Wednesday, March 25, 2009

PRAISE HIS GREAT NAME! HOW THE LORD LITERALLY SAVED MY LIFE ON MARCH 10, 2009!

2 Chronicles 16:9 (NASB) "For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His".

I am a living testimony to the Power and Presence of Almighty God! Praise His Great Name!

On March 6, I was at a Prayer Warrior Equipping Conference in Jacksonville, Il. led by Apostle Jim Chosa of the Montana Crow Nation. (Apostle Jim is one of my main mentors in the prayer movement). Later that evening, I began to feel ill and uncomfortable. Upon waking and returning to the conference the next day (about 45 minutes away), I found myself unable to walk or sit properly.

After getting home that afternoon, and doing my shift at an all day prayer vigil at church, I was again unable to walk and developed fevers. I later found out that a huge boil and cyst was developing in the area, where one sits! The fevers and chills soon followed with me being unable to go to church the next day or work the day after. After forcing myself to go to work the following Tuesday March 10, where I had some work to clean up, the pain was so intense, that I made an appointment to see my doctor later that day. By then, the cyst was about 6 square inches in area!

Once they got a look at this thing at the clinic, I was dispatched immediately to the Specialist, who fortunately was just across the street from Memorial Hospital! He took one more look at it and said we are off to surgery right away and he could not wait even 12 hours to work on it! Within 90 minutes, I went from sitting in a clinic office to laying on a gurney getting prepped for surgery at 10pm!

This was the providential Hand of the Almighty! A huge bacterial infection had developed in me where that cyst was and was three inches into my body. Had the abcess reached my organs within that 24 hours or the bloodstream, it was Goodnight forever! It's kind of like an appendix bursting and it was too late to make it to the hospital! Dr. Hoffman said it was the worse abcess he has ever seen in all his years of surgery! They poured a massive amount antibiotics into me because my fever was over 100 for most of the surgery. Again, the Lord Jesus kept me from getting hospitalized for days right after the surgery! I was discharged two hours later!

I don't know why the Lord let me live, but I am so grateful. A fast moving bacterial infection is nothing to joke with and am just blessed with how He lined up doctors and nurses etc to get this thing taken care of. I have a month to recover with a drainage tube preventing me from sitting for a long time, but it has led me to reevaluate not just my life, but how I can intensify my relationship with the One Who Saved me! It has been a painful and soulsearching process, but He restored not just the power of the prayer/encouragement ministry He has given me to work in, but the Joy of being in this blessed Kingdom assignment! It carries no riches on earth, just the treasure of being in that oh-so-close intense nearness with the Savior.

As I mentioned, these past weeks have been a walking/talking testimonial to the Power and Love of God....the God who not only GAVE IT ALL on the CROSS, but reached down and touched a nobody here in the cornfields of Illinois, who is just one of His footsoldiers. I love you Lord, and I praise Your Great Name!
"From the Rising of the Sun, to the setting of the same, the Name of the Lord is greatly to be praised!"
Thank you, Adonai.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

ANOTHER LUTCHMAN IN MINISTRY - IN THE CARIBBEAN


Youngest Lutchman brother - Vinay (seen here at left with the black beret), heads up the Men's Ministry at his church in the Caribbean island of Trinidad. He is seen here with two of the "DISCIPLES IN CHRIST" group from St. Joseph Presbyterian Church. This was at a recent Christian Youth Rally in the south of the tropical island. (Others in photo Dr. Ian Sammy, center and on the right Shane Bacchus, BP Engineer).