Jesus, Dirty Laundry, Metros, and Hostel Stairs

Upon leaving Peru, I was bombarded with negative words about Chile from the Peruvian community.  There is a huge clash between these bordering countries, and unfortunately most people in Peru have nothing nice to say about their southern neighbor.  Yet, despite rumors of terrible food, terrible wine, and downright terrible people, I was excited to see what Chile had in store for my team.   So far, every country has yielded a different blessing, and I was confident Chile would be no different.

It took us days to drive to Santiago, Chile’s capital, where we would minister with a local church for a few days before heading further south.  Along the way, we decided to get rid of one of our pop-up campers that we’ve been hauling for the past seven months.  The pop-up began serving as our makeshift home in September, but after thousands of miles on the road, it got pretty beat-up.  Due to a broken crank, it now took four men to lift up the sides of the camper and set it up (a job I used to be able to do myself).  In addition, the next leg of our journey would be too cold to sleep in a camper with no heat, so we’d be hauling the camper for miles, guzzling extra gas in vain.  Though sad to say goodbye to our closest thing to a home, we knew it had become obsolete. We’d paid one thousand dollars for the pop-up before the journey began, but instead of trying to sell the trailer, we decided to bless someone with it.  We’d heard rumors of squatter communities in the area and prayed for the Lord to lead us to the right family.

As we drove towards Santiago, Jesse pulled over within the first hour at a dusty patch of land I assumed was nothing more than a garbage dump.  However, this barren terrain was home to several families, and the Holy Spirit undoubtedly had led our team there.  A man and a woman immediately approached our vehicles, and we asked them if anyone was interested in using our pop-up as a home.  The woman’s face lit up with delight.  “I’ve been praying for a portable home for a year,” she explained, beaming from ear to ear.  “We’re Christians, and we have been in need for extra housing for a long time.  Every time I see someone drive by with one of those things, I pray that God will give me one and have faith that He will answer my prayer.” 

I realized that we had just been the answer to someone’s prayer.  This was crazy.  After months of pushing that pop-up up and down, hauling it around, and dealing with its bulky body, it really was a strange blessing to get rid of it.  Now this family was equally blessed to receive it.  The sweet woman made each of a sandwich with gratitude and refused to send us on our way until our bellies were full.  We thanked her for the food and continued driving, the sight of the woman’s bright smiling face in the distance.

After many more miles of driving, we arrived in Santiago, where we were warmly received by a local church.  Our entire team slept on the floor of the sanctuary together—a dangerous recipe for pillow fights, sleeping pranks, and way too little sleep. The pastor warmly welcomed us like his own family, feeding us three meals a day and coordinating church members to let us shower in their homes after days of filth.  One woman kindly offered to do laundry for our entire team in her tiny home—a huge blessing for our large team. 

Days later, the laundry woman stopped by the church and announced that our clothes were ready if a few people could stop by and carry the bags back to the church.  She also asked if those that came would be willing to pray for her daughter at the house.  She had been badly burned on her leg and wanted to be healed from the pain.

Rose, Amanda, and I went to the woman’s house and were greeted by her teenage daughter with a leg covered in a large bandage.  We laid hands on her and prayed for healing.  After a few moments, she said there was no pain in her leg.  A man from the church had stopped by and asked us to pray for him next.  He had diabetes and wanted a miracle in his pancreas.  As we prayed for him, the Holy Spirit filled him with overwhelming joy, and he fell to the floor laughing.  I’ve never seen anyone react to prayer quite like this before.  His whole body shook as he flopped around like a fish, roaring with laughter. 

We offered to pray for the woman as well before we headed back to the church.  I could see depression and oppression all over her.  Rose saw a vision of a snake wrapped around her neck and asked her what was happening in her life specifically. The woman revealed that she was raising four children alone after being left by a verbally abusive husband.  We could see such intense sadness in her eyes and were overwhelmed with compassion for her.  As we prayed for her to be freed from the lies and oppression choking her, she began to cough violently.  I’d seen someone delivered from demons a few months ago who coughed up slime as they left his body, and this was quite similar.  The man we’d just prayed for ran and got a bucket as the woman continued to cough out junk while we prayed.  The coughing finally stopped, and we prophesied over the woman, encouraging her and telling her about her worth and acceptance by God.  Her tears of pain transformed into tears of joy, and her countenance completely changed.  You could see something had physically broken off of her.  We embraced her, blessing her with the truth of Christ.

Later that day, our team began our journey south towards the tip of Chile.  We decided to split the trip, stopping for two nights in the city of Puerto Montt along the way.  After arriving, Liz, Amanda, and I walked around the city to try to find a cheap hostel for the team.  A sweet older woman offered to show us around her hostel.  As she climbed the narrow stairs towards the upstairs bedrooms, she complained of pain in her legs.  Amanda said we should pray for her, so we offered before we left.  She smiled as we laid hands on her legs and asked the Lord to heal her.  After a few moments, we stood up and asked her how she felt.  “I feel good,” she smiled.

“Do you still feel pain?” we asked.

She began to move her legs and sway back and forth, testing out her knees.  A look of genuine surprise overtook her face completely as she declared, “There’s no pain!  It doesn’t hurt anymore!”

We all laughed with joy as she continued to smile in sheer surprise.

“You are angels!” she yelled.

We laughed, knowing we hadn’t done a thing in our own power and were far from angels.  We had simply depended on God to heal her.

“God loves you a lot,” we explained.  That’s precisely why He’d just healed her aching knees.

I left the hostel filled with faith.  The time we’d spent working with the local church had been great, but the greatest displays of God’s power and love had manifested in the most unexpected situations.  God had delivered a woman of demonic oppression when we went to pick up laundry and now healed a woman while we were looking for a hostel.  God was showing up in the mundane and blowing me away with His power.

Our team gathered later that evening and shared testimonies from our time in Chile.  Turns out, several other people on the team had had similar experiences.  Ben, Liney, Kurt, and a few others shared how God had showed up while they were on a bus on their way to downtown Santiago.  Throughout the bus ride, Ben decided to keep to himself and quietly worship.  As he sat on the bus, he felt in his body that someone had leg problems and was having trouble walking.  The Lord also gave him a picture of a man with a cane.  Ben knew this was a word of knowledge and that God wanted to heal people.

The moment they stepped off the bus to transfer to the metro, Ben turned his head to the left and noticed a guy with a cane also heading to the metro.  He grabbed Liney to help him translate and asked Kurt to tell the rest of the group that they were going to go after that man.   Ben and Liney ran to find the man but realized they’d lost him.  They kept walking and suddenly saw people with crutches everywhere they turned—walking by, sitting down, to the right, and to the left.  A particular man stood out to them, and they approached him.  The man said he was in a rush but reluctantly explained that he had a tumor that had caused a stroke in his brain.  In effect, this had paralyzed the left side of his face, and the signal from his brain to his feet was delayed, causing an inability to walk properly.  Ben and Liney told him that God wanted to heal him, but the man repeatedly told them he was in a rush, trying to avert their attention.  They insisted that he had nothing to lose by asking for God’s healing.

The man finally agreed to receive a prayer, so Ben laid his hand on the left side of his face and prayed.  Kurt joined them and prayed as well.  Instead of asking for healing, they commanded the paralysis to leave by the power of Jesus Christ.

Afterwards, they asked what the man felt.  He said that he couldn’t describe the presence and heat that was resting all over the paralyzed side of his face.  He was so overwhelmed that he couldn’t look Ben, Liney, and Kurt in the eye.  He was shocked that Jesus was literally touching him with His fire and walked away stunned by God’s presence.

A few moments later, the group noticed a woman with a cane and approached her.  She was sweet, tender, and open.  She shared that she had a degenerative problem with her back that caused intense pain and a need for the cane.

The three laid hands on her back and asked the woman to put her own hand on her back as well as a symbol of her agreement with God to release her healing.  As they prayed, Ben started getting prophetic words for the woman and told her who she was in the eyes of Jesus.  He declared how accepted and beautiful she was to the Lord.  The woman began to weep and said no one ever speaks to her like that.  She’d never heard people speak life over her and said she would gladly listen to Ben, Liney, and Kurt all day.

She was so touched by God’s love that she completely forgot about the pain in her back.  Ben reminded her of the original reason they’d prayed and asked her how her back was feeling.  She bent over to test it out.  Ben asked her to walk without the cane in Jesus’ name.  Immediately, the woman bolted off walking.  She went so fast that Ben said she looked like a power walker.  The woman returned and told Liney she’d never been able to walk pain free without her cane.  The degenerative condition in her back was completely restored.  The woman, Ben, Liney, and Kurt hugged, jumping up and down and rejoicing together.

The woman said she didn’t need the cane anymore and wanted to give it away.  She bid my teammates farewell and walked away with the cane tucked under her arm, ready to donate it to someone else. 

So where is God moving?  In Chile, it’s been anywhere but special so far—just a dusty plot of land, a woman’s little house, a run-down hostel, and a metro station.  I have loved encountering God in the most mundane parts of everyday life.  Having these experiences with the Lord has nothing to do with being a “missionary”, working with churches, or even being out of the country.  It is simply about paying attention to what God is doing in the most mundane moments of life.  When we do that, we can experience the miraculous anywhere, anytime, and with anyone.  The longer I travel throughout South America, the more I see how God loves to lavish his love on His people.  I’m realizing the boundaries between “ministry time” and “normal life” should not exist.  It all weaves together if we are willing to let it.  If we feel the heartbeat of the Father, our lives will become a constant flow of love and ministry.  I still have so much to learn, but so far my time in Chile has been such a great lesson of how to live in that flow at all times.  My teammates are constantly challenging me and inspiring me to break down the boxes where I’ve tried to trap God and let Him penetrate every area of my life.  If dirty laundry can open the door to massive freedom or riding a subway can heal the heart and body of a stranger, why not live this way?  And when Jesus starts to invade the mundane, nothing is really quite so mundane anymore, is it?


P.S. Mr. McClendon....Taylor says he wants you to read his blogs. :)