(photo: Kathryn with Peter--sorry, no picture of the Koko available)
It’s raining heavily here, so we can’t go out at the moment. Islanders don’t do a whole lot when it rains. They just stay home. But it gives us an opportunity to tell a story. Grace loves the story and asks me to tell it often, so I know it pretty well now, and it’s a story worth retelling. It’s a true story that happened only last month, and it involves our teammate Kathryn and her neighbor, an older woman we call Koko (which means grandmother in the local language.)
Kathryn and the Koko
Kathryn was coming home from work and wanted to get into her house. She had left the keys with her neighbor and thought she would pop in to get them. She started to say, “Hello” when she saw that the Koko was asleep. She saw the keys lying on the table and planned to slip by and get them without waking her, but something made her stop. The Koko wasn’t sleeping. Something was wrong. She went to take a closer look. The Koko wasn’t sleeping at all. She was quivering. A closer look made it apparent—the Koko was having a stroke. Her right side was inert. She couldn’t speak. Her face had slumped and she couldn’t move her arm or leg. Kathryn, being medical, immediately began to think through all the things she should do. Call the hospital. Call the Koko’s son. Figure out a way to get her to the hospital. And then she thought. I should pray. We had been talking about praying for people who are sick. Here was Kathryn’s opportunity. She stopped and said to the Koko, “I’m going to pray for you.” And then she prayed. She prayed that the Koko would be healed in the name of our Savior. When she finished praying she turned to get her phone and start making phone calls, when suddenly the Koko spoke. Kathryn couldn’t believe it. The Koko was healed. She could walk and talk and move. At the very moment she finished praying the Koko was better. It was a miracle. Kathryn prayed, and God made the Koko better.
That’s the story. We tell it to Grace and to anyone else who wants to hear it. Some people don’t believe that things like that happen. I imagine some of you reading this blog will write it off as a medical coincidence. But we know that God is at work here, and we know it was a miracle.
PRAYERS ANSWERED
We have two great kids that give us lots of joy. Some visitors this week were able to give us some news about our friend Sahara who is studying abroad. Megan was able to make a long visit with a former neighbor who just lost her mother.
PRAYERS REQUESTED
We have two visitors coming from the States this coming week—pray that all their travels would go smoothly and that they would get here without incident (they are traveling separately and one has never traveled outside the States before). We’re feeling a little overwhelmed with lots of little things needing to be done as well as some big things in the near future that need to be planned. Pray for a peace and the opportunities to get the quiet times we need.
