It all started on day 1 of month 1 debrief. My friends Alexus Peavy, Hannah Chaon, Hannah Carlson, and I went to get coffee. We decided to go to this little cafe right next door to our hostel in San Pedro, La Laguna.
We all ordered our coffee, then we went and sat in one of the booths next to the back wall.
After waiting awhile our coffee finally came out, and we all got lost in conversations about what God was currently doing in our lives. It wasn’t to long before our conversation was abruptly interrupted by a boy. He came over with a very simple shoe shining kit and began begging us to shine our shoes. He just kept saying the phrase “very hungry” over and over. Since most of us were wearing sandals we defiantly didn’t need or want a shoe shine.
However, my teammate Hannah Chaon felt like she should invite the boy to sit with us, and buy him lunch. So that’s what she did. The boy quickly agreed to stay and have lunch with us. He order a big plate of spaghetti and a milkshake with a giant grin on his face.
As we waited for the boys food to arrive we started to ask him questions in very broken Spanish. We found out his name was Juan and that he was ten years old. Right away we noticed that something was a little off with Juan though. He was sitting with us, but then he would forget that he had already met us. Throughout the span of a 15-20 minute conversation he reintroduced himself around 10 times never remembering meeting us already. The oddness didn’t stop there though, all of a sudden Juan got up with a blank stare on his face and walked out of the restaurant before eating anything. Leaving his shoe shining kit dumped on the floor by our table.
Instantly I knew something was wrong. I sprang up and started following Juan out of the restaurant and down the street. I didn’t care that it was against the rules for me to be without a buddy. I was not going to sit by and watch something happen to this kid. God had brought this kid to our table and I felt something stirring in my heart for him. As I followed him in and out of doorways, and up a hill I saw him walking around in a complete daze… barely being missed by tuk tuks on the street and looking incredibly lost. I finally caught up to him. I looked him in the eyes, reached out my hand, and said “Juan what are you doing?” with a dazed look on his face he pushed past me and sat down on the curb.
My teammate Hannah came out of the restaurant looking a little concerned and just as confused as I felt. We were trying to figure out what was wrong with Juan and what we should do about it. We decided it would be best to get the food to go and bring it to him with his shoe shining kit. So we went back to the restaurant and got the shoe shining kit and the spaghetti in a to go box. We brought it over to Juan on the corner and sat with him on the curb. Well he fumbled with eating the spaghetti with his hands, he seemed to be in a complete daze still… So Hannah and I decided to pray over him and then give him some space to eat his food. We hugged him goodbye, then we headed back to the restaurant to finish our coffee and catch up the others on everything that had happened.
We all sat there speculating on what could be wrong with Juan. Could he have been drugged? Was it spiritual warfare? Or was it something else? My teammate Hannah told me that when he hugged her she got filled with fear. After awhile we determined that it was something spiritual. A lot of spiritual stuff happens at the Lake. Between old Mayan belief systems, and the crazy party scenes it is defiantly a heavy place to be.
We had finally moved on in our conversations, when Juan came back over to our table. This time he was shaking severely and he instantly plopped down in the seat. We all agreed that we should start praying for him because he kept asking us to pray. He had avoided all conversations about God up until that moment.
I decide to lead because I felt God telling me too, so I placed a hand on Juan and we all began praying. First, I asked God to tell me how Juan was feeling so I could pray for whatever he was struggling with specifically. I instantly started to cry, I felt this extreme sadness, and my arm started to shake uncontrollably. I started to pray that God would remove anything around Juan that wasn’t of Him and replace it with His peace. I don’t remember everything I said, but as I watched Juan I saw tears streaming down his face. After we finished praying over him, he grabbed his stuff, hugged us goodbye, and walked right out of the restaurant. We all sat there in disbelief of everything that just happened. I felt so sick and instantly drained after the prayer. I decided to go back to the hostel and lay down. I ended up sleeping for the next 6 hours. I thought about Juan the rest of the day, and I prayed to God I would see him again…
I only got to talk to him one more time right before I got on the boat to leave San Pedro… I handed him a pack of cookies, gave him a hug and told him under my breath that God loves him so much. Then I left. Leaving Juan in God’s hands or that’s what I was telling myself.
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