It was a cool, sunny morning in the mountains of Peru. A light fog and cold dew blanketed the grass as we walked with the local pastor to a house of a church member. We exited the village, descended a hill, crossed over a creek, and climbed the subsequent hill only to see a small shack which they call home. We were greeted by three short, elderly Peruvians, one man and two women. They were happy but hesitant to meet us. None of us knew what to expect, similar to when you drop off your car at the mechanic and you don’t know how to tell him what’s wrong with it.
They invited us in: dirt floors, one bed, and not enough room to stand up. We proceeded to tell them that we were there to pray for them if they had any prayer requests. The man spoke up first. He had a pain in his right side from an appendectomy three years prior. I was un-expectant of anything to happen. For the majority of people, prayer is exchanged as a pleasantry, we don’t understand the power it has.
We surrounded and laid hands on the man as he knelt in the middle of us. After we prayed, we asked how he felt. He said, “a little better.” I thought he was just being nice and thanking us for trying. We said we would pray again if he would like us to. He said yes, but also told us that he couldn’t see very well. His eyesight was plagued with fog and darkness. The sole reason he wanted his eyesight back was to be able to read his Bible again. So, he knelt again. This time I knelt behind him and laid my hands on his side to pray again.
Halfway through our prayer I felt my heart start to pound harder and harder, faster and faster. I stopped praying and started listening. My only thought was that this was from God. The man’s eyes came to mind. Hesitantly, as my team was still praying, I stood up behind him and placed my hand over his eyes to begin to pray for them. As I touched his face he flinched and reared back a little. I continued to pray for his eyes for the next couple minutes.
After we had finished praying for him we all stood up. A second time we asked him how he felt. As he stood up, he had a look of disbelief on his face. He didn’t say a word at first, but started to twist and turn as if to genuinely test the prayer. He looked up, smiled, and said he had no pain in his side for the first time in three years.
He then began to scramble around looking for something, his Bible. He found it and sat down. He held it closed for a second, too scared to open it. When he finally pried one page from the other, he dropped his head into his hands and wept. He was able to read his Bible for the first time in 15 years.
