Dear WORLD, GOD HEALS. He is ALIVE. He didn’t just do crazy powerful stuff in the bible. He is STILL doing it. How do I know? I’ve seen it. And I have felt it. This is the story of how God healed me. It is about time that I told it to you.
Six months ago; Carrefour, Haiti
I have had a fever of 103 or higher for three days now. In those three days I have not eaten anything. All of the energy I have had was used to either walk to the restroom, pray or sing to Jesus, oh and yell at Satan.
I am living with 18 other women this month and we have been sharing everything, including germs. And this bug that has been going around has been a nasty one; high fevers, nausea, headaches, diarrhea and stomach cramping, vomiting, body aches, rashes, fatigue and to top in all off, a horrible taste on the back of your tongue that is like fermented grapefruit that will not go away no matter how much your scrub your tongue. All of this is wrapped up in the pretty package of being in a third world country in mid-summer heat, where you eat rice and canned fish every night for dinner, where running water (including toilets and showers) consists of one dripping faucet outside (it drips a little faster when it is on), where there is electricity for maybe an hour every day (that means no A/C, no microwave, no fridge). And finally the hardest part in my opinion, no beds or furniture. Just backpacking sleeping pads (puts a whole new meaning to the stories in the bible where Jesus said, “Take up your mat and walk”). Bottom line, this is not a fun place or way to be sick.
I miss my mom. I miss tapioca pudding (my sick day food). I miss squishy couches and air conditioning. I miss hot chai tea. I miss good American grade drugs and doctors that know what they are talking about. I miss the movies I would watch when I was sick back home; The Never-ending Story, Fantasia, Dirty Dancing. I miss the THINGS that make me comfortable and that I am so use to RELYING on.
So today my squad leader Erin decided that it was time to go to the Hospital, and I didn’t disagree.
There were three other invalids that loaded up with me (Liz, Robert and Amber) plus one of our squad leaders (Chelsea) and two of our squad mates that are American nurses (Hannah and Andrea). Our first stop was Doctor’s Without Boarders in Port Au Prince, where we heard rumors there were American doctors serving. The rumors were wrong.
I was tested for Malaria (negative), and then Robert and I were forced into an intensive care room because our fevers were so high and had not broken in days.
I saw and heard some of the most terrifying things in my life while in that room.
A little girl with three bullet holes in her tiny body, a teenage girl that had been hit by a car and had a bone sticking outside of her calf, a little boy with barbed wire wrapped all the way up his mangled legs, and paper curtains that hid medical terrors accompanied by the most gruesome screams.
I sat on the corner of the bed they placed me on and prayed the whole time. If this was normal day to day, three years after the quake, I could not even imagine what the real thing would have looked like.
A woman came and checked me out, asking questions in French creole. We had a pleasant conversation and she taught me the word for apple. It felt so surreal. Then she handed me a metal dish and said, “pee pee”. No curtains, no bathroom. Pee pee.
They could not do anything for us and eventually gave us the name of another hospital and sent us on our merry way. But on the way things started going downhill fast. Robert and I started to get worse and by the time we pulled into the hospital we could barely walk. And nothing could have prepared us for what we were about to walk into.
As we walked up we saw two women pulling a body out of a car, dead. A man with a tumor so big it was like a second head drooping from his chin. A man on crutches with a nub of a leg, dripping green. This was a place with no hope, where hope and people came to die. And we were about to walk in.
But first, I had to give my mother’s maiden name and my birthday at the front door. I waited in line with our translator and was growing increasingly weaker. By the time I got to the window it was all I could do to stand up, so I leaned my head against the wall and croaked out the information. The women behind the desk abruptly started shouting at me. The translator relayed the message, “Don’t touch anything!” And sure enough, as I pulled my face away from the wall and my eyes focused I saw what she meant. The wall was streaked with colors; orange, green, brown, red. Colors not caused by paint. I was too weak to care but Andrea took a wet wipe to my face as we walked into the hospital. Sweet sister.
Inside the building; more gore and even less hope. Bodies lying on the ground unconscious, bodies huddled head between knees in pain, no clean white floors or nurses in pressed scrubs here. No sounds of ambulances or hospital reception calls. People sat in piles and waited. Eyes locked on us as we walked through the door. “Blanc”, white people. White means you have money and supplies and can help. But the hope was fleeting as they saw Robert, Amber and I being supported on other’s shoulders. Liz’s fever had broken in the car on the drive over so she was now holding me up.
They brought is into an exam room and a male nurse started to barrage us with questions. I was first to be interrogated and they hooked me up to a BP machine. Beep, beep, beep. “How long have you been sick…. Four days. When did your fever break last…. It hasn’t. Low blood pressure runs in your family.” Not a question, but a statement. “No, it does not.” But while he argued with me about my own family’s medical history the beeps stated to get further apart.
beep… beep…… beep……..
And the last thing I remember is turning to Andrea and saying, “Can you please tell him to stop yelling at me, I am going to pass out now.”
Darkness.
There is something so incredibly free about being completely out of control. American culture is a culture of being in control. As human beings we live in a state of trying to maintain control. We control our futures, our habits, our desires, each other. We grip and we pull and we wrestle to get what we desire or to protect ourselves, because we are too scared to trust. But it is all a ruse. Our sense of control is about as sturdy as vapor. And in this moment I came face to face with the fact that I could not protect or save myself. I was completely out of control.
My nurse friends (Andrea and Hannah) could not fix me (though Lord knows they tried), this Haitian hospital had nothing to offer me, and everything else that this world could offer me to rely on had failed. And as the world around me grew dark one thing was illuminated; the One that could save me. The One with the control. Jehovah Rapha; God the Healer. When everything else failed He was all I had. And all I could do was hand over all of my control and give Him the one thing I could offer in its place. My trust.
I woke up slumped over in a chair with my head between my knees. There was one Haitian woman to my right and another to my left. They had looks of concern that said, “I hope she is not contagious. That looks bad”. And in front of me, arms waving frantically in prayer was Liz, climbing her way to the throne room to let God Himself know we needed Him to show up and pronto.
When my senses started to work again, my brain was alerted of a strange sensation near my ears. My hands reached up and felt water… dripping off my earlobes. Within moments I realized I was dripping all over. Elbows, chin, eyelashes. I grabbed my shirt and pulled it up to wipe my face. “Liz, what is happening? I am dripping.” “Dude, I don’t know. I think your fever just broke.” I sat there amazed. There was a puddle of sweat at my feet and not a dry spot on my clothes, and the Haitian women to my left and right looked extremely concerned. And I felt wonderful. I felt healed. I stood up and asked Liz where the others were. “Andrea went to go buy some saline from a street vendor. She was going to IV you but this hospital has no supplies. There aren’t even any beds. Robert is in a different part of the hospital with Chelsea and Amber is with Hannah in the room across the hall. Robert and Amber looked pretty bad too… Dude, I think Jesus just healed you. I think he just showed up.” “Yeah…”
And then the laughing started, Liz and I. And we could not stop. We were kids. Innocent and filled with delight in our Father. People thought we were insane. But as I laughed and thanked Jesus, Robert appeared one the scene. Drenched… dripping… and with a nonchalant smile that said, “Hey guys, what’s up?” The laughing intensified. And then Amber joined our glee, a sopping wet blond with a big grin across her pretty face. All three of us were soaked! We were each in three different parts of the hospital with no way to communicate and no one who could help. And all of our fevers broke, at the same time.
“Heaven met earth like a sloppy wet kiss!” And it left us dripping!
The levy broke and released the sweet flood of heaven! And it was a flood of hope that drenched the hospital and dripped from the walls and left little puddles at people’s feet. We whooped and hollered, giving high fives and thanking Jesus. And soon people began to approach us and ask for prayer. They had seen the miracle and they wanted, they needed it too. And the Father is not greedy and He does not play favorites with His children. So we prayed and we watched people get healed. One woman with kidney pain opened her eyes wide in wonder and joy as the pain left her. Another girl on the floor with a Ziploc baggie for an IV stopped seizing and woke up when we prayed. She was lying in a pile of her own throw up but woke up in her mother’s thankful arms.
You could feel the atmosphere change. Joy spread faster than an airborne contagion. The name “Jezi Jezi” was praised from Haitian lips.
Within the hour we were home. Half the squad was there to meet us.
“What the heck, the last thing we heard was that things were getting bad and people were passing out. We have been praying nonstop. What happened?”
I smiled and said, “Take my temperature.”
Beep. 97 degrees.
Haha, y’all Jesus is good! He healed me. He is a healer!!! Since then I have found out that we probably had dengue fever. Nasty stuff. But I would not trade this experience for an all-expense paid trip to the moon. I was bedridden for almost a week with a raging fever, unable to eat and unable to do anything for myself. But I learned how to trust and how to be loved. Both apparently two HUGE thing I needed help learning. While on that bed pad I received constant prayer and even daily massages. I always had someone to hold my hair back when I was sick and even got my nails done, fire red. But after I learned to accept others love and service, and healing was brought to the deep areas of me that hid lies that said I was too unworthy to be loved or served, Jesus still saw my physical need. And he drew near and did what only he had the power to do. He healed me.
And it kills me to look back and see how much I had doubted; his goodness, his ability to provide and take care of me, his ability to heal. I had relied so much on my own strength. “He can heal my soul but I am not so sure about my body?” That is jacked up. He MADE this body. Knit it together in my mother’s womb. I had been walking hand in hand with him for four years, proclaiming “I BELIEVE!” and even praying healing over others, more hoping than actually believing. And he decided it was time to get back to the basics and fill in the cracks in the foundation.
Christianity 101’s favorite verse;
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that whosoever BELIEVES in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
I had come face to face with my own lack of belief. And it did not even matter. He still loved me and he healed me anyway.
“Beloved, I love you. I am here. Now take up your mat and walk.”
