Dead Man Walking

“I doubt it.”  I’ve heard that a lot.  I’ll say something or ask something and people will say, “I doubt it!” and to be perfectly honest I’ve thought that several times myself.  Somebody will tell me something outlandish and I often think, yea I doubt that will ever happen!  I had this same type of moment yesterday in Urcos, Peru.  Miracles are hard to believe, that’s why they are called miracles, if it made sense then it would be an algebraic equation……nope strike that, those don’t make sense to either…….never mind I think you get my point.

Mac and I, with a couple other people went up to Urcos to video and see our church plant there and it’s progress.  We were standing outside the church videoing and talking and Pastor Gabino, who speaks zero English, walked out of the church and up to us and said something.  The only words I understood was ‘dead guy’ and ‘in the church’.  So I assumed they were having a funeral.  I said to pastor Gabino in perfect Spanish, “if they are having a funeral in the church then we don’t need to go in and disturb, it’s fine.”. He laughed and then, through an interpreter, told me that there was a man in the church that 20 days before had gotten really sick, so they ended up taking him into the hospital where the doctor told him that he had an amazingly horrible untreated case of Bronchial Pneumonia.  He stayed in the hospital and then died shortly there after.  The doctors declared him dead.  The pastor and some church leaders were called in to pray for him, but by the time they got all the way to the hospital (it is a very long way from the small village of Urcos) the man was already dead.

By the time the pastor and the church leaders had gotten there the man had been dead for 15 hours.  Undeterred, the pastor felt led to lay hands on him and pray for him.  The dead man told us that when they began praying for him he heard a voice saying, “Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe!” the man said that he took a breath, began breathing and then woke up alive and completely healed of bronchial pneumonia!

You can say I doubt it.  I guess that’s your choice, but I’ll say this, looking into that man’s eyes as he told us his story, he believed it.  He knows that he once lived, but then he died, but then he lived again, and now he is alive loving Jesus and giving God glory!  I am so grateful that we serve a God that is alive and not dead.  He loves us, knows us, and cares for us and sometimes he decides to do crazy miracles for us.

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