Day 6 Answered Prayer and Sugar Cane

This morning I asked Mbondo about an old lady that we had met ten years ago when I first came to Kenya. She was old then and I wasn't sure if she would still be alive. He said that she was still living and that we could pass by her house on our way to visit some others. We made it to her house in the early afternoon and when we arrived she was bursting with joy. She shared that she had been praying this morning we would come and visit her. We had not planned on visiting her and I had not thought about her for quite some time, yet this morning we made the decision to visit her. It made me think that we have such a wonderful God who would care to answer the prayer of an old lady in a remote village by reminding us to visit her.

I had first met her ten years ago when her ankle was swollen as large as a grapefruit. The church had asked me to pray for her. I didn't know what to do and quite nervous. Then I was asked to share something from Scripture. I had no idea what to say and offered up a desperate prayer. The story of Peter and John healing the crippled man came to my mind. I had no idea where this story was in the book of Acts and suddenly felt more desperate. Someone handing me a Gideon's Bible and I asked God to at least help me find it if he wanted actually share it. I opened up the Bible and the first thing my eyes saw was the heading “Peter and John heal the crippled man” instead of feeling revealed I felt worse. I questioned God by saying “You want me to share about the crippled man who God healed to the crippled woman who is not going to healed?” Yet in my heart I knew that I needed to share from this passage. I offered up what must have been one of the weakest homilies ever given on that passage and close by saying with no confidence “I believe that someday God will heal you too”. When I prayed for her I made sure to include the phrase “heal her in your time” so that when she didn't get healed I could explain that it wasn't God's timing. But it turned out it was God's timing. The next day we went back to visit her and found out that the swelling had gone down and she was walking. Two days later we went back again and found the swelling had gone down more and she was working in her garden. The following day I brought the nurse to examine her ankle and he was able to wash and dress it and the ankle completely healed. It was good to see her again and she still remembers the time God healed her ankle through prayer.

After we visited with her we spent some time at other homes eventually winding up at the home of William and Sarah. We ate sugar cane, roasted goat meat, and drank a lot of tea. It was a great way to end to the day.