Healings, Part 2

I was back in Asia and had once again joined the ministry for terminally ill children.
Of course, all new families were coming as they stayed in the city only while their child was being treated at the hospital. The new kids looked more robust and older.
And there was one boy… I suppose he would have been called cute if he hadn’t had a grotesque looking tumor growing out of the side of his face and neck.
I wasn’t used to his appearance and had a hard time looking at him at first.

For some reason, he chose me and always wanted to sit on my lap. His position on my lap gave me the opportunity to put my hand on his shoulder, and sometimes on the tumor, and pray for him during every meeting, all meeting long.
During the Bible message, the worship songs, and the prayer, I just kept praying for him.

I had a local friend who worked as a nurse in that hospital. One day I was visiting her and we sat on a stairwell together, deep in conversation. Suddenly this boy and his mother happened to walk by.
They both smiled at me and said something in their language.
My nurse friend interpreted. “They are saying that they know you. They are saying that you always pray for him. They are saying that he is healed.” 

What?

The boy turned his head.
The tumor was completely gone! 
I gasped,  unable to believe my eyes. 

“They are saying they are returning home now.”
I followed them with my eyes as they walked away.

That year, I also visited another special boy in his home village. (See Healings Part One) two pastors, who were local to their area, had agreed to take me on a journey through the desert to their remote village. It was quite a trip; the desert, the camels walking by, the homes made of perfectly smooth, yellow mud, perfectly designed and patterned.  

In that village the ladies had to cover their faces in the presence of men. “I hate those things,” they commented about their veils. It was hard for them to walk or to work around the house with the veil on.

And then there was the boy, the sweet faced, smiling boy, no longer in pain.
When I had last seen him, he was near death.
Now I found him to be a very smart, talkative, loving boy  “He always talks about Jesus,” they said. “From the time that he was in the hospital.” The family was still following their religion. There was no church in this area. Yet, in the middle of this remote desert village, was a kid always talking about Jesus.

If you read part one to this story, you might get the impression that he was completely healed.
Although he had been saved from immediate death, he still had cancer.
Although he was now smiling and active, he still couldn’t walk, and although his life was extended from a few hours to a few years, I heard of his death sometime later.

People ask why does God heal some and not others or why does God only heal “part way”?
But those questions of what God “should” be doing sometimes get in the way of what He actually is doing; Why did God tell me to stay in the hospital to pray?
Why did God tell me to cut the amulets off of his body?
Why did God save him from death that day?
Why is there a boy in the middle of a pagan desert, always talking about Jesus when no one told him about Jesus?
Now that boy is with Jesus

That night, I fell asleep on an outdoor cot, surrounded by other cots where other women slept.
I woke up in the night to a full moon with clouds, drifting by. 
Carefully, I took some water from a jar for the outhouse (feeling guilty as they save every drop), walked through the cots of women, past the partition, through the cuts of men, outside the gate, and past all the large, dark brown cows, gazing at me suspiciously in the moonlight.
I reached the outhouse and then made my way back through the maze.
More questions; Why did God bring me to this village?
Why is no one else coming to this village or to the hundreds and hundreds like it?
Why is my heart filled with so much love yet so helpless to reach so many villages?

As we left the village the next day, it rained. It rarely rains here, I will always remember their faces looking upward toward the sky with expectant joy.  
I pray that one day many boys and girls in this village and every village will be always talking about Jesus.