As we prepared for a kids event at the church an older woman dressed in traditional Bolivian garb – two long black braids, a blanket wrapped and pinned around her back, skirt, leggings and a brown straw hat – came up to the church door asking for the pastor. He being no where to be found, our teammate who speaks Spanish gathered that the woman had a son, in his 30’s, who was badly injured and had not eaten or drank anything in five days. We found out later that the son had been hit by a car injuring his leg and then at some point afterwards had fallen off a bus hitting his head.
The pastor arrives and is informed that the women wishes the pastor to come visit her son. Myself and three other teammates joined him as we follow this woman through the dusty, dry, cold streets of Uyuni. As we walked the pastor explained to me that the woman told him that her son had demons in him.
As we silently walked, I began to think how the familiarity of house visits had become almost normal. No longer did I psych myself out about how I wasn’t adequately fit for these experiences, or yet, even know how or what to pray for in these situations. Realizing these things I walked down the dusty road with Jesus. I was praying silently when the song “Holy Spirit, Come Now” filled my head so I hummed along to a few verses:
Holy Spirit, come,
Holy Spirit, come now, come now.
Holy Spirit, come,
Holy Spirit, come now, come now.
Oh, the sweetness of your mercy and grace!
Bring us true wisdom right here in this place.
Bring a glimmer of the depth of God’s will.
Bring understanding; God’s plan be fulfilled.
Walking into the unknown and trusting in God’s wisdom we arrived to where he was staying, a one bedroom house. It contained two beds, a tv in the corner with a fuzzy show playing, a double burner stove top set on the dirt floor along side vegetables and other food, drawers set up behind one of the beds were all pulled out and a single window with a blanket draped over was the only light provided in the room. On one of the beds her son was curled up, dressed in all his clothes including his boots. His left eye black and blue from the fall. We stood there for over a minute as his mother tried to shake him awake with no success.
The four of us kneeled around his bed to pray as the Pastor and mother continued to try to wake him up. With little use the Pastor began to also pray. This went on for at least 15 minutes or more. After we stopped praying the son opened his eyes. The Pastor tried to persuade him to go to the hospital but the son refused saying he just wanted to return to his hometown to die.
We left the house unsure of everything that had really taken place as none of us were fluent in Spanish. It was another silent walk home. I was processing all that happened. It’s easy in those situations to feel like your efforts weren’t beneficial. However, it’s more selfish to think that I was something standing in the way of God’s victory. By simply obeying, trusting and submitting all to God is all He ever wants from us. So though there was no immediate miracle that occurred Gods presence still made an appearance in that room and that’s the greatest thing that could have happened.
Later that evening at a youth group event the mom had returned still very concerned about her son. We stood around her as we prayed for her and her son again.
Again, at church the next day, the pastor had the mom come up to the front and the congregation as a body prayed for her. He invited everyone to her house to pray for her son and after service 20-30 people piled into 3 cars and drove the short distance to her house. This time the son was awake and talking! He appeared to still be wearing the same clothes as the day before but seemed more alert and the pastor was able to communicate with him. We fit as many people as we could into that small room and prayed. The son was not receptive towards our prayers and even after we asked if we could sing for him in English he quickly told us to stop after the second verse of “Amazing Grace”. He agreed to drink a few sips of water, maybe in hopes that we would leave him alone.
My team and I are still praying for him and hope to continue to return again in the upcoming weeks even if it is to simply talk with him and share more about hope in Christ. He’s got a long life to live still and really needs encouragement. Ways you could partner with me and my team is this is through prayer. Prayers for hope, healing, miracles, repentance and deliverance. Also prayers for his mother as she is still very distraught in this situation.
