“Cheeka, Hold the Eggs”

What does it look like to pursue people the way Jesus pursues us? This is a question I’ve asked myself a couple times. I think that the obvious answer is to love as he loves but once again… what does that really look like. I’ve seen the Lord’s love in my life in many ways. He has shown time and time again that he cares about the little things even if it’s providing a bus/van/ or truck that takes us all the way up the giant hill to our house in the mountains on our way home. The Lord cares for us.

One of the ways that I have felt loved by the Lord most recently has been by getting to use my passion for agriculture overseas. I mentioned the coffee shop Contour Lines in one of my previous blogs. I got to learn more about their mission and all of the good work that they are doing this past weekend. I talked to the owner of this non profit for quite some time this past Saturday. I asked his advice on starting a garden on prayer mountain. We got to meet in the common ground of our passion for Agriculture as we differed in beliefs about who God is. The Lord has been so sweet to lead me into those spaces and I’m excited to continue pressing in and learning.

After that experience I ran into a woman on my way to meet up with the rest of my team. She had the kindest eyes. I stopped to talk to her and she told me some of her story and asked if I could help her. The hard reality is that I don’t have the means to provide the things that she was asking. I don’t have much money, and I don’t have the means to give her a house. But as believers we carry the gospel around with us and I believe that the gospel is enough. I told her that I don’t have the things she is asking for but I do have Jesus and I asked her if I could pray for her and she agreed. I started to pray in Spanish and then decided to pray over her in English so that I could say all of the things I wanted to. As I was praying for her the door that we were standing near opened and a lady handed her a bag of food. The Lord provides and cares for us.

After I met up with my team we headed to the grocery store and began to get the food that we needed for the week. After the grocery store we needed to head to the market in Antigua for produce. My friend Cheeka and I waited on the side as Elijah and Morgan got the produce we needed. We watched a man walk by with a visibly deformed and infected hand. It was almost like the holy spirit lit a fire underneath me and I practically threw the eggs at Cheeka and said “Cheeka, hold the eggs”. I jogged over to this man and touched his shoulder. I then realized that I had a first aid kit in my backpack. So I pulled it out and then realized that Morgan was a nurse so I called for her and motioned her over. I quickly remembered that Elijah spoke Spanish so I called him over. Morgan wrapped his hand. He told us that his hand has been like this for four years. It was severely burned and looked like the wound was freshly opened. After we wrapped it we prayed for him and continued on our way.

After getting on the bus Morgan felt strongly that we needed to provide him with medical supplies to keep it covered and stop it from getting infected. We trusted that the holy spirit would allow us to find him again. Sure enough we found him again. We tried to communicate with him but he didn’t seem to understand so we decided to go to the pharmacy and come back. We went to the pharmacy, acquired what we needed and then went back to the area we saw him last. We found him AGAIN. Thanks God. We explained to him that we were going to show him how to take care of it and then give him the supplies. We then prayed for him again and gave him the supplies. I looked back as we walked away and saw him putting the supplies in his backpack. As we left I felt at peace. I have continued to intercede for him in hopes that he finds the means to get surgery on his hand because of how severely it was deformed.

I just kept praying that this man would feel the Lord pursuing him through us. I want that to be my daily prayer. That people would be able to feel the Lord’s love through my team and I. The Lord cares about us so deeply and I want everyone to experience that depth of His love.

Thanks for reading!! Until the next story!

-Lex