This is a testimony from one of my brothers this month. I have enjoyed getting to know him and work alongside him almost every day! He is such a blessing! So I want to introduce you all to him – meet Satya Ana (Brother Satya):
One day, Satya was asked to share his testimony so it could be written down and saved for future use. He immediately said yes and asked if I wanted to join him while he shared it. Obviously I said yes – and I’m so glad I did because his story is so awesome! God has done some seriously incredible things in his life to bring Satya back to Him. Since it is such a great story, I thought it would be an encouragement for many others.
The first question Satya was asked when he sat down to share his story was, “What is your favorite Bible verse?” I was surprised to hear him say Psalm 118:17-18.
“I will not let you die but live, and will proclaim what the LORD has done. The LORD has chastened me severely, but he has not given me over to death.” ~ Psalm 118:17-18
I didn’t understand why that was his favorite verse until he told his story:
He was hired for work early in his teenage years. His job was working for a cable company, where he began learning from a trainer for 6 months. It was not related to what he had studied in school but he needed to keep working for financial reasons. The more he was working the farther away he moved from God. Because of his distance from God, he asked his manager if he could have Sundays off. At first his manager agreed and gave him the day off. But because Satya was so good at what he did, his manager kept him working on Sundays. Even though all his other co-workers had off, Satya had to work everyday. The more work he put in, the further away he became from God. He was earning about 1000 rupees a day (which is a lot of money in India). His father, who is a pastor (and came from a line of pastor), approached Satya and told him that he needed to stop placing work before God. God must be put before all things because He is more important than work. His dad encouraged him to seek God and to read his Bible. But Satya ignored his father’s instructions.
One day, Satya was riding his bike slowly, when normally he would ride really fast. While slowly driving, he hit two small children and knocked one of them unconscience, which resulted in a coma. The mother was extremely upset, sobbing when the children were rushed to the hospital. One child was ok. Satya prayed to God that he would dedicate his whole life to Him if the boy could live and be healed. Right after he said “Amen,” the boy woke up from his coma. Sadly, Satya forgot about his promise he made to God and went on living his life as normal. Satya was then in another accident which totaled his bike completely. But God saved his life, and he walked away without a scratch on him. When Satya brought his bike to the mechanic, he looked at the bike and said whoever drove this bike should be dead. He was amazed when he realized that Satya was walking and speaking in front of him.
A few days later, he awakened in the middle of the night to severe lower back pain. He went to the doctor who prescribed him some pain medicine for his discomfort. Whenever he took the medicine, he was ok. But when he wasn’t on the medication, he would experience extreme pain. Through all this pain that wouldn’t go away, the doctors finally took a few tests and eventually found stage 4 lung cancer in him. The doctors told his family that he was going to die. His parents decided to keep the medical news a secret from him. But Satya was old enough to know that something was seriously wrong and found out he had cancer by reading his charts. The doctors wanted him to take chemo treatments three times a month for 12 months to get better and stronger. So he began the treatment.
Satya pleaded before God to save his life and heal him from cancer. He prayed, “If Jesus will heal me, I will follow him.” During his prayer, he asked God to give him a plan for his life. Throughout his chemo treatment, Satya began losing all his hair, became very pale, and lost a lot of weight to where he became unrecognizable.
At this time, his father was a director of worship and was friends with Brother Prem. Eight months into his chemo treatment, Satya met Brother Prem who brought him to Covenant Worship. He told Satya that if he would come to CW that he may be healed through the presence of God. After two weeks of being at Covenant Worship, Satya was touched by the presence of the Lord but at the time he didn’t know it was the Holy Spirit.
During the next set of test results, the doctors couldn’t find any cancer. They sent the test results to one of the biggest hospitals in Mumbai where the doctors re-tested everything. Even there, the doctors could not find any sign of cancer. They were astounded that there was no more cancer in a stage 4 patient. He was cancer-free! Satya pointed all the healing and glory to Jesus!
Since that time, Satya has been apart of Covenant Worship, leading worship and preaching the Word. God has gifted him with the ability to preach Truth with knowledge and wisdom. He was also gifted with the ability to play drums, djembe, singing, and playing piano. He recently just graduated with 1 year of service in Covenant Worship and now has his own base through CW. He preaches and leads worship there with his team.
God has blessed him like crazy and he has the story to prove it! I’ve been so blessed to work alongside this brother all month, learning from him, having impromptu worship sessions with him, trying to talk with him and laughing because it just ends up being charades, and so much more….seriously, this brother is so on fire for God – it’s incredible! His joy is so contagious and God has totally anointed him in preaching the Word with bold passion, authority, and powerful love. He is fully devoted to his Heavenly Father.
Now you can understand just how much impact that verse from Psalms has had on him.
Meet my Ana (older brother) Satya:
We love our Satya Ana!
