Since day one in Kolkata (Calcutta), the Lord has been doing amazing things in team Beastmode (a fellow World Race team undoubtedly named by a Seahawks fan), and they have been posting testimonial videos on Facebook about their experiences.
We’ve been keeping up with them as best as we can on our bad hostel wifi, but the videos only load about three seconds at a time, so we made a game out of trying to guess the next thing Squad Leader Jeremy was going to say.
This made for some great team time and lots of laughter, so when Taylor guessed that Jeremy would sign off with a typical “so uh… yeah. To God be the glory,” a phrase none of us would have expected Jeremy to use, an inside joke was made. All day it was thrown around.
Good breakfast — so uh… yeah. To God be the glory.
Catch the bus — so uh… yeah. To God be the glory.
See a bird — so uh… yeah. To God be the glory.
Finally we end up at the Christian-backed Mercy Hospital, where we hoped to pray for and talk with the patients. We arrive, and all seven of us bust up into a tiny reception room where two ladies sat. One lady was checking the other in for back spasms.
“Hey can we pray for some sick people?” was basically all we knew to say.
With a dismissive chuckle, the lady with back spasms said, “Yeah, pray for me,” as the receptionist held back muffled laughter.
So we did.
We prayed once and opened our eyes to shock and tears in the woman’s eyes. She stood up from her chair. “I can stand!” She twisted her torso. “I can turn now!” The receptionist looked confused, and the lady looked at her and said, “Truly! Truly! Christ has made it better!”
“Is the pain gone?” we asked.
“Almost completely!”
We don’t do almost.
We prayed again. The last pains left.
Best part: she took her check-in papers and walked away.
The doubting receptionist looked at us wide-eyed, asked us to remember her in our prayers, and told us to go upstairs to the patients’ rooms and pray.
As we turned to leave, Taylor tapped the glass on a hanging portrait of the hospital’s founders. “So uh… yeah,” he said, as he read out loud the quote posted at the bottom of the frame: “To God Be The Glory.”
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We split into groups of two (Luke 10 style), and Rosie and I hit the ICU.
The security guard not only let us by; he opened the doors for us and gave me a pair of wet crocs to wear in the patients’ rooms.
I sloshed over to a guy who had been in an actual train wreck. He was unconscious, and he had a heartrate of nearly 130 bpm. We prayed for a long time, unable to see any improvement in his condition. Eventually, we were both praying silently and watching his vitals. Rosie is an ICU nurse back home, and she was explaining to me some of the things happening inside the man’s body.
We prayed for his heart. (The spiritual implications of that are beyond the narrative scope of this blog.)
Words failed me as I petitioned the Father on behalf of the frail, crumpled shell of a man. I watched him lie there on his side, every breath reliant on a tracheotomy tube, heartrate running wild. It was all I could do to watch the monitor and breathe.
“Yahweh.”
“Beep beep beep…beep beep… beep… beep…… beep…”
124 bpm… 118…
“Yahweh. Yahweh. Yahweh….”
“Beep… beep…… beep…… beep……”
110… 94…
He settled in at 87 bpm. Normal.
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We prayed for dreams and visions of Christ over those who slept, and we shared smiles, tears, and the Gospel with those who were lucid. If my entire team shared all of God’s glories on that one day at Mercy Hospital, they would fill a book.
So uh… yeah. To God be the glory.
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Now to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever. Amen. – Philippians 4:20
