Answered Prayers
We are now in the cold, brisk south of Chile but it took many long days of driving through hot, arid deserts to get here. Our Durango is still in northern Peru being repaired and our Ford van had been consistently overheating in the deserts because of pulling the Durango’s pop-up trailer. As a team we came to the consensus that it was time to let go of one of the pop up trailers to avoid motor failure with our van which has already had its transmission rebuilt twice on this journey. The camper trailer was nowhere near peak condition because of the hundreds of times putting up and down these past seven months and we did not have the ability to attempt to sell it. We prayed that God would show us a poor family we could bless there in Chile with it. So many people live in grass and dirt houses there in the deserts that it would be as luxury for them to live in. We had crossed the border from Peru into Chile and still had a couple thousand Kilometers of desert to drive through before we arrived at our destination in Santiago. I felt the urgency to find a place for this camper trailer soon and kept praying the whole journey for the Lord to give us a place where we could leave it and I was honestly really tempted to leave it on the side of the road somewhere. Then I found myself turning off the road at a small house standing alone at a crossroads in the desert. It had a small family restaurant that served as a rest stop for truck drivers passing through. Our whole caravan pulled in there and I went in asking for the owner of the house and asked the woman there if she would like the camper for free. She looked surprised and shocked and I brought her outside and we set it up to show her. She said yes without hesitation and her husband and family seemed more excited and thankful with every little gadget on it that we showed them. The husband shared with us how his wife had been praying for a camper for I believe two years and had seen them occasionally pass and always had always wanted one. Chile is actually the first country on this trip where we have seen other tent trailers and frequent motor homes, so before here no one would of actually knew what it was. We pulled it around back for them so that they could set it up as part of their home and then all took photos together with it. They made sandwiches and refreshments for all of us as a way of saying thank you before we continued on our journey. That day our prayers and the prayers of that family met and were answered together as we became the answer to their prayers and they for ours. God is so good how He works things out!
Living Out the Gospel
The journey to Santiago had drained our finances with all the fuel and travel expenses from such a long trip. Chile is the most expensive country so far in South America and we needed a break from spending money. A local pastor from the poorer side of the City invited us to come and stay at his church and minister with them. It was just a small simple church and most everyone just slept inside the sanctuary together on the floor. Every day the women from the church would come cook us wonderful meals and they never wanted anything in return. We ministered at their services and many people were healed of illnesses and filled with the Holy Spirit. We preached about living out the Gospel and carrying the glory of Jesus in every place we go. After a great night of Holy Spirit blowout a few of us took a late night walk up to the gas station to grab some snacks before bed. Ben called me over to the cash register to help him translate something in Spanish to the girl attending. He began prophesying life and destiny over her and immediately tears began to stream down her face. She became overwhelmed by the love and presence of God and later had to call someone else over to attend the cash register while she rushed outside weeping. Who knows what she had been going through previously but that night she encountered God’s love for her as we applied what we had been preaching right there in the gas station supermarket in the middle of the night. On our way back to the church we passed by a couple men drinking in the park and stopped and talked a little bit. Ben started prophesying over one of them about what he had been going through in life and what he needed to do. At first the man was offended saying, “How do you know these things about me?” but afterward he seemed thankful that we stopped when we explained it was the Holy Spirit revealing these things and he said he would really think about it. It is so good that missions and living out the Gospel can be more than just arranged meetings and programs, but it is a lifestyle of being the Love of Jesus extended at all times available for His Holy Spirit to speak through and His hands to heal. 
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