Machetes and Miracles

(9.18.13)

“Josh gathered all the Americans, they locked hands around me and started praying; lifting me up before God, asking for deliverance from my pain, and healing for my hand…”

The man who told us this dream, experience, has been coming to get his arm cleaned for a couple of weeks now. There was an accident involving a machete and since then he has been unable to move his hand or fingers.

Worried the cut might be deeper than we originally thought Josh decided he would take him to get an x-ray and see if surgery was necessary, or possible. When he arrived this morning the above, and following, words are what he told Josh.

“…When I awoke from this dream I could move my fingers. Today I think I am going to accept Christ!”

Chills. Tears. That’s what we all experienced this morning as we were told what had just happened.

Our God is able beyond what we could ever comprehend. I think everyone’s faith was deepened today.

A bit later we get a text from Josh who is on the way to the hospital with this man, another little girl and our school nurse.  The school nurse is sharing the Gospel with him!!!

I am reminded how powerful prayer is, how important it is for us to pray for and with every individual we help. We try to make it a point to pray over each person we see in the clinic but for some reason we hadn’t with this man.

God also challenged me that even the small little things we do He can use mightily and do great things through them.

The following is from Beth Moore’s James Bible study.

“God is practical. He doesn’t ask us to do what doesn’t matter. What seems a drop in the bucket to you is a sip from the wellspring of life to someone about to thirst to death. Let’s muster the courage to ask Him to show us who to help and how. True religion is all hands on deck and all heads out of the sand. The mystery is that, there, we often find our own healing and fulfilling.

…You don’t live this kind of life accidentally. You make up your mind who you want to be and daily die to the rest. You surrender yourself to living in the tension where you’ll always be stretched and often be broken. Religion pure and undefiled is grit without the grime. You accept that far easier ways to live exist, but you were born for nothing less.”

So, even those things that seem like “a drop in the bucket” to me, God can turn into a “wellspring of life” for someone.

I am challenged to continue trusting God, to keep on keeping on and to not lose sight of Him in all the daily tasks of living; to not miss opportunities to serve, and lift up in prayer.

For I was born for nothing less.

(written a few hours later)

This evening we gathered to pray for Theodore, as we began to pray he showed up at our gate. In his own words he told us his dream and showed us how he could move his fingers and rotate his wrist. Things he couldn’t do the day before. Powerful moment! God restored Theodore’s hand!

We all gathered around, laying hands on him, and prayed.

One of our Haitian staff then led Theodore in prayer as he professed faith in Christ! A humbling, and joyous moment. All I could think was, “one day I will be worshipping in heaven with this brother.”

God is moving in this family, Theodore’s wife accepted Christ last Sunday! Pray for Theodore, his wife and their two sons as God begins this new chapter in their lives.

Words cannot describe these moments. I read this and it seems so inadequate to describe how God moved and what He did.