Picture: Rufina, in Temuco, Chile, shares her testimony online in 2020 about how God brought her to the hospital as a patient to share the power of God and the Gospel with everyone around her.
Missionaries Russ and Heidi Smith in Chile have seen God open doors globally for healing prayer and making disciples through the pandemic. Rufina, Heidi’s Bible study participant about whom you can read in the Spring/Summer 2021 edition of The Messenger, has continued to be used powerfully by God following her miracle-filled hospital stay in 2020.
Rufina received a prophecy, through someone she didn’t know in an online church service, that God would use her to minister internationally. So, Rufina began to pack her suitcase. The pandemic prevented travel, but God had other plans. After Rufina shared her testimony on an international New Wineskins Prayer Call with Heidi translating, a woman from Canada contacted Heidi and asked if Rufina could meet with her to pray for her personally. Rufina did meet with her and was a blessing to this woman on another continent.
That was not all! Rufina’s cousin, Alicia, has a friend, Lugardi, who lives in the Netherlands. Lugardi had terminal cancer and did not know Christ, and Alicia knew that Rufina had prayed for people who were sick. So Rufina in Temuco, Chile, and Alicia in Santiago, Chile met online with Lugardi, thousands of miles away in Europe. Rufina was able to share Christ Lugardi. Praise be to God, she received Christ and God also healed her from the cancer. Yet Lugardi didn’t have any in-person support for her new faith. She didn’t know where to go to get any kind of help in her spiritual life.
God forged a connection for Christian fellowship for Lugardi through Russ and Heidi, who have a friend, named Matthew, residing there. Matthew was a former missionary kid in Chile that the Smiths had met decades ago, and he had moved to the Netherlands because he married a Dutch woman. The Smiths reached out to him about Lugardi and said, “We don’t know this lady personally, but she needs spiritual support.” Matthew jumped on it and said he would make contact with this new believer. Not only was he able to make contact, but he’s been visiting her family on a regular basis. Lugardi’s husband, who was an atheist, now trusts in the risen Lord. Their children say, “we want to hear more about Jesus. Tell us more about him.” Not only did God use Rufina to bring His healing power across borders, He also used her alongside the international body of Christ to bring the Gospel to an entire family. Heidi says, “God wasn’t kidding when He said He would use Rufina internationally!”