Kicked out of the Hospital

“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

John  14:12-14

    The Soccer Game 

All week the kids beg us to play soccer.  Over and over again they ask and ask. So after church on Saturday we went to play.  

    As we began to play, these kids would just flop all over the place. If someone barely touched them they would dive on the ground and act like they got hurt. I was watching this and I was getting upset. My compassion and sympathy were at a low.  

    Then one boy got fouled and this time he was actually injured.  I was on the other side of the field and I saw the boy go sit out on the sideline.  What happened next was powerful and beautiful. One of my teammates then went over and asked if he could pray over the boy.  The game stopped and we began to walk over and saw the aftermath of that prayer. 

      The boy was prayed for, but hesitated as he was hurt.  Then he stood up testing his leg and his face was shocked. He was fine.  All the pain was gone! He had just been healed.   

     He ran back into the game and played as if nothing had happened.  As we played longer, more got injured, and more got prayed for and healed!

Being able to witness this was a powerful testimony and only proves what scripture says.  

The Hospital 

The next week, after a already long day, I was reading scripture at home. I read a few chapters in John and the same thing was said over and over again.  Here are these verses: John: 14:12, 15:7, 15:16, 16:23-24. 

I felt fueled up by the Holy Spirit and scripture and I was not alone.  Two of my teammates were ready to go back into the streets… so that’s what we did.  As we are praying on where to go… we talked about the Hospital and then just did it.     The thought process was, let’s pray over as many as possible and see some healings and miracles.  

  We get there and no one speaks English. Which is no problem because ~90 percent of communication is non-verbal anyways.  We translate that we want to pray over the sick because our God can heal people. After much discussion, the group of nurses and doctors seem to not want us to, but one nurse wants us. The problem now is that there are 0 patients in the entire Hospital.   The doctor kinda smiles and seems to say, well looks like you should go, but we intend to stay and wait for a patient. 

 Then a car pulls up, an older lady comes out and is falling over and looks so so sick. They take her in and wheel here to a hospital room. They motion for us to stay out and wait to be called in.  After 20ish minutes of us praying, Mackenzie on my team says, I don’t think they want us to come in, we just gotta let ourselves in.  So we opened the door and then inched our way into a room, pushing through the nurses and getting to the woman. Looking back this sounds Ridiculous, but hey, we serve a God who has given us authority to heal the sick in His name all for the Fathers Glory. 

      Long story short, the lady is throwing up and I am talking with the son who is in his 30s.  His mother is one of the few Christians in town!!!  (How amazing that the day we go to the hospital, we get to be there for a sister in Christ). Mackenzie sat on the bed and sang worship songs with the woman.   The woman would just keep saying Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah, and telling the doctor she is gonna be healed.   

    As if everyone already knows the Americans are in town, now we are making a scene at the hospital. Word is quickly spreading that the Americans are praying for the sick at the hospital.   

    This woman’s name is Maljinda!  Then a nurse takes us all the way down the hospital to another wing, she shows us another nurse who is also one of the few Christians in town.  She has spine, neck, and leg problems. Makes walking extremely difficult. THIS WOMAN HAS FAITH. I believe she had been praying for 5 years everyday for healing, and she would tell all her co workers that God would heal her. They all thought she was crazy!   

   But nonetheless, we got to go in and pray, and pray, and pray.  We did not see much fruit in that moment and she asked us to comeback tomorrow.  

   So we went back into the other wing, (Nick had actually already just been kicked out of the Hospital), but had went to the other wing with us.  As we go back to pray over Maljinda again, we see another lady and try to pray for her, then the Doctor comes and kicks us out!

     So the next day, upon a nurses personal invitation, we let ourselves back in. We pray over the nurse again.  The woman just keeps talking about Heaven and how good God is. Even though we did not see healing in the moment, her faith is incredible! 

   To be honest, I was expecting her spine to snap into place and for her to be healed, but it didn’t.   I had to take this back to the Lord, I was honestly upset and confused.  What I learned while studying more scripture is healings and miracles can be different.    I’ve seen miracles here in Çorovodë, but for some reason sometimes when we pray we don’t see it.  It’s not like a ritual or something like that, we just ask God to heal. Sometimes he does and sometimes not and I can not explain because I do not know His will. 

     I do know God has the power to heal any sickness and injury!  It happens today! But, even if after praying for it and it doesn’t happen, don’t doubt God.  He can do it, there is a reason greater than we can understand why not.  

    What the nurse taught me in the Hospital is Faith even when not seeing it. This woman had Faith and was focused on Heaven… what is to come and in the end it is healing! 

      The other lady named Maljinda had us over to her house the next week, she is doing great!!!  She feed us a traditional meal. I also went to her grandsons house, her daughters home, etc. They all feed me and I got to meet and encourage most the Christians in town!  

One of the last days here we went to the local government building to share the gospel with the man in charge of the city. My host was so excited to do this and brought a few of us along. It turns out the man was on vacation anyways, so we gave a bible to an associate of his. 

Hey!!  Thanks for making it! Hopefully, I can get rid of this password soon, just felt I needed to put it for the time being. 

I have made it to Kyrgyzstan and I am currently in the capital with my squad. We are taking a break together before we split again. While here we have met many who have never heard of the name of Jesus before.   This week we are heading to a Yurt camp in the middle of nowhere. I am excited for this break, socially I am wiped! 

 Just so you know, Kyrgyzstan is further from Ukraine than Albania was… So very safe here. You can put a whole United States width in between.   I am very up to date on the Ukraine conflict, people in Albania were very involved as they were post-Soviet themselves. There has been many peaceful protest in support of Ukraine and some on my squad have met people who are volunteering to go defend Ukraine.   Pray!  Orthodox Christianity can look a little different and I honestly know little about it, but they are our still our brothers and sisters in Christ. We can stand in prayer… simple.

Stay tuned for more post from Albania.

 Thanks Sam!

Enjoy this picture of me in a Kyrgyzstan army uniform!