As I've struggled with my own faith and how I believe God moves in this world today, I've struggled to be authentic. I have no desire to exaggerate or embellish any of the things I've seen God do in the last month. I want to tell you what we experienced, and no more. I'm praying that your faith is built in the process, as mine, and many of our student's has been! This could also be the size of a novel, so I'm going to shorten MUCH of the details surrounding these events, and simply tell you what took place. I would also recommend getting ahold of the book, Christ The Healer by FF Bosworth. This book has continued to shape my theology on healing, and I believe it has the potential to shape yours!
On Sunday, June 2nd, I was awakened by my mother who told me that I needed to pray for my 24 year old nephew Tim. He was in the hospital in Orlando, and had been diagnosed with what the doctors said was "some of the worst cancer they'd ever seen." It was in his esophagus, stomach, and intestines. That night, my brother and I flew to Orlando, to fight this diagnosis and ask God for a new one. The Brand met that night, and spent their time praying for God to heal Tim.
The doctors were saying that Tim had come to the hospital to die, but we did not accept that! As we prayed, Tim began to experience God's healing, and all but a tiny mass in his stomach completely vanished. And we have the pictures of the cancer to show what WAS there, and isn't any more. Tim is in the process of dealing with the mass that was left, a rare form of cancer that is 95% curable. We believe that since that time, God has even healed the mass! But we are waiting for the doctors to prove it!
During our time in Orlando, we met a woman named Colleen whose daughter was facing a similar situation as Tim. During a worship time in the hospital entry, my brother prayed for her, and then we went to her room to pray for her daughter. 2 days later she texted us, and told us that the doctors were not able to find anything, and her daughter had been healed.
My niece, Bethany, called us while we were there and said that her wrist felt like she had broken it. We prayed with her over the phone, and later that night she texted us and said that the pain was completely gone.
Also, while there, one of our Brand leaders, Marti, texted asking us to pray for a student, 17 years old, whose radiator had blown up in his face. He was being rushed to a burn center. We prayed, and she texted later, saying that he was going to be fine, with just minor irritation.
We returned home, and God continued to move.
On Wednesday, June 19th, I got a call from one of our students, DJ Davis, who said that a friend of his, Ryan Morris, had been hit by a car and had been flown to Harborview in Seattle. They had had to remove a piece of his skull to relieve pressure, and he was in a coma. DJ was very shaken up, but I reminded him of how we prayed for Tim, and reminded him that he needed to pray the same for Ryan and for his family. We prayed as well. Over the next few days, and still to this day, we continued to see small improvements. I'll continue with this story shortly...
Tenielle and I woke up on Saturday, June 22nd, and read on Facebook that a good friend was struggling with severe food poisoning. So we called, and prayed for her over the phone. The next morning she was completely sickness free, and "back to herself" in her words. Someone had commented on her page that they had food poisoning in the past, and it lasted more than a week. God has a tendency to change the norm...
On Sunday, I asked DJ if he was interested in going to Seattle to pray for Ryan. He said yes, and I got Adam Cheney, and Matt Caldwell to join us. We left Monday morning, and spent some amazing time praying and worshiping and asking God to perform a miracle. We knew that God wanted to heal Ryan, but the miracle would be to see him come out of the coma.
We got to the hospital, and spent an awesome hour praying for Ryan and his mom who was in the room with us, and worshiping over him. I also felt God was telling me to pray and declare Isaiah 60 over Ryan, "Arise, shine for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you..."
We left, because it was quiet time for Ryan, and went to downtown Seattle to hang out and grab some food. While there, we got a phone call from one of our students, Monica Niemann, who was in the San Juan Islands for a homeschool trip. On the way there, their truck had broken down, and they had had to leave it. Now, they were trying to come home and their car was refusing to start. They were in a really bad fix, and needed an immediate answer. So we prayed on speaker phone, and when we were done saying "Amen" Monica said, "Uhhh...guys... the car just started..."
We went down to the waterfront, and as we were walking along, we saw a woman having what looked to be a panic attack, sitting against a wall, breathing painfully into a paper bag. We went over, and I asked what was wrong, and she said she was having an asthma attack. I asked if we could pray for her, and she said yes. We began to pray, and immediately the attack began to cease. By the time we were done praying, she had stopped completely. I asked how she felt, and she said, "It's gone, but I'm a little light headed." Which made sense with all the heavy breathing she was doing! She said that it hadn't happened in a long time, but she had forgotten her inhaler that day. I asked if she was a Christian, and she said yes, and I asked if we could pray for the asthma to never come back again! She said yes, and we did so, and then went on our way.
We got some food, and then went back to the hospital. We went into the waiting room, and Ryan's grandma had said that not much had changed. We asked if we could go in and say goodbye, and she said yes. But we will never forget what happened next.
We started to walk in the room, and Ryan's bed was surrounded by nurses and his mom. Ryan was sitting up in bed, eyes open, and trying to take the tube out of his mouth. It was an amazing miracle, happening right in front of us, and we give God the praise for what He did and what He is doing. As of now, Ryan is still healing, but making more and more progress every day. We are anxiously watching as God unveils the story that many thought had come to an end with him being hit by the car.
We went home with an amazing sense of God's love and power. But in the car, DJ began having a terrible issue with his stomach, and asked me to pull over to a rest area as soon as possible. I asked if I needed to just pull to the side of the road. He said no, but that he was in a lot of pain. So we began to pray for him. Within a few moments, the pain was completely gone, and he was able to enjoy the rest of the car ride home.
On Wednesday, June 26th, a friend, Seth Rising, wrote me on Facebook, asking me to pray for his stomach. He had been bedridden and in pain for the last 7 days with what he thought was a stomach ulcer. I asked if we could meet up to pray for him, and he said that he thought he could muster up the strength to meet us at Chesterly Park. I picked up DJ and Adam, and we headed to the park.
When we got there, Seth was very quiet and obviously in a lot of pain. He said that on a scale of 1-10, it was about an 8. We made our way, slowly, to a park picnic table, and I began to tell Seth everything that God had been doing. By the time I was done, he said that the pain was already starting to leave.
We then got up, and spent some time praying, and commanding the pain to go in the Name of Jesus. After a little while of praying, the pain was completely gone. I wanted to test it out though! So I had Seth jump up and down - no pain! I asked if he would have been able to run before we prayed, and he said "no way!" So we ran around the park. No pain! God is a healer!
I texted him the next day, and asked how he was feeling. His response: "I feel friggin' fantastic!!!!"
We then went to see my 91 year old grandma. Her caretaker was very concerned because they were losing ground on some very painful sores that had opened up on her legs and back. So we went to pray for God to heal them up! The next day, the caretaker told my mom that her back was already visibly better, and the sores had stopped oozing. God is a healer!
On Thursday, June 28th, we had our leadership team for The Brand meet, Embers, and I was telling them everything that God had been doing. I asked if anyone needed prayer, and we prayed for a few issues that we wouldn't be able to see an immediate response to, but then we prayed for Serena, who had been struggling with her back for some time, and had been seeing a chiropractor. We began to pray for her back, and command the pain to go, and Serena was very honest - it was not going away! But we kept praying! And soon, the pain was completely gone. She started doing things that had caused her pain in the past, and she was able to do them with no pain at all. I texted her this morning, and asked how she was doing, and her response was "Great! The pain came back a bit, but it's gone now!" She texted a few moments later saying, "I just got out of the chiropractor. He says I don't need a check up for a month, and I should be just fine!" Whoo!!!!
For some reason, it seems that sometimes the pain will try to return! But in every case, my challenge is to stand on God's promises, not the symptoms! And each time, the pain has to get lost again in the Name of Jesus!
Another friend had asked us to pray for her nose, which she thought might have cancer. We were praying for a good report from the biopsy, and we got it! No cancer! God is a healer!
If you need healing, I would love to get my guys together, we're calling them The Swat Team, and come see you! Let's let faith continue to build faith, and see God do shocking things for the love of His people!
