By Angela Martinez
The Lord seriously always amazes me. There really is nothing that is impossible to Him, and I love that! We had an amazing summer with our short-term teams, each and every one of them were amazing! With our last team this summer we went out for our activation day, we went to a community called El Tejar, it’s near the Chilmaltenango dump. This community is very poor and lacks a lot of resources. We went into this community with bags of food and water filters to take to the different homes. Our first two house visits were amazing! People got to receive clean drinking water for the first time, hearing their stories and seeing how thankful they were really touched my heart, but as we stepped into the last house, something happened that I never expected.
We go into the third house and greet the Mom, Miguel tells her that we are giving them a free water filter and the mom starts to weep. She explained to us that help often passes by because they assume the family does not need help due to the fact that their house has been constructed out of cinder blocks. As she wept as she started to explain that her husband has been out of work for the last 8 months, she tries to get enough money together to buy clean water but they can’t always afford it. When they can’t afford clean drinking water, her kids will drink the tap water which is filled with sewage, bacteria, and parasites. I seriously can’t even imagine having to give someone I love a glass of water I know will make them sick just so they can stay alive. Crazy!!
But to be honest, that was not even the craziest part of this house visit. After we finished up showing the mom how to use the water filter, we asked if she was dealing with any sickness herself. She told us that her throat was inflamed and it was really hard for her to move her neck, she was struggling with lots of fevers, and was so tired that her niece had to come help around the house. We asked if we could pray for her and when we said “Amen” we asked how she was feeling and she told us she was still in a lot of pain. Miguel then asked if anyone else needed prayer and she told us her daughter had suffered from blurry vision for a long time.
Her daughter (between 9-10 years old) came forward, I took a step back and held up one finger, I asked her how many she saw and she replied with “2”, I took a step further back and held up four fingers and asked again, she replied with “5”. So, we prayed. We did the same kind of test again and nothing changed, so we prayed a second time. Miguel said that as he put his hand over her eyes to pray that he felt her eyes moving. When we finished praying I took a step back and held up two fingers and asked her what she saw, “2” she said. I took another step back and put up four fingers and asked her what she saw, she replied with “4”. I said “that’s right!” She turned to her mom, dug her head into her mom’s chest and started weeping. The mom looked at us in shock and said, “my daughter is healed!” The girls with us from the short-term team were amazed as well, as soon as the girl was healed one of the team members started crying alongside of her, the other was amazed and commented “this is like right out of the Bible!”. We then asked the mom if we could pray again for her neck. When we finished praying she said she felt like someone pulled her neck to straighten it out. She was healed too!!! This family was overwhelmed by the Lords goodness.
I love how the Lord does these things. It was not even my plan to take this team to El Tejar that day but our other ministry canceled. The Lord is so good and He just knows. I felt like this was a good reminder to never assume. Never assume just because of the condition of the outside of someone’s home that they don’t need help. Never assume that the person you are talking to does not have needs.
We so often see sickness as a normal part of life, it may be common, but it’s not the normal that the Lord created.
Remember to take time to stop and ask the Lord what that person that you are talking to needs, be bold and ask them if you can pray for them… You never know what the Lord may do. But what I do know is, that whatever the Lord will do, it’s going to be good!
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