Three Strikes and You’re…Saved!

Amazonian Wednesdays 🌴

January 2017
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It was 1998, my very first year as a missionary in Peru. I remember the skinny kid at my all-night prayer vigils every Friday, always mischievous. Daniel was his name. Always up to something, that impish grin on his face. Sometimes I wondered if he and his sidekicks just came to get away from home. I would put all of my young zeal into inspiring them to seek the Lord; they would put all of theirs into goofing off until it was time to go home. Was it all in vain?

When I got married and moved back to Peru in 2001, Daniel was no longer in church. He was running with the wrong crowd. But he had a praying mother who would not give up.

Fast forward to the end of 2015. Daniel, sadly, had become an alcoholic. One tragic evening, in a drunken stupor, he crashed his motorcycle. He came out of the incident unscathed. His wife Casandra, nearly dead. A serious injury to her neck had almost broken her spine.

The next several months were a battle for her life. Over and over, the family would be knocking at the church office doors. “PLEASE come pray! Casandra is dying again!”

In the midst of her agony, Casandra gave her heart to Jesus. She clung to Him and believed for healing. Slowly, new strength began to come into her. When six months had passed, she was on her feet again. Not much more time had gone by, and she had started her own hardware store. She even managed to lead her four sisters to the Lord. However, there was still pain in her life. Daniel continued in heavy bondage to alcoholism.

“You want to see him change? You’ve got to come to our corporate fasts and cry out to the Lord. There’s no other way! Don’t give up!” Casandra received these words deep in her heart as she began her Christian journey. She started coming to every single fast, every single Saturday. And when the Holy Spirit led, she admonished her husband: “If you don’t give yourself to the Lord, He is going to discipline you. You know better than this! You were in the church before I was!”

He continued to harden his heart. However, God had heard his mother’s prayers, accumulated in heaven for so many years. And now Casandra’s prayer and fasting was adding even more incense into the bowls of fragrance rising before Him. He knew what was necessary to get Daniel’s attention.

In November, Daniel was driving drunk again. He was in another serious accident where he should have died. He came out without hardly a scratch. In December, he survived the trauma of yet a third motorcycle accident which nearly cost him his life. Certain death had stared him terrifyingly in the face, ready to drag his soul to eternal torture. Awareness had gripped his entire being that he was not right with his Creator. At last, his inner man woke up. He was finally ready.

Daniel surrendered to Jesus last month. He cannot believe that not a bone in his body was broken in any of his three accidents. He is deeply, profoundly, overwhelmingly filled with gratitude for both an unbroken body and, finally, a spirit that has been filled with eternal life.

What are you praying for today? Have years gone by with no visible answer? Take it from Patty, Daniel’s mother. We “should always pray and never give up” (Luke 18:1). If you have a loved one on the road to hell, be strengthened and encouraged today! As you are crying out day after day for their salvation, don’t ever take no for an answer!