It "Just Happened" to be a Miracle

This morning started like any other Global Encounters day… we had to get up earlier than we wanted! But we all got over it pretty quickly, and we started our first full day in Lima. We all attended Pastor Nelson’s church, which is within walking distance of our hotel. The team got up and introduced themselves in Spanish. Most of the team is getting very good at this by now! Pastor Salazar preached a sermon and we actually had the luxury of a translation. Yay for Amalia! She is Pastor Nelson’s wife and will be working with us some this next week.After the service we all went out to lunch. We were eating a buffet style meal when Adrian began to have another reaction. She was helped out of the restaurant and onto the bus. Shortly thereafter I began to feel dizzy. I had not felt very good all day. The dizziness would kind of come and go, but it was decided that I should probably go out to the bus as well. So Global Encounters team member number two was helped out of the restaurant and onto the bus. We got several odd looks on the way out. Steven joked that we should try carrying out another couple of people just to see what kind of reactions we could get.Adrian’s condition began to worsen and so Elizabeth, Gene, Adrian, Kat, and I drove to a pharmacy to see if we could get an inhaler. The inhaler didn’t really do any good, and we decided that it was time to get Adrian to a hospital. God performed so many miracles in such a short amount of time that looking back on it makes one’s head spin. There “just happened” to be a hospital right around the corner. Gene, carried Adrian into a very crowded waiting room, and somehow everybody parted like the Red Sea and let us go right into the emergency room where there “just happened” to be one open bed with a doctor that “just happened” to speak English standing right there. It was almost like they had been waiting for us!Kat and I stood in the waiting room for about a half hour while the unusually competent medical staff got Adrian stabilized under the supervision of Gene and Elizabeth. Amazingly, throughout this entire episode I never felt dizzy. It’s amazing what a little adrenaline and a whole lot of prayer will do. Adrian was released from the hospital and we finally went back to the restaurant to pick up the rest of the team. There were all very happy to see Adrian looking better.This evening we went to the teen purity conference. It seemed like it went well and like the teenagers were really responding. It was a long evening, but it was good. The conference ended with a ceremony where the teens committed to staying pure and were given a promise ring by their parents. Some of the teens didn’t have parents attending, so a number of us stood in for the missing parents and prayed a blessing on the young people.The team is extremely excited about spending some quality time with their beds this evening and we are all looking forward to another day in Peru tomorrow!For the Team: Ruth (aka Rutita)Steven speaking at the purity conferenceThese are some pictures of the team members and teens after the sessions were finished. Many of these are the young people for whom we prayed during the ring ceremony earlier.KatieElizabeth JBaileyElizabethCharlie and Kat