When Jesus’ Love Reached a Little Old Man

Amazonian Wednesdays 🌴

August 2018
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“I was crazy thirty years ago, you know,” the little old man said to me softly. He had just sat down next to me. I looked at him curiously. I could feel Daddy God’s love for him.

His name was Eusebio. He was barely five feet tall. It was finally his turn. He had waited patiently in a very long line of sick people. We were holding a free medical clinic in his little town that day. His village of San Regis has a population of about 2200. It took us a two hour drive followed by an hour and a half long speedboat ride to make it there.

Eusebio and his people were exceedingly grateful that we had come. Their young people performed an exuberant welcome dance in tribal garb as we stepped off the boat. The mayor greeted us in excited, sweeping terms, grinning and gesturing energetically.

We got right to work. We pushed through past nightfall, seeing 800 patients that day. Eusebio’s turn came in the afternoon. His ear was bothering him, he explained.

But more than that, he wanted to tell his story.

There was good reason for his previous mental illness. He had fathered 24 children. Half of them died. He listed off for me the reasons they had passed away. He told me the age of each one at their deaths. His first little one, he shared, had drowned in the river at just four years old. “He would have been sixty-three this year,” Eusebio lamented with moist eyes. I was amazed at the richness of his memory.

Eusebio is eighty-four years old now. The pain of all his loss had driven him to insanity. “But then Jesus found me. He healed my mind and my heart,” he confided in me. His eyes were now red with tears. By now, there were tears in mine too. The thought of his lost children obviously still caused him a lot of heartache. He added emphatically, “God comforts me every day.”

Trying to pull myself together, I hugged Eusebio and led him to our ministry team. He received prayer, medicine, and vitamins. Most importantly, he received genuine love, warmth, and a listening ear.

When I lean in, I hear Jesus gratefully whispering, “So you have done it unto Me…”