Tomorrow my husband heads out for a meeting before we sneak to the US for our only child’s graduation. So, today was errand day – get money, pay the rent, return a colleague’s car, buy drinking water, etc. We all have days like that – ordinary and mundane. But what I saw today was far from ordinary.
I’ve been researching a particular object some of my Khmer friends own. The teepee-looking object with a coconut at the bottom is supposedly home to a guardian spirit that a fortuneteller invites to protect and heal a needy person. Surprisingly, that’s an ordinary practice here.
The folks who sell water had one of these “homes” for a guardian spirit. So while we were asking about theirs, we noticed a lady with a towel over her head. She was gaunt and sat slumped over on a lounge chair. They explained that the poor woman was having a toothache and headaches. We felt pity for her and asked if we could pray. That launched us into a bit of explanation because praying to the Creator God IS out of the ordinary here in our Southeast Asia home. Most people don’t know what “praying” is or who we’re praying to, so we get to talk a lot about the One who has all power and authority and who made the heavens and the earth. All the while we whisper a heartfelt prayer this wonderful God would show up and help.
The family members agreed and I bent down to pray beside the lady. When I got a little closer, I saw an angry-looking growth protruding from her mouth and pus oozing from her gums. Then I glanced up a few inches. Oh, my! Where there should have been a nose and teeth and gums, there was only a cavern of redness. One eye looked like it had nothing around it – no lids or skin. I prayed, knowing nothing short of a miracle would do. My mind raced. How could she eat? How could she breathe? How could she be alive? How could her family have allowed this cancer or whatever to eat her face away? How could one human being endure such misery?
My insides ached at the thought of the sheer pain that must surge from her raw nerve endings. I plodded to the car and told my husband what he had missed – the sight underneath the towel. He drove to the bank but I couldn’t move from my seat. I was overwhelmed with sobbing tears at the plight of this woman. I had seen blood and body fluids in my years of hospital work, but I had never seen anything like what I saw under that towel. I called a nurse friend and she rushed over. They loved on her and prayerfully worked on her wounds. We’ll go back tomorrow and keep telling her about the Lord and trying to help.
But I can’t get her face out of my mind. I keep crying gut-wrenching prayers on her behalf. I know God CAN heal her. He can create a whole new face for her. NOTHING is too hard for HIM. But meanwhile, I am praying desperately that HE would show up underneath her towel, that HE would visit her, and she would meet the One who can soothe her every wound – inside and out. Certainly her “guardian spirit” has not brought good fortune! Would you please join us in praying that she and her family would know and encounter the Truth?
Stories from Asia 