I don’t know how many times I shook my head along with Chris Scott and the others about the ridiculous things that were coming out of Jose’s mouth…”so this one time, I was trying to kill a man but I had to make it look like an accident so I blew off my finger…” (shortened story) or “so when people were at the cemetery for a funeral I would sneak up on them and jump out doing the ‘thriller’ and then chase them…but later I got put in jail because I got caught chasing my friends and the guard with a skull…” Story after story held my attention as this guy rattled off crazy aspects of his life both before and after He knew Jesus. The only difference is that the stories before were focused on hm while the stories after were focused on Him.
He was a child without his father’s love although he’s quick to tell you that his father loves him now. His father would beat him and say “this is not my child” all the time. He never received presents or gifts or had his birthday celebrated. His mother was the only one who truly loved him growing up but while he was a teenager she committed suicide. The church told him that they didn’t need to do the service because “she was going to hell anyway.” This made him bitter and angry. He once responded to a street preacher that Hell was where he wanted to go so that he could be with his mother, the only one who truly loved him anyway. Coincidently he was a volunteer firemen called to the scene of his mother’s suicide after she jumped from a bridge…
At the age of 16 he joined the Chilean Army even though he was two years too young. There were 81 in his company and on the first day his sergeant said “I want to punch someone in the face today, I need a volunteer.” Guess who was the first to volunteer. Yup, Jose jumped in front and got sucker punched in the face by a brute. After being told to go back in line, the sergeant said he wanted one more volunteer and guess who ran up there. Yup, Jose was a stubborn guy so he went to take another punch. This time it angered his commander that the youngest guy was willing to take two punches before anyone would take one. So he told the whole company that for that reason Jose was going to punch them all in the face that day…for everyone he didn’t punch, he would get punched . From that day on he became the punisher for the company. If anyone was out of line, they would call him over to handle it.
Later he became known as the “king of the streets” as he built up a reputation for taking on and beating up a number of guys. He was doing harder drugs by now and still had little to lose. At the point of desperation he decided to jump out in front of a vehicle to commit suicide. That’s when he remembered God and said, if you are real, reveal yourself. For the next 15 min he stood in the center of a normally busy highway and not a single sign of a vehicle came through…
Not long after, God started talking to him and completely changed his life. God told him to apply for a position as an engineer. So he told God “you’re crazy!!! I haven’t finished high school let alone college…” God replied “what do you have to lose?” So he showed up to the first interview with a nearly blank resume and the receptionist laughed at him. SO, he said why don’t you let me try. Intrigued, he let him go into the interview. Strangely enough he was called into another interview and eventually they decided he was the best qualified even though there were over 20 guys who had degrees in engineering. It wasn’t long after that he married Naara who happened to be engaged to another man when we met her…thankfully for both of them, that got sorted out.
God had favor upon him and kept giving him higher and higher positions until he had hundreds of people working under him and he was the big man. The company offered him an even higher position but he had a stern warning the night before in a dream not to take it so he didn’t. Enraged they essentially fired him and he didn’t have work for a year. At the time where they literally had nothing left, God gave him another job. This time Jose said that he wanted to make sure it was God so he went into the interview and was determined to give them no reason to hire him. They would ask him about his experience and he would say he didn’t have any. They would mention a problem and ask how he would go about fixing it. So he would simply say I don’t have an idea. Finally the guy looked up and said “I like you, you’re hired.”
Now this guy was cheating the company and was shady with his books. God gave him another dream and said “go warn your boss that what He’s doing is wrong and that if he doesn’t stop it, then he and his boss will be fired.” So, the next day he went in and told his boss about what God said. It was long until his boss and his boss’ boss were both fired! The next guy came in and God told him something similar. So he went in and said “listen, God told me to tell the last bosses they were going to get fired and they did. God says that if you don’t do things the right way He’s going to fire you too.” Soon after that this guy was gone as well…this happened 4 times!!! The fifth guy was a very religious man but didn’t believe in God. So they made an agreement that the first couple weeks would be dedicated to God and the next couple to whoever the guy believed in. The first weeks of business sky rocketed so fast that the guy decided to not even try anything else…He became a christian and got to keep his job.
Life like this continued for quite some time as God was shaping and molding Jose. God started to shape their hearts for mission work and they were hoping to head towards the middle east area (particularly Palestine). However, Naara had a dream that they were supposed to go to Malawi. Not being educated, he didn’t even know if that was a country so he got out the map. They looked around the middle east and couldn’t find it. Then they stumbled on Mali in Africa and he said surely this is what you heard in your dream but Naara refused. Finally they found it and it truly hit them when they realized that Malawi was indeed a country and that God was calling them there.
They informed their church and as they were preparing to go God said “oh by the way, don’t sell any of your stuff. I want you to give it all away.” The church was now sending a couple that didn’t have money for the plain tickets to make it half way there or even enough for their passports. Through a series of events and stories God provided a way to South Africa so they took the first step. They arrived a little over a year ago to South Africa and didn’t speak any English…they are now pretty fluent. While there they told people that they were called to Malawi. One day a man approached them and said that God told him to give them his Jaguar and they could do what they wanted with it. They sold it for a beat up truck and food and some gear. Then they were given a caravan which was a blessing because they were just planning on tenting once they got up to Malawi…
From there God led him to a building on the beach that had been untouched for over ten years. Then God arranged a meeting between him and the owner to let him stay there 11 months out of the year to take care of it and to fix it up for free. So now this man and his wife live on Lake Malawi with no other neighbors and a huge beach that gets filled with children needing the love of the Father every day. They moved into the house literally only 2 or 3 weeks before our teams arrived and when they did God gave him another dream where he was like Noah. God said to prepare the ark and He would fill it…Jose were hoping that maybe within a year or two they would be able to house teams but to their surprise they received an email from us days later.
You can be praying for these two and what God is doing in Monkey Bay. These two spend their time preaching, teaching and loving the Malawian people and it is dramatically changing the culture of the area.
