Every Thursday the entire squad stays on base in the morning for activation. During activation we have worship and one or two of the AIM staff members speak on different topics. After that we have time to process by ourselves, then with our team, and then we set out to our ministry sites to do ATL (ask the Lord). During ATL we simply ask the Lord who’s on his heart, where we should go, what we should do, etc. Usually a few people get pictures or colors or images of anything from people, to walls, to fruit, to flags. It’s essentially just taking time to ask the Lord for direction and then go on a scavenger hunt to find what he’s given.
A few weeks ago I was processing on my own before our team debriefed the morning session, and I had a random thought of a broken arm in a white cast. I didn’t think anything of it and dismissed it quickly. About 20 minutes later during our team discussion one of the staff members asked if anybody had received anything for the day, and the Lord reminded me of the image of the arm that had clearly been from him. In the moment I still wasn’t sure if it was something I had made up or if it had been from God, but I made the decision to speak it out anyway.
Once we got to our ministry site, we decided to visit Gloria who was supposed to be back from the hospital that week. If you remember Gloria from one of my earlier blog posts, you already know that she is a young mother diagnosed with terminal blood cancer. At that point in time we hadn’t been to visit her in 3 weeks because of debrief and her extended hospital visit. Gloria lives across the village and up part of the mountain, so we started walking to her home. As we were walking I was talking to Alyssa, my team leader, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman walk out of a tienda (tiendas are little shops that are everywhere in Guatemala that sell anything from snacks to soap) with her left arm in a cast.
Immediately I stopped talking and just pointed at her for a few seconds (sorry mom, I know it’s rude to point…), but I was surprised that God had made it so easy for me to find her, and that she and her broken arm did actually exist. I’ve said before in previous blogs that most Guatemalans don’t go to the hospitals because 1) they can’t afford it, and 2) they don’t trust them. The doctors have bad reputations for causing more problems than what the original issue is. Our local translator also said how uncommon it is to see a Guatemalan in the villages with a cast.
I walked up to her and started trying to communicate with her through my limited Spanish, but our translator stepped in and was able to help us.
She and her husband welcomed us in to the tienda they owned and started sharing with us about their lives. The woman’s husband, Hugo, is diabetic and has been struggling with the disease for several years. He is mostly blind, completely in one eye and partially in the other, in constant pain, and hasn’t been able to work or provide for his family in years. Because of this, his wife was feeding the pigs a few weeks ago and fell, which caused her arm to break.
As we continued to talk with them, Hugo began telling us about his mental and spiritual battle with his physical disease. He told us about his depression, suicidal thoughts, and his broken spirit which he’d been dealing with since the onset of his disease.
For an hour or so we were able to talk with him, speak life, encouragement, and scripture into him, and pray for his mental, physical, and spiritual health. He is a Christian and told us the only reason he was still there was because of the strength he got from the Lord, but he also knew he needed to be more active in his faith.
One of my teammates has also gone through a similar experience with depression and suicide and was able to share part of her story with Hugo and relate to his mental and emotional pain (you can check her blog post “Hugs for Hugo” out at https://maggiestrubhar.theworldrace.org/).
That day has definitely been my favorite day of ATL because of how the Lord was able to use parts of us all to bring healing to his children’s souls. Even though Hugo was really the person God was calling us to, he was able to give me a picture of his wife’s arm to get my attention, because none of us would’ve been able to pick up on Hugo’s internal pain if we hadn’t walked into his tienda to pray for his wife’s arm. And even though we prayed for physical healing over both Hugo and his wife and didn’t see the immediate result, we know that God is still in the process of healing them, and Hugo himself said that his soul and spirit were healed and encouraged that afternoon. Every time I think of this family I am reminded of Ecclesiastes 3:11, “God has made everything beautiful for its own time,” and I am confident he will bring redemption and beauty in his timing.
We’ve been back to visit Hugo once and to buy fireworks from their tienda (!) and we plan on going at least once more before our time in Guatemala comes to its end. We are here for less than one more month, and if you take out weekends and Thursdays (because we don’t have our regular ministry on Thursdays) we only have 12 more days of ministry. It’s crazy to be one week into month three and realize that it almost feels like the Race is over. I know it sounds insane and that I still have 6 ½ months left, but our final days in Guatemala are already here, and Asia will fly by because we’ll be moving each month (one in Thailand, one in Myanmar, and then one more in Thailand), and then we’ll be in our last country already!
So no, the Race is not even close to being over yet, but some days it feels like it’s right around the corner.
As always, thank you for reading and continuing to follow along! I love hearing from my supporters and readers so feel free to reach out in the comments, an email, or social media (Facebook & Instagram).
All the love,
Erika
