Juan and the Handkerchief

It was about ten o’clock in the morn­ing that day in Tamazunchale, Mexico, when Brother Juan knocked on my door. He had walked two hours down the moun­tain from his remote vil­lage of Coatzontitla, where he pas­tored a church of about seventy-five peo­ple. On this day he had not come to talk about the church but about his one-week-old daugh­ter. Soon after the baby had been born, she had con­tracted a skin infec­tion that the vil­lage peo­ple called “gra­nos.” Granos are small pus-filled pim­ples that are very painful. Juan said the baby was cov­ered with the infec­tious bumps. They were even in her ears and mouth, and she would not eat. The church had prayed but the baby still was not healed.

I sug­gested to Pastor Juan that we talk with the phar­ma­cist about some med­i­cine for the child. When we described the baby’s con­di­tion to the phar­ma­cist, he was alarmed, and told us if we did not take the baby to the doc­tor imme­di­ately the child might die. Juan and I left the phar­macy and began to walk back to my house. I knew he was afraid and he was think­ing he could not afford to pay for a doctor’s appoint­ment. Just as I was about to cross the street, I sensed a very soft voice: Pray over a hand­ker­chief. Tell Juan to take the hand­ker­chief back to the vil­lage and lay it on the baby, and the baby will be healed. 

I told Juan what the Holy Spirit had said, and asked him, “Do you want to take the baby to the doc­tor or do you want us to pray over the hand­ker­chief?” Juan said, “Yo quiero con­fiar en Dios.” That’s Spanish for, “I want to trust in God.”

Brother Juan and I went back to my house, and I read him the Scripture:

God gave Paul the power to per­form unusual mir­a­cles. When hand­ker­chiefs or aprons that had merely touched his skin were placed on sick peo­ple, they were healed of their dis­eases, and evil spir­its were expelled (Acts 19:11–12 NLT).

Juan and I prayed over the hand­ker­chief and he took it back to the vil­lage. Later Juan told me that they had laid the hand­ker­chief over the baby and prayed for her. The next morn­ing the baby still had some pim­ples on her skin, but there was no pus; the pim­ples were dry. A cou­ple of days later the bumps were gone and the baby’s skin was just as soft as that of any other new­born baby! It was a great tes­ti­mony to the power of God. They told every­body in the vil­lage and many peo­ple were saved when they heard about the heal­ing.

As awe­some as that mir­a­cle was, I have never prayed over another hand­ker­chief to heal the sick. Maybe I should, but I have never heard the Lord tell me to do it again. It’s impor­tant that we have a word from the Lord, because faith comes into our hearts when we hear God speak to us (Rom 10:17). If we know God has spo­ken to us, we can be sure He will be faith­ful to do what He said He would do (I John 5:14–15).