Category: Great God stories

From Yei: Moments I’ll never forget Pt 1

There’s a difference between remembering something or someone and not forgetting­­- Some events and people in our life’s journey cannot be forgotten. No effort is needed to remember them.

Patricia, yes, that’s her name; I’ll never forget her.

On account of a wild life and unfettered pursuit of fleshly pleasures, she caught the dreaded HIV/AIDS sometime ago. Her case soon became a messy international crisis, as she was accused of deliberately infecting many, within and across the borders.

After several arrests, detentions, interrogations, deportation and back onto the streets; she finally made it into a hospital here in Yei, critically ill.

When Pastor Stanley asked me to go pray for her, I didn’t know her or even what to expect. Arriving at the hospital, I connected first with Patricia’s emergency care-giver; the adorable Mama Grace.

She’s experienced in such cases. She told horror tales of this young girl’s journeys and shared on her present condition.

She was all bones, a very sorry sight. Bad bedsores and skin rashes ravaged what remained of her wasted form. Death was lurking beside her.

Much work had been done to cleanup Patricia. The floor of the private room she occupied was still wet, having just been washed and the linings were hanging outside.

Despite this, the stench still lingered and I couldn’t but imagine what it was like before the odours were subdued.

Mama Grace said to me, “I’ve not slept all night. She’s mourning and crying endlessly and wouldn’t let me leave.”

I pulled the broken chair set there, sat beside her and began to assure her of Jesus’ love. As I tried to hold her hand, she pulled away and wouldn’t make eye contact.

Holding her again, I began to stroke her hand and arm, still speaking to her. Unable to make audible words for weakness, I managed to read her lips. She kept asking for water. On giving her a few drops, I saw the blisters on her pale tongue and struggled to compose myself.

Several times while talking to her, her eyes would roll up as if to die and I’d squeeze her hand hard and call her name over and over. She’d return, and seem to reset. I’d start talking again.

Suddenly, help arrived.

A young man from her tribe walked in. He is a trainee nurse at the hospital. I asked him to interpret for me. It was a God moment. As soon as he began to relay my words in Acholi, she started responding. I promptly led her to Jesus and prayed for her. Everyone around heaved a sigh of relief at the final Amen.

But it was not over.

Slowly, I tried to pull my hand from hers and then, Patricia held me. She knew I was about to leave and didn’t want me to go.

I stayed. Stroking her hand softly and comforting her.

When eventually she let go of my hand and I stood to leave, she gave me the most beautiful parting gift.

She smiled.

Earlier, what we saw was the look of sorrow, pain and shame, as she tried severally but in vain to cover her face with the only wretched piece of clothe on her.

Now, she smiles. It was a moment I’ll never forget.

Shortly afterwards, Mama Grace called me to say Patricia has gone home to be with Jesus.

God moments and their tears of joy

Yesterday was a memorable day in many ways I’ll relish for some time to come. I can’t tell all here but find joy and hope in these…
 
One of my disciples walked into my room before 8am with another
friend, both in their mid 20s. I thought they’re just visiting. But it turned
out to be more than a mere how-are-you-doing call.

The smell of alcohol occupied my room as soon as these
fellows worked in. It’s not uncommon here for people to be drunk early in the
morning; so I wasn’t surprised.

“What’s up guys?”

“This  my friend wants
to receive Jesus today; so he begged me to bring him to you.”

It was this friend that has already had some shots of cheap
alcohol this early in the morning that needs Jesus? Nice one God,  I thought to myself.
 
“Tell me the story of your
life.” I pleaded.

“I once was born again back in Uganda, but when I came to
Yei 2yrs ago, things were too tough and all my friends were smokers and
drunkards so I started small by small and after I was full in this thing…”

His story was long and pitiful. Right before me was a victim
of the devil’s deception and lies. But God had started a work in this young man
I know He alone can finish. I allowed him to pour out his heart. As he did, I
saw a hunger and a determination in his body language. I prayed and begged God
as he spoke to come and help me guide this young man. He did!

I encouraged him with few words and as we all knelt and
prayed; tears and more tears poured from him. He wept and I wept too, tears of
joy me. For him, he questioned why he left such peace in Jesus to return to his
vomit.  Godly sorrow was working
repentance.

I was admonishing these guys when my phone rang. It was my
darling wife. She told me a friend of ours we’d been praying for to get married
has said yes to the guy and they’ll be getting married next month; more tears
of joy for me.  I was so excited, by the time I came round, I lost track of my conversation with the guys before me.

They left joyful and we agreed on times for follow-up. They
both showed up again in the evening for prayers. The journey for this once lost
son has taken a new and awesome turn for good. It’s all God.

As we rounded up, I got another call from one of the
secondary schools, “Bro Uche, we are expecting you in our fellowship at lunch
time today, can you make it?”

In the company of one of my dear disciples we arrived there
on time to encourage and challenge these students. Over 40 of them had come. As
usual, several came forward to receive Jesus. We knelt down on the dirt floor
there and prayed for forgiveness. More tears are flowing here again. I could not
hold myself; I cracked and wept with these kids as we prayed together. It was a
most sobering moment. It was obvious God had center stage.

Later in the evening, I was told some man had been waiting for
a long time to see me. But I was attending a pastors’ meeting which lasted a
while. I went to see him with three other pastors.

This man had a story that was more pathetic than most I’ve heard
since I arrived here. He’d attended a famous Bible school here in Yei in 2002
and was doing ministry until he got married 4yrs ago. In his words, “…that
woman is a devil…” He was determined to prove it with all the horrific stories
he told. Worse still, he’d gone back to drinking, smoking and womanizing;
blaming it all on this “wicked, devilish and fetish” wife- his first wife.
There’s another woman on ground now.

His case was too complex for simple answers and quick fixes.
But God came down there and helped us again. I guided him to take
responsibility for the sad state of things within his family. He saw my point
and did. He confessed he needed to restore his relationship with Jesus. That
was the clincher. Everything seemed to fall into place with that choice.

I begged the pastors with me that we all kneel down with our
brother and pray for him. As we did, in that open space, sobs and tears made
praying difficult. As more tears flowed so did the prayers. Each of us had our
reasons for weeping before the Lord. For me, it was connecting with this man’s
wounded heart and seeing God’s healing hand smoother his pain and bring hope in
the midst of many seemingly hopeless cases.

I felt my day ending perfectly when I read these words from
Butch Maltby’s Face Book page, “About the
time you reach your dead end– God’s incredible prankster like solution to your
grandest problem rolls into town. It announces itself by making order out of
the chaos. My joy comes in admitting I can’t fix anything. But He can. And He
did.”

The Widow’s mite

Do you like great God stories? This is one you’d not forget soon. Seth Barnes posted this story here in 2007.

 

The following story
happened to me in 1991. I’ve written a book of stories like this
one called “Revolution of the Broken
Heart.” One day maybe I’ll publish it.

“Unless a seed…” John 12:24

Paradoxically, months after Fidel died, I found myself
sitting beside another deathbed high in the Sierra Madre Mountains, in the
village of El Derramadero. But this encounter left me uplifted as few other
experiences ever have. The people of El Derramadero have a history of
persecuting the church. Indeed, when our group first arrived in town, we were chased
out by town people throwing stones at us.

When we returned the next day, I was able to view the site where the proposed
church was to go. The people who lived around the site supported the project.
One of them, a woman whose name I now forget, but whose face remains indelibly
printed on my memory, was the mother of thirteen children. When I walked into
her front yard, the pigs and chickens scattered.

She paused in the midst of her work and fixed a big smile
on me. I explained why we were there and introduced her to my then six-year-old
son, Seth Jr. Catching him quite by surprise, she grabbed his blonde head
between her two weathered hands and squeezed his cheeks in delight. Seth Jr.
just gazed up at her, wide-eyed, unsure of what to do.

On the second day of the project, Beth Jacobson, an
occupational therapist who was assisting me, walked up and exclaimed,
“You’ve got to come meet this old lady I’ve been talking to. Her name is
Petra, and I believe she’s about 98 years old. She hasn’t been able to eat for
a month now and is dying. I’ve been praying for her, but she’s been ministering
to me even more. Come over and
meet her.”

Petra’s two-room adobe house was very dark inside except
for the shaft of light that fell from the window to the bed where Petra lay.
Beth and I pulled chairs up to the bed and greeted Petra. She looked to be
about the oldest person I’d ever met. She peered up at me with wizened eyes.
The work of living was an obvious moment-by-moment battle for her. She was
frail, but oddly unbowed. An air of holy victory seemed to infuse her tortured
breathing. Though I had no idea what she would say, when she began to speak,
reverence was the only appropriate response.

“I am Petra,” she said in whispered Spanish,
pausing for a breath. “I am a servant of our Lord and Master, Jesus
Christ….I have known His grace and His mercy for many years….It has been my
privilege to roam these hills preaching the good news that all those who call
upon His name can be saved….What a Master I serve! He is altogether
wonderful….His name be praised and lifted up….Though I know my time is
short and I can barely eat or drink, I thank Him for the life He has given
me.”

Neither Beth nor I knew what to say. I felt somehow
unclean and small. After a silence, I asked her more about her life. She
obliged me with answers, but always she turned the conversation back to the One
to whom she was devoted. Her life had so narrowed in focus that only one thing
remained, and that was her relationship with Jesus.

So often we hear sermons on the subject of completely
abandoning ourselves to Christ. We live in the gap between the biblical ideal
of holy living and our own guilty puttering in the well-worn ruts that comprise
our lives. Yet here in flesh and blood before us lay one for whom no gap
existed. She could say with Paul, “For to me to live is Christ and to die
is gain.”

It was enough simply to sit in her presence, to glean
from her communion with the Lord. At length we prayed for her. I can’t remember
if we prayed for her healing, but perhaps we should have prayed for our own
healing. Here we crawl across this dark planet, half the time bumping into
walls and not knowing what we’ve hit. We pray for spiritual sight, yet seem to
be perpetually tapping our blind man’s cane in front of us. Petra was seeing.
Her physical eyesight had grown dim, but spiritually, her vision was acute.

Both Beth and I were abashed by the holiness of the
moment. Tears were the only appropriate response. When our prayers were done,
we looked up and dried our eyes. Petra motioned for me to come close.
Simultaneously, she struggled to sit up in bed, itself a Herculean task. As she
sat up, I wondered what her intent was. Did she want to give me a hug?

She began to fumble for something that hung around her
neck beneath her blouse. She struggled to pull it out and show us.

At last she pulled out a woven cloth amulet closed up
with a small drawstring. She opened the amulet and began talking. “For
much of my life, I have wanted to see a church built in our little village of
El Derramadero….Though most of my ministry has been outside this town, my
heart’s desire is that we would see a church built here….I don’t own much,
but I have saved this coin and I wonder if you would use it to help build a church
here.” Having said this, Petra pulled a large, 5000-peso coin (worth about
$3.50 at the time) from the amulet and placed it in my hands.

What could I say but, “Yes, I will.” Suddenly,
it was as though I were transported to the first century A.D. Here before me
was the widow contributing her mite to further the Kingdom. Anything I might
give to the people of El Derramadero would pale in comparison.

A few weeks later, Petra died, but not before the walls
of the church she had prayed for all those years began to rise up out of the
ground. Petra seemed to have walked with God so long that death was just a
natural last step toward Him. What an example of one who has fought the good
fight and finished the race so well!

If Fidel’s story was that of one cut down too soon, it is appropriate that his
hometown should produce a woman like Petra. God is not willing that any should
perish. As a seed must die to bring forth new life, so Petra’s giving and dying
brought the Kingdom nearer in her corner of Mexico.

The great story of God on mission with His people in this world, is the basic framework of the entire Bible. The Bible is not a collection of unrelated historical events. It’s a single story of how God blessed all nations and was finally glorified.  I think the Edition
we are currently reading is Earth’s edition, which is documented by holy men under God’s prompting (2Peter1:21). Heaven’s edition will have Petra’s detailed life story and others like her in it; as it will be chronicled by angels.

Jesus said, “…Much is required from the person to whom much is given;
much more is required from the person to whom much more is given.” (Lk 12:48)

Is what you are giving today, a worthy percentage of what
He has given you? If you are thinking money… Tithes (i.e. 10%); I would imagine God could feel cheated or even insulted.