OK OK, all joking aside. My time in Arroyo was excellent, and worth leaving my much missed team Agapetos. Check out what happened with my team as I was gone with Mallorie´s latest update. It was not easy for me to be away from my team, but I was sure that God had me back in Arroyo for a reason. And God showed my why the very first day I showed up. I left Palenque after quieting my stomach with another delicious meal cooked by the Pastor´s wife Selina. I loaded all of my stuff onto the back of a camioneta (a regular truck with seats installed in the bed) and left for Arroyo. Accompanied by three other men, I sat and prayed as the beautiful countryside passed me by. I shouted to the driver that it was time to let me off when the truck passed by the Maranatha community. As I hobbled with all of my belongings dangling off my shoulders, I see Jimmy Mccarty´s astonished face peek around the corner. ¨Eric?¨ he proclaims, as I extend my arms as if to say, ¨well, here I am!¨ Then Marcos dashed out from his workplace with a huge grin as he comes over to give me a firm handshake. More than anything, we all felt a sense of relief. I was relieved to be accepted well, and they were releived to release the stress of the language barrier.
We soon headed out to work as went to various people´s homes to visit and pray f or them. After several planned visits, we stopped by a man´s home who had no affiliation with the church at all. We entered the dark environs of the cinderblock home to see a man sitting in a chair in the middle of the dim room motioning for us to come in. I sat down next to him and we began to talk a bit, the man, Sebastian, would speak Chol, Marcos, would translate to Spanish, and I would respond. Through the slow, but effective, time with Sebastian, I learned that he suffers from terrible nightmares. So I begin to talk with him about this, and how he clearly wants the horrible visions to stop. So I shared the gospel with him and began to talk with him about Jesus. For a while, he had no interest in Jesus, only in us making the dreams stop. But I told him that we could pray all we wanted for the dreams to stop, but unless he made an active decision, nothing would happen. I continues to share how God wants us to place our burdens at His feet, so He can take care of them and heal us. Then something clicked with him, he nodded and said, ¨ok, I want Jesus.¨ So I began to pray with him and asked him repeat after me. I would pray, then silence.
¨Sebastion, look at me,¨ I would say. Repeat what I say. I continued to pray, then wait for his response, silence.
¨Sebastion! Look me in the eyes! Repeat what I say!¨ It took about five times of me saying this for me to realize that the glazed look in his eyes was not from him. I knew there was a demon inside of him keeping his mouth shut. I told the rest of the team to pray immediately to tell that demon to be gone.
¨Sebastion, repeat after me, please.¨ I began crying for him as I could feel the struggle going on inside of him. Suddenly, his lips loosened, and he began to repeat back to me what I was praying. And right there he accepted Christ! Then he stood up, and for the first time, he unfolded his arms, and smiled.
He then motioned over to the corner of the house and explained that his wife was very sick. We pulled back the curtain to find a pile of blankets. Underneath it all, was an elderly woman doing everything she could to get warm. Sebastion informed us that she had a very high fever and had been bedridden for a week. We talked with her for a moment, as she was clearly in deep pain. Jennifer and Rebecca placed their hands on her and began to pray. I did not feel anything magical flow out of me, nor did I feel any confidence to say this woman was healed. There was no immediate change. But we blessed the family and hugged Sebastion and left them for the day.
The next day we returned to Sebastion´s house. ¨Sebastian! Did you have any bad dreams last night?¨ ¨No!¨ he responded with a smile. Then he points over to the same corner of the house where we had prayed for his wife Lilia, and there we see a beautiful elderly woman sitting up and smiling. The fever had left in the night and she felt no more pain from the sickness! Praise God! This house has been changed! It is no longer a place of darkness but a place of joy!
Just another shining example of how God changes people´s lives!
