God is in the slums, too

Today we saw God's crazy craftsmanship to people He loves desperately. The story has been going on for awhile, He started planting seeds long before today, but today we got to see the fruit of His work.

So the story goes -- 

Tuesday at 10p, after Ashlee and I came home on the last ferry, we talked to P's family and then we talked to P outside their houses in my little sub-slum neighborhood.

My 33 year old nearly 300-pound neighbor, had rarely left her home in the last 4 months of me living in this humble neighborhood on the Green Lung in Bangkok. When I had asked her mom about P, she said her daughter had been this way since about 10 years old.

She talked over her banister and winced when she made a movement and said -- in Thai, "Oh, my back hurts." I asked her what she said, as she was wincing again and cowering even lower.

She said again, "Oh, its my back, it always hurts."

Knowing our Jesus, I asked her, “Can we pray for you? Jesus wants to heal you.”

“Pray?” She asked. “What do mean pray?”

“We just talk to God and ask him to heal you,” I explained.

Still wincing, but obviously intrigued by what we were asking, she continued curiously, “How do you pray?”

“We talk to God,” I said. “Can we pray for you?”

“Ok…” she said, in moderate acceptance and a hint of fear.

I placed my hand on her upper back. She said that's right where the pain was, that's where most of the pain is centered. He knew where to put His powerful hand.

The Lord was using Ashlee and me, our lives to show His glory through P. And we were going to see it happen. That's what I believe. Its not up to me to heal, its up to God. But it is up to me to ask. If I ask to pray for them, He has an opportunity to work. If I don't ask, He doesn't get the glory and I don't get a chance to partner with Him in the work He already wants to do: bringing freedom to His children. Making His name known in all the world. He wants all to become Children of God, to belong to the Lord.

So we prayed. A simple prayer. In the name of Jesus all pain in P's back leave. We say in the name of Jesus that Jesus is healing her… Holy Spirit, you are here. Take away all self-pity, take away all sadness, in the name of Jesus. Father, thank you that Pui is so important to You, thank you that you have a plan for her. In Jesus name, AMEN

I looked at her. She didn't really say anything, or show any signs of change. I said, how do you feel.

“It still hurts,” she said.

“Is the pain a little better?” I asked.

"Yes, its a little better," she said. "I feel a little better."

We prayed a very simple but faithful prayer of thanks. We asked God, who created her body to strengthen her. We asked that the perfect system of Pui’s body to be restores, and that all sadness and doubt would leave in the name of Jesus.

Wait for it…

There was something happening. “Let's thank Him for the little better,” I said. “Thank you Jesus.”

I told P, “Sometimes I have seen Jesus heal a little at a time or all at once. He might heal 50% and then we thank Him for it. Do you know what I mean, then there is 60%, 70%, 90%? Then 100%.”

She began moving around more and a HUGE smile erupted on her face.

“Oh, it feels so much better,” she beamed.

“How much better?” I asked.

“I don't feel that pain I have been feeling everyday anymore,” still moving around, this time in a greater rotation of her body.

She leaned back, raised up her arm. “Its gone,” she said. “That pain is gone!”

You are healed in the name of Jesus.

“This is amazing,” disbelief and shock and awe showed on her face.

“That's the Holy Spirit,” I said.

“I want to believe (in Jesus),” she said, using a Buddhist word for belief -- 'naptur.'

Our bodies are important to God. The system He created is perfect. If something is affecting that perfect system that is hurting that system that is no of God and we pray for it to leave.

Freedom, our freedom. God wants to help us know freedom, His healing.

“If we want to believe in Him we just need to open our heart and ask Him to enter. We want to ask HIm forgiveness for our sins (those have been things that have hurt us and God. We didn't obey Him.)” I asked. “Are you ready to open your heart?”

“Not yet, I'm not holy yet,” she replied

Wait a minute, I thought. "P, do we need to be well before we go to the hospital?" I asked her. 

"I've never been to the hospital," she interrupted.

She had questions. We gave her a chance to ask them, as she had heard the gospel message before but there were a few things that were 'off.'

She said she wasn’t ‘holy enough’ to receive Christ. We talked about the analogy if a sick person had to be well before they went to the hospital. He wants us to come to him anyway that we are.

“Do you want to know Him?” I asked again.

“Not yet...” she put her head down.

“He will wait for you,” I said smiling.

That Tuesday, P had been healed in the name of Jesus. We claim that for the glory of God.  

The story continues...the next day.

So now its Wednesday morning, about 7:45am. We could hear one of the neighbors at P's house as passed by, leaving early to get to the ministry office.

There she was. P was lying in the floor in agony. She said her stomach hurt terribly. 

I asked her about her back and she said it was still better.

"Its her stomach," our other neighbor, M, said. "She said she feels like she is going to have a baby, but she's not pregnant."

"P," I said. "I believe Jesus wants to heal your stomach, too. Can we pray for you?" I knelt next to her as Ashlee stood in the doorway at the gate.

P nodded her head in agreement and again we prayed.

It's traditional Thai culture to take your shoes off in every home, even these small homes in our mini-slum community. Ashlee had her shoes on due to covering a puncture wound from a few days earlier, so she stood at the gateway in agreement and we prayed again, this time in front of M.

God, again, was moving and the little 10X10 room, with minimal sanitation and boxes stacked all around that really left little space to move. 

We asked the Lord, who created our bodies, to heal P's. We asked for all doubt and depression to leave. We asked a simple quiet prayer, in the middle of that little slum, in the middle of Bangkok, with two woman that proclaimed Buddhism, but were opening their hearts to Jesus, and He was taking every opportunity to show them His signs and wonders. 

Matthew 18:20
"...For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” 

I believe God heals because in Psalm 103:3 it says He does. Also, in John 15:7 the Lord Jesus says if you abide in Me and My Word abides in you, you can ask anything in my name and it will be given. Since I abide in God and I also know that we can intercede for people, pray for them, standing in the gap between darkness and the light, He has to honor His Word.

After we prayed, I asked her if she was feeling better, and she said, "Yes," but she was still holding her stomach. 

I asked what percent better, and she replied, "50%." 

We thanked God for the 50%, and we prayed again. By the time we left she was at about 80% better. We headed off to work, knowing God was doing something and NOW M was yet another witness. 

Ashlee and I headed to the office praising the Lord and asking for His continued work in P's life. 

We got home late Wednesday after a full day at the ministry office. 

Then Thursday morning, as we headed out to the office again, THAT'S when we heard the news.

"Amy, after you left," M told me from her front porch, early that morning. "P was completely healed."

"Amen, thank you Jesus!" I said, Ashlee and I giving each other an air fist-bump.

"No, you don't understand," M continued. "I was going to go to get medication after you left, but P said I don't have to she was healed."

"That's how the Holy Spirit works," I said, "That's the power of Jesus."

"My alcohol is my medicine, but that's not it, is it?" she said. M and her boyfriend spend nights drinking all night and then fighting until wee hours of the morning. In our little wooden Thai houses, close to each other, the slats don't really help with noise reduction at all, but lately there had been less fights.

"M," I said looking her in the eye now, very close up as I was sitting in her small step with her on her porch. "You need to get rid of the bottle." 

We had had long talks about the love of God and His plans for her life. I wanted to remind her there is no condemnation in Christ, only conviction. She need to ask Him to help her give up the bottle.

"P was healed, I saw it," M shared very confidently. 

I continued sharing about the power and love of God. 

M said, "Before, it wasn't believable. P kept telling me its for real," she continued. "Now I believe."

He has been here in Thailand since the beginning, He needs His people to call on His name. That Wednesday & Thursday they did. Pray for the continued work of the Lord in this community and for M her boyfriend, Y, and their children...