“Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” – John 5:8. If you think you know where this blog is going with that verse as the intro….well, you may just be right.
I’m not even sure how to begin to tell this story, so I guess I will start with yesterday. You read in my last blog about our door-to-door ministry this month and how God is working on the hearts of the people of this area. Just making sure you’re keeping up with me.
Yesterday was another day of ministry. We had a new translator but our group of three stayed the same. At our last house of the day we found two women outside (they seem to always be in pairs in my stories). We began our usual intro of who we are and what we are doing here and come to find out that they are both Roman Catholic. I have learned that means about the same as what being Muslim is; it seems to be more of a title rather than a religion to them, and a rare few are usually practicing. The women were open to listening so we were able to share the gospel with them. They listened but didn’t seem very moved. We went to the next step and asked if there was anything we could pray for and one woman (whose house it was) asked if we could pray for her mother. 
We were led into the door on the side of the house which led into a room where we found an elderly woman sitting on the floor. She was eating rice and had pieces stuck all over her face. Her eyes were grayish blue rather than the typical dark brown and she wasn’t very responsive to us. I immediately thought Alzheimer’s or something having to do with her age. Her daughter proceeded to tell us that 10 years ago she began to lose function of her body and has been paralyzed in the legs since then. She continued to explain how they had been to the man who calls himself Prophet Joshua and also they had been to some witch doctors. After a few minutes of explaining the healing power that comes through Christ, the daughter decided she wanted to accept Christ in her life. Teammate Bek leaned over to me and whispered, “Do you have the gift of healing?” “I don’t know, I don’t think so, but we can all still give it our best shot.” We prayed with her and then turned our attention back to the precious woman on the floor. We laid our hands on her legs and prayed, with all four of us lifting our voices up to the Great Physician. Nothing. Cool, well you can’t say we didn’t try. We encouraged the daughter to not lose faith and to keep praying and trusting in the will of God…then we left. Is that how you expected that to go?
Today, this is when the story gets good. We were on our way back to the church after another day of walking door-to-door and the path led us past the house of the paralyzed woman. Our translator suggested we stop by and pray for her again. The daughter greeted us and proceeded to lead us to the door, but she didn’t go in and continued to walk around to the back of the house while we waited by the door. Sarah commented, “How amazing would it be if the mother walked around that corner?” Just the thought of that happening left me kinda speechless. As we talked, the daughter came back around the corner…with her mother WALKING next to her! Our jaws dropped as we starred at each other. A laugh of astonishment came out of both of us. My human brain began to wonder if we had a translation mistake and the woman wasn’t really paralyzed yesterday. After getting our translator to clarify about four times he finally said, “She was UNABLE to walk yesterday.” Can I just stop here and say
I’m still working on processing all of this so writing this blog is part of that for me so bare with me. We prayed prayers of thanksgiving with the women and will go back again tomorrow for another visit, but I wanted to write all of this down while it is still fresh in my head.
There are no doubts that we have an AWESOME GOD and that He does mighty things and today just adds one more testimony to His Glory.
“this happened so that the work of God might be displayed” – John 9:3
“Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” – Luke 13:12
Let us all not stop spreading the news of the God who saves and heals. May we all remember the Great Commission and go out wherever we are to share the gospel with those around us.
“I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” – Luke 4:43
