Once upon a Wednesday afternoon, on 9/27/18 to be exact, God opened some crazy doors for my team.
Wednesday afternoon, we walked down a street in Llano and knocked on big metal door. An eleven year old boy named Angel poked the door open and smiled hesitantly. He knew us, because he’s been to the English class we’re teaching. After talking for a little bit he let us inside the gate, (which is an open courtyard with cooking and animals in most Guatemalan houses). He explained that his parents were out, and he’d never had five gringas in his house before. He then said he would really like prayer for his grandpa, who is sick. We followed him outside, and he walked us two doors down to the edge of town, and unlocked a large black door. When he swung the door open, four little kids, including two girls from English, came running over, grinning ear to ear, and hugged all five of us. It was immediately evident that this entire family is extremely close knit and revolved around the grandparents, or El Rey and Reina, as we called them. The grandpa welcomed us in, and brought us across the courtyard to his room, where women started flooding in after us. As we all sat down and looked up, seven woman and a handful of kids joined us. (We later figured out the grandpa had at least four daughters and ten grandkids – potentially a few great grandkids.) El Rey explained he’d been throwing up all the time, his finger throbbed constantly, and he’d been in the hospital for about 20 days for something like prostate cancer- they didn’t know. He explained that by the grace of God he felt a little better now, and while they had been praying, they would really, really like more prayer. Upon asking the rest of the people in the room about who needed prayer, we discovered his wife had headaches every day and no appetite, one of his daughters could barely walk because her right leg appeared slightly longer than her left, his granddaughter was struggling with doubt and anxiety and not feeling worthy, and one of his other daughters couldn’t read a box 10 feet in front of her.
I will preface this next part by saying, I understand if you think this is nuts, because I do too. But, I also watched it happen with my own eyes. And that cannot be discredited. So, take this as you will, but prayer is a powerful thing that is changing lives here, and already my squad has gotten to pray over hundreds of people, and watch Jesus heal. Some people even ran up to a group of my friends asking if they were doctors because of the healing stories they’d heard.
Anyways, as we were praying for each of el Rey’s family members who were experiencing pain, we stopped on the woman who could barely walk, and prayed for her three times. The first time she teared up a little, and thanked us, but two of the people I was with felt that she needed to lay down so we could put hands on her back. My teammate, Alexus, immediately realized she had severe scoliosis, and it was because her spine was so twisted that her limp and hunch was so painful. We began praying for her, and as Alexus had her hands on her spine, she felt it get super hot. When we finished praying, the woman stood up straight, and strode across the room, smiling and crying. Her pain was completely gone. She could walk, not just shuffle! We could credit this fully to Jesus, who didn’t just heal people when he walked the earth in his ministry; he gave authority to His disciples to heal in His power. The entire family sat with us for close to two hours, sharing a piece of their home and their life with us. We got to hold their kids and feel the love of the family, and affect their lives in a very tangible way. They were astounded that we, Americans, wanted to come into their home and sit with them. People want to be where we are, not vice versa, and it was a beautiful thing to see just how our presence made them feel honored and special.
