I’ve heard stories of multiple people being healed around the world. I remember hearing testimonies of healings in Malawi from the team we partnered with, but I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I believed with all of my heart, yet still I didn’t see any miracles. God asked if my faith was strong enough to believe without seeing. I said yes.
Fast-forward exactly a year later. This isn’t a story about a hospital full of people, or even a handful of people, being healed; this is a story about a woman named Maulveen. One woman. Singular.
Picture this: Two exhausted squad leaders that haven’t spent time away from their squad of 50 for the entire month. A planned date to dinner and the movies with our logistics leaders. A squad that has been restricted to the area of land where we live for the entire month, except for travel to ministry and a few Saturday ventures. A planned day “away” filled with good food, lots of tourist attractions, and shopping.
Then…
God showed us His plans for the day.
Tony, our ministry partner for the month, shared a story with us on Saturday morning. Maulveen, a single mother of 3 children, had been battling an illness for the past month; after going to the doctor the previous day, the doctors were preparing for the worst. They shared with Tony that they were confident that Maulveen had stomach cancer, so they decided to keep her overnight to run tests on Saturday in order to diagnose her.
Honduras has been called a fatherless nation. 80% of children here have never met their fathers, some of the mothers aren’t even sure who the fathers of their children are. So, the news of Maulveen possibly having stomach cancer was heavy on Tony’s heart. If she had cancer, the amount of money necessary for care was far too high, which would mean planning for the worst and deciding who would take care of 3 orphaned children.
We gathered together as a squad to pray and listen to what the Lord was asking us to do about the situation. We decided that our agenda for the day didn’t matter; He asked us to put His daughter above our day off and head to the hospital to pray for her. We knew we wouldn’t be allowed to enter the hospital because of privacy issues, so we planned on worshiping and praying outside until her test results were read at 3 pm.
We all loaded up into a bus and drove to the hospital with the expectation of seeing a miracle. After a few hours of worship, prayer, and fellowship with each other, we were told that the expected diagnosis of cancer was actually a severe bacteria infection. The doctors had planned on having to admit Maulveen for long-term treatment BUT she left the hospital with us that afternoon!
One of the most amazing parts of this story is how God had orchestrated for our hearts to be unified as a squad. A few nights prior to this, Mike and I gathered the squad together for a “let’s get real with each other” talk about truly dying to our rights and expectations. We talked about the importance of selflessness within the squad, and a few days later we were given the opportunity to walk out that decision. Incredible.
After such a great day, we felt like we could conquer the world…which led us to volunteer to take 11 kids to the mall. That’s a completely different story…to be continued
