more like children; though we really should. I mean, Jesus says we need to change and become like children if we’re to see his Kingdom. I’m thinking He’s pretty serious about it.
But this blog is also about us adults letting children be children. Can we be the adults who, instead of teaching a child that God can’t do something we think is strange or tell them to be quiet during church, we tell them to heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons? Because they can, and those are the kids I meet in the dirt in Nicaragua, Honduras, and all over the world.
