Healer of Pain Chp. 19

Chapter Nineteen 

The Revival

Caleb woke up. He was on the concrete floor. Matthew laid on the bed snoring.

Caleb stood up and stretched. The morning sun slid through the open windows. 

“Let’s find breakfast.” He said to himself. He tiptoed out the door and into the busy streets. He breathed in the air and sighed contently. 

Suddenly Caleb looked down to see a small girl tugging on his shirt.

“Krpaya! Krpaya!” She cried.

She was the same little girl he had met monthes ago. 

“Healer of Pain.” She spoke. “Krpaya.”

Caleb smiled and bent down on his knees. “I’ll do the best I can. Can you take me to your family?”

The girl smiled and grabbing Caleb’s hand, started a fast run down the streets. 

Marion jumped off the plane. A man stared. “More?”

“More what?” Marion thought of an idea. “Sir, did you happen to see two white people come around here? One was a nurse with blonde hair.”

The man paced. “As a matter of fact, I did. And I’ll tell you where they went, for a quarter.”

Marion sighed. “Sure.” She dropped the coin in the man’s hand.

“They went that way to the Brazilian City.”

Marion’s face lit up. “Thank you so much. Come on, Andrew!” 

Erin walked down the Brazilian streets. People shouted at her, asking for money or wanting her to buy their products. 

“Excuse me!” She yelled. Erin nearly fell over a short little man who happened to be the same man Caleb met.

“I have rooms!” He screamed.

“How much?” Erin looked down to him.

The man grinned. “I have never been asked how much…how much do you have?”

“Um…” Erin opened her handbag and took out forty dollars. “I have this.”

“Not anymore, you don’t!” A little boy snatched it from her grasp and ran through the crowds.

“Hey, get back!” Erin went after him. 

“Wait!” Theodore waved his hands, trying to get her attention. When it was no use, he sat on a bench and sighed. 

“Great. Who knows when she’ll be back?” 

Erin ran through the streets. “Wait! I need that to get home!” She made some sort of noise she didn’t know existed. Kind of like a, “Arghh!” She was flaming mad. When she turned around, the little man was there.

“I don’t have the money. I can’t pay you.”

“Ahh, that okay. It’s free.” The man tugged on her hand.

“Wait, I need to get Theo—”

The man quickened his pace and led her through the crowds.

“We have to hurry before sundown.”

“What’s sundown?”

“That’s when robbers come, bad things, they are. It’s best to stay inside. That sleepyhead better have left by now.”

It just so happened to be, at the exact second Erin walked in, Matthew walked out. And neither of them noticed each other. 

The man introduced himself. “I am Mesa. Now, come with me and I will show you your room. Pray it is clean. Yesterday I had two foreigners come in here. One left early, the other slept until passed noon.”

“Two foreigners?” Erin thought for a moment. “You didn’t happen to catch their names, did you?”

Mesa shrugged. “Nah. Not me. I would have forgotten them anyway.”

 

Theodore sat quietly. He listened to the sounds of the birds and the children playing. He remembered Caleb’s words, 

“Trust Him. Love Him. He’ll always be there. I have decided to follow Jesus. Will you?”

“I will.” Theodore whispered to himself. He stood up on a box and shouted, “I have decided to follow Jesus!”

People stopped and stared. Some just went on with their day.

“I do…because He saved me when I was desperate. He loved me when I felt unloved. He comforted me when I needed comforting. He came to me when the world seemed to walk away. So I say to you now, will you join me in following Him? Will you be a citizen of the faith and earn a spot in God’s house?”

Some people began talking amongst themselves.

Then suddenly a man walked out of the crowds. “I want to follow Him. The one you speak of.”

Theodore laughed joyously. “Knock and the door will be opened! Seek and you will find!” Theodore closed his eyes and recited, “For God so loved the world that He gave His One and only Son, that whosoever believeth in Him will not perish but have everlasting life! Will you take it? Will you take His offer? Will you submit to Him and love Him, and trust Him, and give everything to Him? Will you follow Him? For the rest of your days?” Theodore recited more and more. He kept going and going, sharing wonderful things until it happened.

People began crying. 

Some fell on their knees.

Some nearly fainted.

Some laughed tears of joy.

“He picked me up, when I fell. He takes care of me daily. He loves me daily. I was lost before. I drowned myself in self-consciousness and self pity. But He helped me. And I feel freer than I’ve ever felt in all my life! "

Caleb heard the cries and laughs. He saw people on the ground. He even saw one shaking.

A man ran through town shouting, “Revival! It’s a revival!”

Caleb gasped. “What?” He pushed his way through the people and saw Theodore standing on the box.

“He’s—he’s preaching.” Caleb laughed out loud. “Theodore! Theodore!”

Theodore heard his voice. “Caleb?”

Caleb ran as fast as he could and dashed into him, nearly knocking him over. But they didn’t seem to care.

Theodore hugged him as tight as he ever did. “I—I thought you were dead!”

Caleb got a good look at him. “I thought I was too. Matt—Matthew saved me.”

“He what?”

“He’s here somewhere.” Caleb looked around. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

“Just stay here and keep preaching!”

Caleb ran through the streets.

Erin walked out from the house and stretched. “I forgot all about Theodore!”

As she walked she saw the back of someone’s head. A head that had dusty brown hair rather than black.

Erin shrugged.

Caleb turned around. He saw a lady’s head with blonde straight hair. “It couldn’t be…” Caleb’s gaze turned to Akin. He needed to follow him.

Erin looked over the crowds. She saw Akin fleeing somewhere. “I need to find out where he is going.”

Caleb ran one way, Erin the other.

They seemed to run for a while. The crowds grew larger and the revival stronger.

Erin ran and then stopped to catch her breath. “How will I ever find him?” She looked at a house with a thatched hay roof. She thought of an idea.

Erin climbed up on the house. She was very high and could see over everyone’s heads. She squinted. Is that…is that Akin? She stepped forward and the hay slipped.

Erin screamed and plummeted off the roof, nearly touching the ground, when someone caught her.

“Are you okay miss—” Caleb stopped.

Erin looked at him. 

“What are you doing here?” They both asked at the same time.

Erin laughed. “You first.”

Caleb laughed as well. “I don’t think it matters too much!” He hugged her and she cried tears of joy.

“I thought you—never mind what I thought. You’re here, alive, all in once piece!” Erin’s hands left him and she wiped her forehead. 

“Erin. Did you come all the way across the world…for me?”

Erin laughed. “I couldn’t just go home.”

“It was crazy.”

“Yeah, I know. But I’m cool like that.”

Caleb laughed happily. “Only you would say something like that.”

Erin laughed. “I couldn’t help myself.”

He grinned mischievously. “Does this mean we’re…”

“Engaged?” She finished the sentence.

Caleb quickly bent down. “Erin Micheals. Will you marry me?”

Erin took his hand and helped him back up. “You bet I will.”