TESTIMONIES

We were serving as missionaries in Japan. A devastating earthquake and tsunami had struck the coast a few miles east of us. While God was opening avenues of aid, rescue, and loving influence over the Japanese people in all of the devastation, my intestines were dying.

I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease upon entering high school as a kid, and the worst Crohn’s attack I had ever experienced was hitting me with inopportune timing. While our ministry was seeing more results than ever before, I was in constant pain, often bedridden.

Finally I was hospitalized, my intestines having twisted and died in areas. For three months I was in a Japanese hospital, unable to eat or drink anything, fed a protein drip intravenously to keep me alive.

After three months, nothing else could be done except for surgery, and my intestines were patched together after removing the dead and necrotic segments.

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After the operation, my surgeon gave me four days to allow my intestines time to “restart.” My intestines had been dead in segments for too long. Too much necrosis had spread for there to be more than a 50-50 shot at them coming back to life.

On the evening of the fourth day, my surgeon came to me, explaining that my intestines had not “started” yet, and by now had no hope of doing so. They scheduled me to remove the rest of my intestines the next morning, and to have a colostomy bag installed.

Still foggy, I called my wife and told her the news.

“No, they will NOT take out your intestines. Go to the toilet right now!”

With simple instructions, words and actions I couldn’t think properly enough to decide by myself, my wife directed me to sit on the toilet, put my hands on my stomach, and command life back into my intestines.

“Come back to life in the name of Jesus.”

It was a simple sentence; healing comes from Christ’s authority, not our eloquence.

The results were instant. Through immediate, intense cramping, my intestines were resurrected. I joyfully and tearfully told my surgeon the good news when he came for the pre-operation check the next morning!

Praise JESUS!