By Mel Wiebe

MY WIFE Jasmine and I were at the 6 am prayer meeting at our church.

It was Tuesday, November 25, 2008, at Langley’s Christian Life Assembly ­– where I was on staff as an associate pastor.

After the prayer, I was speaking with a friend – and began to feel a little weak. I said, “I must sit down.” As I sat down, I blacked out.

After a while, I came to and said, “I’m not feeling well. I need to go to the washroom.” Then I blacked out again.

Thankfully, a nurse was there, and she began to look after me. She declared: “He has no pulse. Call the ambulance.”

The ambulance came in 13 minutes, and started to take me to Langley Memorial Hospital, just 10 minutes away. En route, the attendants gave me oxygen. When I arrived at the Emergency Room, I was in and out of consciousness – but alive.

The team of professionals went to work. I was hooked up to every possible support system. The hospital staff determined that I seemed to have lost a lot of blood for some unknown reason; so they gave me four units of it (a person only has eight units).

 About 4 pm, they moved me to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) bed that had just become available.

Angels

While I was still in the ER, the ambulance driver, who was obviously a believer in Jesus, came back to see how I was doing. He said, “God bless you, pastor.”

Then, when I was transferred to the ICU, the nurse, another angel who had cared for me in a wonderful way, took me up to ICU herself. Before she left me, she took my hand in both of hers and said, “The Lord is with you, pastor. He will take care of you.”

The next day was a day of rest, in order to get ready for the tests on Thursday to see what was going wrong with my body. As I lay on the bed, I began to realize that life is truly “like a vapour.”

 The Lord began to speak to me about important things: the condition of Canada, the country that I love; the sad condition of the church of Jesus in Canada and the United States; the sense of satisfaction we Christians have even though things are in really sad shape; and the responsibility I have to do something about this.

So, while I was enjoying a day of rest, it was also a day of soul searching and inner turmoil.

A day of testing

After a good sleep, it was determined the next day that my heart was strong enough to undergo the tests. By 10 am, I was on my way down to the operating room. I was about to be probed from both ends of my anatomy.

I will explain the procedure in lay terms. First the nurse and surgeon put a huge washer in my mouth to widen my throat, and then they took a black rubber hose and began to shove it down my throat.

They said, “Just relax” – my favourite words in a hospital. The hose kept going down until I heard the surgeon say, ‘It won’t go any farther. I’ve hit a blockage.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another nurse with a long needle, and then I was out again. I was dimly aware that they stuck the other probe in my other end.

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After a while, I came to, and my wife – who is usually very complimentary – bluntly said: “You look awful.”

The staff then took me back to my ICU bed, and we waited for results. They were not good.

The reason the probe would not go all the way down is that there were lumps, tumours or some other type of blockage. When I was not able to hear, the doctors told my wife that, because of the severe loss of blood, the blockages, my age and my general poor condition, they had concluded that I had colon cancer – terminal colon cancer. Of course, this was very disturbing to Jasmine.

In the meantime, Christians had started to pray. Many folks came to pray for me, and the CLA leaders came to pray too. Then, another ‘angel’ came to my bedside and prayed for me.

She was a four-foot, 10-inch German lady. In a strong accent, this Catholic believer prayed a Holy Ghost prayer that God would heal me, and then she went on her way. I spent the rest of the day in pain, but thankful to still be alive.

A day of miracles

The next day, I woke up early after a terrific sleep, and felt great.

The staff took me to another test. This time, I ate chalk (my term), then some water and then a ‘chocolate milkshake.’ Then the bed was tipped upside down, and I felt like I was on a ride at the PNE.

When the specialist took the pictures of my stomach, he said: “I do not see anything alarming here, only an 11 centimetre hernia.”

They sent me back to the ICU, where I showered and shaved. At 10 am, I went out into the hall for a walk. When my wife returned to the hospital, she thought she was seeing a ghost walking.

About 3 pm, the heart specialist said, “Your heart is perfect. You are good to go home.”

Later, the surgeon went over my records. Mystified, he said, “I do not see anything troubling now. You are good to go home.” When I said thank you for all he had done, the surgeon pointed upwards and said: “It’s all because of Him.”

Wisdom from Isaiah

When Jasmine went home to get my clothes, I sat in bed thinking of all that had happened in the previous four days. I was reflecting on what God had done for me. I took my Bible and flipped it open – something I do not normally do, or recommend – and the book opened to Isaiah 38.

This is the story of Isaiah telling King Hezekiah to “get his house in order” because he was going to die.

Hezekiah said to Isaiah (in my words): “Tell the Lord I do not want to die. I want an extension to my life.” And the Lord gave him another 15 years.

So I said, “Lord, I’ll take another 15 healthy, productive and fruitful years too, and any other healthy years you want me to have.”

I am thankful to God for his care for me and his healing hand on my life. I am thankful for the love and prayers of my wife Jasmine, and my children and grandchildren. I am thankful for all the people who prayed for me and would not give up until the answer came.

I was left with an overwhelming sense of how important it is for us North American Christians “to get our house in order” so that we can please God while we live – for he is a God of order.

Mel Wiebe is now vice president of International Christian Response, which supports persecuted Christians in 34 countries. He wants to help Canadian Christians become aware of the persecution that other believers experience daily in many areas of the world, and to encourage believers in Canada to pray for their brothers and sisters in other lands.

April 2010