Last night I was privileged to minister to a church full of children at the suburb town of La Florida. Pastor Nicolas Torrente, who had bussed them in from a low income neighborhood where their youth teams regularly minister, held the suitcase as my pet skunk, Perfume, came squirming out.
Every kid in the church that dared to risk losing a finger, reached out to touch Perfume. They should have known there was very little danger, since I had assured them that “She hardly ever bites.”
Eduardo, who lives in a wheel chair, enjoyed petting her, too.
Before leaving on the bus all the kids piled up on me and around me for this picture. A lot of these kids haven’t got much to look forward to… except the wonderful love of Jesus.
The bus drove away and Eduardo was wheeled to the front at his request. Here is a brilliant young man trapped in a twisted body that does not allow him to speak clearly nor move his limbs with full control.
Thinking that he had come for prayer, I prayed with him and sat beside him for a picture. Sometimes he could get out a whole sentence quite understandably, but other times his thick tongue could not be understood and I just nodded my assent. He told me how the Lord uses him to carry the message of Christ’s love to his classmates at his special school.
But now he was telling me something that I could not understand at first.
Finally I discovered the real reason that Eduardo had asked to be wheeled up front. He wanted to pray for me! With obvious difficulty he raised his hand and placed it on my head and prayed a deeply earnest prayer of blessing on me. I understood most of it, but some words got blurred by my own sobs and some were obviously spoken in a beautiful heavenly language. The Lord Jesus, who was standing by very close to us, was listening and understood every word!
I drove back to my hotel counting my blessings: health, strength to walk, voice to talk and sing and the list goes on and on… and
now an added “super blessing” by my friend, Eduardo.
Ralph
