Children

I may have mentioned this before, but I come from a town where the population never reaches above ten thousand within the city limits. The skyscrapers and houses of Santiago stretch to completely fill a bowl-shaped valley, a full six-million people strong. Blanket the valley with a cloak of smog, and it is as if there is no end to the urban maze.

The sheer vastness of the city manifested itself in the first half of our bus ride that morning. We started in Florida, situated on the east end of the valley, and were making for Val Paraiso, on the other end of the western coastal hills. It took nearly an hour to make it through traffic and to break through to the fresh air at the other end of the valley.

I kept to myself and stared out the window for the first half of that journey. I was too preoccupied with what had taken place earlier that morning to be intimidated by the millions of people, choking smog, and confusion that had been pressing down upon our group since our plane landed nearly a week before.

Crystal and I had woken up that morning yet again to a sleeping house. Only Hermana Delfina was awake, and she met us downstairs at the breakfast table with bread, blackberry jam, and Nescafe. She was quiet as usual, but somehow it was different that morning. There was a sadness there that she had not shown at the barbeque on Sunday.

"You travel to Val Paraiso today?" she asked as we shrugged on our jackets. It was cloudy and cool outside, the first real traces of the coming winter hanging in the air.

"Yes," I answered. "We are speaking at another Foursquare Church tonight."

"Ah, good," she answered. "My daughter is the pastor there. Can you tell her I said hello?"

"Yes, certainly," I answered. I hadn't realized that she had other children besides Ruth and Jose Luis. I stood there looking at this woman who barely stood level with my shoulder and wondered what her life had been like. I was so curious and wanted to know more about her, but we were pressed for time and in a foreign language I would never be able to form the questions that I wanted to ask.

"Delfina, how many children do you have?" I asked.

"Three," she answered. "Ruth, my daughter in Val Paraiso, and Jose Luis. But Jose Luis is sick."

"He's sick?" I didn't understand. I had just met Jose Luis and his family last night. He looked like a perfectly happy and healthy man in his thirties. What could possibly be wrong?

"Yes," she answered. "He was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and the doctors have said surgery will not help. They say he won't survive another few weeks. Will you please pray for him and his family while you are in Val Paraiso?"

"Delfina, I'm sorry. Yes, I'll pray."

"Okay, now go."

And she shooed us out the door.

When I hear things like that I automatically want to assume that I've been told a horrible joke. I certainly didn't want to believe that Jose Luis, whom I had just met and already liked, was going to die so soon. There are so many things about them that stand out in my mind - how his wife loved to laugh, how Jose Luis had inherited Hermana Delfina's calm dark eyes, and how the children looked after one another and were far closer than any American siblings I had ever met.

But it's the awful truth, and all Hermana Delfina asked of me was to pray. They ardently believe in miracles down there and our team witnessed many of them happen simply through the power of prayer. Men were freed from chronic pain, a blind woman saw light for the first time, the jobless found work and the depressed found hope. Couldn't there be hope for Jose Luis and his family also?

I haven't been able to contact my host family since I returned to the U.S., but I still take moments to sit down and pray for them. I honestly believe God could miraculously heal Jose Luis, if that's part of His plan. Christ told his followers that if someone had faith even the size of a tiny mustard seed, that person would be able to move mountains in His name. If He can raise the dead, He can heal a man who is still fighting for his life.