Day 8 (Part 1)

I woke up this morning without a plan. Not knowing anyone in this town, without a place to sleep, very little Spanish, and to top it off I was now sick. The only plan I had was to go to church with the missionaries before they left at 11am.

I was not very thrilled going into church, in fact I was laughing when I arrived and saw only 30 something people worshipping to a cheap CD player. The whole time I kept telling myself, ‘Daniel you should’ve stayed in bed.’

The pastor grabbed mine and everyone else’s attention when he asked Doctor Matobo, who was the interpreter from our missionary group, to come up and speak. When he first got up there he was speaking in Spanish. When he was finished he asked all the people from Ecuador to come up front. All of us from the States circled around them and began to pray. Doctor Matobo began to circle around the room placing his hand on each person and saying a prayer for them. A small old crippled Ecuadorian lady made her way to the front. When Doctor Matobo reached her he placed his hand on her face, shouted a prayer in Spanish and began to shake during it. What happened next is something I’ve only seen in movies and heard stories about from the Bible. The lady began to cry in praise and claimed her back had been healed. The power of the spiritual force was too much for me so I went over to the corner by myself and began to cry. I felt so unworthy and my faith was so little to believe what I had just seen.

A few minutes later Doctor Matobo came over, placed his hands on me and said a prayer. He prayed for God to show me my purpose in life. Instantly that feeling of unworthiness turned into a feeling of being loved and cherished. I no longer felt convicted, but felt like a weight was taken off my back. And then I knew these people weren’t faking but it was the Holy Spirit moving within this tiny church.

The coolest part was during our early morning service at 9:30am in the mountains, surrounded by nothing else, was a group of marathon runners. Runners who just happened to be passing by on their way from Argentina to Columbia! All the runners came inside the church to see what was going on. About 6 of them came up to pray with us. I wish I would have got some video or pictures, but I still don’t think any image could come close to describing what I experienced today.