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Sunday Magazine Article, November 2004.
Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada

Two remarkable healings investigated

By Dr. Jack Krayenhoff

If God decided to withdraw from the earth, would that make any difference in what went on there? On the news, we hear unending reports of kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq, of suicide bombings in Israel, of destruction caused by hurricanes, of genocide in the Sudan. We sometimes wonder: if God is truly in control here, what is the evidence of that? The violence and the suffering continue and God seems to have withdrawn from the scene. That thought can undermine our faith.

In our personal lives too, we keep struggling. We think we have made some progress in Christian character, but next moment we find impatience and irritability breaking through again. So we ask ourselves - does Christ really live in us? We think we really knew God's will in the course we had taken, but things keep going wrong. So we wonder - did we really hear from God? We have faithfully prayed for a friend's marriage, but it falls apart anyway. So we begin to doubt if our prayers have been heard at all. We do not deny our faith, but it just gets depleted, enfeebled.

But then we hear of events that are so unexpected and so outside of normal experience, yet so much in harmony with divine love, that we have to say “This can only be the work of God. This is a miracle”. We ourselves may never have experienced such dramatic interventions, but the fact alone that they do happen, that the power of God does touch down on earth, reassures us: God is in business. He is a Force that makes its effect known on earth, and especially in response to the prayer of faith. Our own experience of that Force may not be so spectacular, but those miracle stories reassure us: God responds to our prayers, too. Maybe in a more gradual and hidden way, but in the end just as effective. That is the reason Sunday is reporting on these two remarkable healings.

'I felt a love'

First is the case of Li Peng, a Chinese young man studying English at the University of Victoria. His amazing recovery from drowning was written up earlier in the Times-Colonist, the Vancouver Sun, the Province, and even the National Post.

In January of this year he was found unconscious at the bottom of a swimming pool. During resuscitation he made no efforts to breathe on his own - that in itself was a bad sign. At the Emergency he had a cardiac arrest - another ominous event. Placed on life support in Intensive Care at the Royal Jubilee Hospital, he had another cardiac arrest, and he did not regain consciousness for several days. In the opinion of Dr. Alan Meakes, Head of the Intensive Care Unit, who was given permission by Li Peng to discuss the case, this made survival even more unlikely. Should he survive at all, Dr Meakes added, it would probably be with severe brain damage. As an entire week went by without return of consciousness, the option of stopping life support became more and more inevitable, and Li Peng's father, who had come over from China, was asked for his consent. He said “No, God will heal him”.

Now a new factor entered the equation. Li Peng's case came to the attention of Laurence Wan, pastor of the Chinese Pentecostal Church, and through him to Joyce Lohrer and Kai Rempel. Together they went to the hospital, anointed Li Peng with oil and prayed for healing. Joyce Lohrer recalls, “His blood pressure was extremely high, the heart rate 166/min. and his temperature 40.6. As we were praying, his heart and blood pressure returned to normal, and his temperature began to come down. It's all in the nurses' notes.” Shortly afterward Li Peng opened his eyes, and from then on made a remarkable recovery, so that today he has resumed his studies at UVic. His only residual problem is a slight balance impairment.

How has his experience affected him? Li Peng has moved in with the Wan family, and Sunday went to interview him there. Laurence Wan himself was in attendance to help overcome the language barrier, for though Li Peng understands English fairly well, he finds it harder to express himself in it.

Sunday: You have become a Christian. What made you decide?

Li Peng: I felt a love. Before, nobody knew me, and the people who prayed did not know who I was, but they all got around me and I said 'There is love'. And why? Where did the love come from? I knew it came from the Lord Jesus Christ. That love began in my childhood. I moved from my village into a city. I didn't know anybody and I felt scared and lonely. Then my grandma taught me to sing a song, Lord Jesus I pray to you to protect me. Don't let me be defeated by the devil. That was something unimaginable, not understandable about Jesus. I asked my grandma, 'Do you know who is Jesus?' but she said, 'I am sorry, but I don't know who Jesus is.' But eventually I got some friends and I forgot about Jesus.

Sunday: Did you ever go to church in China?

Li Peng: No. I think God used my problem to bring me back to Him. When I was unconscious I felt very scared. I thought I was in hell; it was very uncomfortable. I don't want to go back there again.”

I got my Mom back!

The other healing was medically less dramatic, but every bit as life-changing. Gayleen Reese has a school of Highland dancing. She is 41 now; her husband's name is Paul and the Reeses have a son called Matthew, now 17, but only 13 when the big healing happened.

For years, Gayleen had suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome, and in 1999 a further diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus was made. It caused arthritis, rashes and a brain disorder that made it impossible for her to think of the name of objects, or to speak a full sentence. She was so extremely tired that she slept fifteen hours a day, and got hardly anything done around the house. “I was getting ready to die,” she says. “We had downsized to a townhouse, which Paul could manage. We had to adjust everything so he and Matthew could survive without me. Matthew had not had a mother since he was five.”

Then a friend persuaded her to go to Nanaimo, to hear Victor and Judith Emenike, of It Is Easy Ministries. Victor is Nigerian, Judith German. Gayleen recalls “I did not believe in healing. I was unreceptive, I did not listen to a single word. But I went up for prayer with Paul and Matthew, because that's what people do. Then, when they prayed over me, Matthew said 'Dad, I am getting my mom back. God is healing Mom.' When I heard that, I realized 'He and God know something I don't know. My son has listened.'

“So I decided, 'That's it. I'm coming back till I'm healed. The next night, every word they preached sank in. I actually thought they were preaching only to me. And as I was listening I was healed - they didn't pray for me. I could think. Nothing hurt, and I was not tired.”

Reese went back to her doctors. The blood tests returned to normal. When finally the anaemia of chronic disease also disappeared even her family doctor, who was the most skeptical, admitted she was healed.

Sunday: What did the healing do for your faith?

Gayleen: I suddenly got a hunger for God I never had before. My husband and I have done some traveling with Victor and Judith, to give our testimony and pray for people. We have been to Yellowknife and Tuktoyaktuk, to San Francisco and Brooklyn. Now they have asked us to join their team. That's exciting, because 19 years ago I knew I had a call to go and preach, but I didn't know what to do about it. So now I'm ready to go. Next week we leave for Guatemala.

Used by permission www.sundaymagazine.org

The original article is posted at http://sundaymagazine.org/pdf/nov04.pdf

We want to say thanks to all those who are praying for us.

And in all we thank our Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit for doing such mighty work through us.

Have you been healed in one of our meetings? Please let us know! Write us.

Revs. Victor & Judith Emenike