This is just one story of many from my recent journey across the Americas to Chile. About a month and a half ago I felt God saying to me that He wanted to stretch my heart for the nations. I simply just said, “Sweet God! Let’s do it!” and didn’t think much more about it. A few weeks later I felt God was urging me to go to Chile with a friend of mine who has a ministry that partners with foreign missionaries and church planters offering whatever kind of help they need. I tried to push it out of my mind because, quite honestly, I did not have the time or the money to take such a trip without planning or notice. For the next week I went to bed with Chile on my mind and woke up with it on my heart. I finally mentioned something to my wife about it and asked her to pray with me about whether I needed to go on this trip; if it was just me I didn’t want any piece of it, but if it was God I wanted to be obedient. A few days later, she said, “Kyle, I gotta talk to you about something.” In my head, I thought, “Oh no, what did I do?” Then she totally surprised me and said, “You are suppose to go to Chile.” I knew it was true, I knew it was God. So I tapped into our savings (don’t tell Dave Ramsey), bought a plane ticket, packed my bags, and left two weeks later.
The country itself is absolutely gorgeous, with the Andes Mountains standing proudly to the East, their summits still heavily capped with winter snow, and the endless bliss that is the Pacific to the West. It is very chilly there (pun totally intended), and the food is overwhelmingly exquisite with juicy steak, cooked-to-perfection potatoes, and boiled, seasoned clams and shellfish being some of the main dishes. I was super stoked to find that some of the finest coffee I’ve ever had was served at every one of the four meals a day. More beautiful than anything else were the people. Their hunger for God was apparent as soon as I engaged in attempting conversation, they with their broken English and me in a less-than-poor adventure in speaking Spanish. We had a team made up of my friend, a Chilean missionary, a few translators, a husband and wife who lead worship, and me. We traveled from the very Southern-most city that is reachable by vehicle called Puerto Montt, to the nation’s capital city, Santiago, within the 10 days I was there, totaling over 650 miles. Every evening we preached at a different church in different cities and brought the message of the faithfulness and provision of God. After the message we prayed and ministered to whoever needed or wanted prayer. I have never seen the power of God fall so strongly on a gathering in my life.
I’ll share one example of what God was doing throughout the week. We were at a church where many people came down to receive prayer after the message. We begin to pray for many of the people as God lead us and God began to move in the most powerful ways. As my translator relayed the things I was speaking, God began to speak to me more specifically and with more detail than ever in my life. I prayed for healing over a woman and watched her physically change. I prayed for healing over another woman and as I did my chest started burning with intense pain, which I initially assumed was caused by the mysterious shellfish/clam thing I ate the night before. As the pain increased, I wasn’t sure what was wrong so I jumped out on a limb and asked her if something was wrong in the middle of her chest. She exclaimed that she had had an operation in that exact spot two months ago and that it didn’t heal right and something was still wrong inside of her; it caused her much pain. I prayed for God to immediately heal her and as I did I felt the burning sensation go away and apparently she did too as she began to weep and cry out, “Gracias, Señor!” She said the pain was gone and that God had healed her. God is absolutely amazing!
I prayed over many more people for all kinds of different things and God continued to do miraculous things. One of the most incredible experiences happened late in the week as the service we were at was almost over. I had been praying for some people in the back of the room and was walking back up to the front. I past a young guy of probably 16 or 17 years old whom I noticed earlier in the evening. I knew earlier that I needed to pray for him and I kept waiting and waiting for him to come forward but he never did. As I past him, I called Francisco, my translator, to come over to him with me, and I said to the kid, “Can I pray for you?” He nodded slightly and I said, almost without thinking, “You knew you were suppose to come up earlier for prayer but you didn’t.” He looked down at the ground and nodded again. I told him that it was okay and that God wanted to move inside of him. I put my hand on his forehead and it was as if I immediately knew the core of who this kid was: his deepest insecurities, his internal thoughts, his secrets that he had never told anyone before. I began to speak the things that were going through my mind. I began to explain with uncanny detail the hurt and pain that he held inside of his heart and how he hid this all internally, shielding it from his friends and family. I revealed the outburst of rebellion within him and the sinful things he had been doing over the past year or so. I told him about his dysfunctional relationship with his dad and how he absolutely could not stand to be around his father. I knew it was because his father had emotionally and verbally abused him growing up and that he felt no love from his dad at all. I said that I saw him shutting the door to his room at night, pretending everything was alright, and then weeping in his brokenness and depression in his bed, crying himself into slumber. This was scary territory for me to be trudging through and I finally asked him if all of this was true. He finally looked up from the spot on the floor that he had stared a hole through and peered deep into my eyes, trying his hardest to hold back the tears. He nodded his head and said that every word I spoke was exactly right; it was all true. I then said something that I knew was the reason I was praying for him, “You hate God because you hate your dad. You think God is a father like your father. I am here to tell you that God is not like your father. He loves you more than anyone on this whole earth, from Chile to Texas, ever could. He is not mad at you. He doesn’t want to throw you in hell. He is madly in love with you and wants to know you, and He wants you to know Him.” At this, the boy broke down. The coldness rushed from his eyes in the form of ever-swelling tears holding the emotions of years and years of loneliness and brokenness. With streams forming vertically down his desperate face, I began to tell him the miraculous Gospel of Jesus, and his gaze never broke mine. I explained,” Jesus took all of your sin, all of your loneliness, all of your emptiness, and all of your brokenness to the cross where He died the most gruesome and horrific death in the history of the world. He went into the grave taking with Him all of your junk. Three days later He arose from the dead, the only person in history to have victory over death, and in the pit of the tomb He left all of your sin and brokenness. He is alive today. He wants to give you life. He is here now and wants to bring you life –real life, abundant and full life, joyful life where He is your Lord and your Lover.” I told him that Jesus is real and that the reason I knew all the stuff about him was because His Spirit was in me, speaking to me, and leading me as I spoke and prayed over him. ”Jesus has given me life, He has rescued me from death, He has rescued me from my brokenness and pain, He has saved me from the mess I got myself into. Do you want Him to do the same for you?” With the puddle of tears on the tiles below growing larger, he said, “Yes, I want Jesus!” I lead him to the Lord, telling him to pray to God and ask Him to forgive him, ask Him to save him, ask Him to live in him, and ask Him to grant him life. As the boy prayed, I watched the Spirit of God fall on him, moving deep inside his heart and restoring life and hope and love within the almost forgotten depths of this kid’s soul. I was a spectator of the amazing grace of God rushing over a wretched man, as the Creator of the universe stole back what was rightfully His to begin with–the life of this teenage boy. God did many incredible things during this journey and it was an awesome blessing to join Him in His work. I pray that this testimony of His grace and truth and Spirit and power would fall deep upon your heart, bringing encouragement and refreshment to your spirit. May God bless you as you seek Him and as we are obedient to the things He calls us to do, may He bring light and grace and truth and life to the ends of the earth.
