“The history of missions is the history of answered prayer.”
(Samuel Zwemer)
We have experienced the answered prayers of the Body of Christ that have lifted our spirits and strengthened us greatly the past two weeks spent in the hospital intensive care unit. Eric and I are excited to share with you what God has been doing on the mission field! Being stuck in the ICU has brought opportunities to share Christ with people from Haiti, Hawaii, Japan, Afghanistan and Nepal!
“We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God.”
(John R.W. Stott)
The very day we rushed Eric to the ER, our Haiti school sponsored students “Summer Fun Day” was in process after much planning. Haiti has been a war zone for the past few years and it is always a battle to bring joy in the midst of such suffering.Smiling photos of the Haiti kids we personally know and love kept filling up my phone in the very moments Eric was initially fighting for his life. The clashing of our two very different and yet very same worlds was not lost on me in those moments or since.Our Texas Haiti came to the hospital to pray over us and celebrate our 24th anniversary with a Fiji inspired party. Julienne prayed in the Kreyol language and manner just like we would have experienced in Haiti.One of Eric’s mission fields has been the Pickleball courts. This Pickleball friend came to visit him and shared how Eric’s loving kindness and grace without judgement had pointed her life back to God, her husband, church, and new life in Christ. She wanted to tell us that she was being baptized the next morning.Eric’s Pickleball community held a Pickleball tournament benefit in Eric’s honor. Several have shared with us how many lives Eric has impacted for Christ on the Pickleball courts that led to this sweet gesture of love and care for Eric and our family. We are in awe of God’s goodness to use us for His glory wherever we work, live and play!The hospital care team sent a chaplain to visit us the second night. Her name was Elizabeth and she was pretty new on the job. When she asked to hear a little of our story and found out we are missionaries and Eric is a pastor, she got a little bit shy and told us she was intimidated. Eric shared that all she needed to share is the Truth and leave the responses/reactions to God. I asked her to share her story and we had such a sweet time of fellowship. She prayed over us and we prayed over her and the ministry God has given her to this hospital. She told us with joyful tears she would never forget us and that we were sending her off with the courage to boldly declare Truth. This was the first of many similar conversations and precious ICU prayer times since. We have some serious prayer warriors!Another day, one of the housekeeping staff popped her head in and Eric just knew right away she is from Haiti. Her name is Marie and she has been in Austin for three years on humanitarian parole. At first she kept saying, “No English” until (with a big smile) she realized Eric was speaking to her in Kreyol. Eric was blessed with Marie visits the next two days. Such sweet gift from God to have a new Haitian friend!
The halls of this ICU have been bathed in prayer. Our sweet nieces and nephews made scripture art to decorate the walls. We have moved rooms three times now and each time the nurses have to take it down and read it. One nurse taped it all on another nurse for the transport and they walked down the halls of the ICU declaring, “Look, we are covered in scripture!”
I’m going to be vulnerably honest here. The 4th floor of the ICU is not the floor where anyone wants to be. It is the floor where critically ill patients come to die. If I have already witnessed several deaths in the two weeks we have been here, how many can we imagine the medical staff endures on a regular basis. Morgan was one of the nurses that prayed with us. She left this note before her last night shift with us ended. Since we have been here so long, we did get to see her again. 🙂 We have had the privilege to hold hands and pray with medical staff, and share the hope of Christ with the families of those who have lost family members in the room next to us. There was a family of strong believers and our sweet conversations about the Lord took place in front of the nurses station where they were listening. While our new friends were waiting for their husband/father to peacefully pass, they wrote, “I get to meet Jesus!” on the outside of the door for everyone who passed by to see. It was a reminder that even if our prayers are not answered in the way we want, our hope is still “getting” to meet Jesus.I woke up at 4 am to find Eric in deep conversation with his nurse from Japan. I couldn’t hear them from across the room so a few hours later I asked Eric what their conversation was about. He texted me what he had written down after Coco left the room. “Good morning Father, I’m not sure what prayers went up last night for my nurse and/or for Japan, but God you are on the move & working. I’m so humbled for the privilege to talk about Jesus. Thanks for the open door. Coco (my nurse from Japan) was just very open about belief & having never been to a church or ever confronted with the thought or opportunity to consider who Jesus is. She says, I need to think about him & who he is. She has been in the USA for over 18 years & has never had a spiritual conversation God gave us. Little mustard seed plant 🙌 Lord, allow this seed to take root & go generations deep into this family line. In Jesus name!”Alex’s heart grew for missions when he traveled to Honduras with Eric in March. What a blessing to hear how God is growing the ministry through Alex, his family and church family!Evan and his friends came to visit and pray over Eric. Only two months ago, Eric was serving with these young men on a mission trip in the Dominican Republic. May each of these experiences enlarge their faith and ours.We go way back with these “kids.” Ben, Kelli, Miguel and Peter were among our close knit group of our youth group seniors the year we moved to Haiti. They all came to serve with us in Haiti two different times. Miguel lived and served with us in Haiti for nearly a year. Miguel and I still suffer chronic joint pain from a mosquito born illness the two of us contracted in 2015. Miguel’s sweet spirit through sickness and the uneasy daily Haiti life was (and still is) a gift from God to our family. It was so fun to spend time sharing so many memories of what God has done in each of our lives over the years and looking forward to what He will do next.So many dear, old and new friends have come to sit with us in this sad and beautiful time. The first morning in the ICU I was told Eric had a 0% chance of leaving the hospital. He had not been able to communicate well for a few days prior due to low oxygen levels and being deathly ill with aspiration pneumonia. I lay on Eric’s bed and cried out to God that He would allow Eric to wake up with clarity of mind and connection to be with our family and friends. God answered my prayer in a miraculous way that day. As soon as the first visitors (the elders and staff from our church) arrived, Eric perked up and has been able to communicate and connect since that day!
There have been periods where Eric is unable to talk the past few weeks. Some days are better than others and he is able to talk a little. One day, friends were visiting at a time when Eric was unable to talk. Our friend Tanya wrote the note to Eric on his whiteboard, “Share the gospel without words.” Eric, being funny, replied, “that goes without saying.” Their conversation stems from the quote, ““Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.” In other words, “Actions speak louder than words.”
Being confined to a hospital bed the past two weeks and the two weeks prior at home has not been easy. It is tempting to let frustration and anxiety have their turn. But these are not the “actions” we want to “speak” if we are to reflect the Light of Christ. I think of Paul and Silas singing in prison (Acts 16) that not only lifted the spirits of the other prisoners but culminated with the jailer and his whole family coming to Christ.
The life of Amy Carmichael, missionary to India, has always been an inspiration and encouragement even though and especially because she spent the last twenty years of her life bedridden with debilitating pain. While serving in India, Carmichael received a letter from a young lady who was considering life as a missionary, asking, “What is missionary life like?” Carmichael wrote back, “Missionary life is simply a chance to die.” Amy’s response to hardship was to say, “If we’re revived by grace and filled with the Holy Spirit, we’re capable of bearing fruit in season and out of season, in fertile ground and in the desert, when life is easy and when it’s not.”
The mission field is wherever we are. The circumstance does not shift the capability of the Holy Spirit. It is in the most difficult times that we are nearer to Him more intensely than ever before.
“The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to him, the more intensely missionary we become.”
(Henry Martyn)
