The first half of this blog is a blog that I never ended up posting in Cambodia. However the Lord is good and faithful and we were able to see the fruit of our prayers and God perform a MIRACLE so I had to share.
Yun is his name.
I have met people and seen things that I can’t wrap my head around or even come close to writing about them. The day I met Yun was a hard day. A day and a man that will forever be in my heart and mind.
We met him on our 3rd day in Cambodia and since then I have prayed for him everyday since we left him. His wife came to the medical outreaches that C3 church does every Tuesday and Thursday and told Teresa our host that her husband had not been himself lately. She thought that he had been possessed by a demonic spirit and wanted us to come and pray over him.
So that’s what we did.
My whole team and our contacts took the tuk-tuk to Yun’s families’ house in a nearby village. We walked up the wooden steps to find Yen laying down and very unresponsive to any of us. We found out that Yun has had HIV for years and has not gotten the treatment for it. For quite a bit of time we tried to talk to Yun. We told him that we were at his house to pray for him and that Jesus wanted to heal him. That we loved him. That he had so many people who loved him. But there was no response. Nothing. Yun just laid there in pain and with the look of hopelessness on his face.
After we finished praying for Yun, we asked him if we could take him to the hospital to get treatment for his boils all of his body. He refused and just laid there with no response. Teresa asked him if she could clean his boil. It was the largest boil I have ever seen. This boil was on his back and the size of my hand and very, very infected. I started to help Teresa but got very lightheaded at the site of his boil and had to sit down and drink some water while she finished cleaning it.
As she was cleaning it he just kept moving farther and farther away from it. You could tell that he was in so much pain from the boil and so wear. He didn’t say a word however. We offered one more time to take Yen to the hospital but he refused. During this time his wife, daughters, parents, and brother were all crammed in the room with us and there were so many tears. This man was not himself. He had lost all hope in living. He wanted to die.
I wish that I could tell you that we prayed for him and that Jesus healed him and he was back to his normal self. But that’s not the case. We prayed for Yun. And all 9 of us prayed hard. I prayed hope over him. That he would come to the realization that he needs Jesus. That he knows that he has a wife, daughters, brother, parents, and friends who all support him and love him. That he doesn’t have to give up.
We left Yun and his family with blessings and telling them that we would continue to lift them up in prayer and check up on them again. The long term missionaries that we are working alongside will be visiting him and his family and hopefully I will get an update. But until then I’m holding out hope. Holding out hope that Jesus knows far more than I ever do. That God’s will is not to punish Yun. That He hasn’t forgotten about him.
Well, that was at the beginning of the month. And three weeks later this is an update on Yun!
Miracles are real people. Honestly, I was a skeptic before this year. I thought that it was a thing that only Jesus did 2,000 years ago. But the fact is that you and I have the authority to perform miracles because we have Jesus inside of us.
“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”—John 14:12
This is Yun now
I know.
It’s almost impossible to believe, but I promise you this is the same man in the previous picture.
He is a completely different man than he was only a few short weeks ago. When we left Yen he was laying in the fetal position with no hope and no response at all to our presence.
However, half of our team went to go visit him again but when they got to his house he was not there. He wasn’t at home because he was out walking around the village. He was up and walking! So Teresa went back the next day and was able to see him. She asked if he remembered her or any of us and he said “no, nothing.” His boil is almost completely healed and she was able to share the Gospel with him and invited him to church.
In the moment I realized how much The Lord listens to our prayers, that being persistent in prayer matters to God, and to always always always hold out hope.
“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” Romans 12:12
“pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18
Picture credits to our awesome host Teresa McMillan and my legit team mate Jayce Van Der Linden
