THE CHURCH IN BAGHDAD PART III The healing ministry of the church is not restricted to medical help that the clinic can provide we have at its heart the supernatural healing ministry of our Lord. Whilst the church has a very significant ministry of prayer. People have a great expectation that if they are prayed for the Lord will meet with them and heal them. So the expectation of the Lords healing power is very real. In the clinic where most of the patients are Muslim there is still the belief that if the priest anoints them they will be healed. There is sadly too much reliance on the priest amongst the non-Christians and also amongst some of the Christian’s but over the years there has been a great growth in the general prayer ministry of the church particularly amongst the women. Every Saturday afternoon a group of the women from the MU go out visiting the poor and the sick and pray for the Lord to heal everybody they meet. Every year at our churches Synod that meets in Cyprus the bishop blesses the oil that all the churches in the Diocese use for anointing. This is something that happens in many churches around the world every year. A fairly large bottle of oil is given but this has been the only church in the world that I have been in where every year I run out of oil. Fortunately I am regularly in Israel and can get more anointing oil from Jerusalem or Bethlehem. It is also the only church I have ever been in where people ask to take anointing oil away with them. This is really good news because it means our people are praying for other people in need. There is a great belief and tradition amongst people of our church of taking sacramental things from the church to give to others who cannot get to there. People do not just want the anointing oil they often want to take communion wafers for those who are to ill or frail to come to church. They will take burnt out candles and even water from the font and anything else they consider holy. Each week in the service I will ask the people to tell us what God has been doing in their lives. I will hear stories of people’s dreams and visions of miracles and how God has answered their prayers. There are always countless visions of Jesus and words that our people have heard Jesus say to them. Thursday evening we always meet to pray for peoples healing. When I am there everybody will expect to be anointed but we do not just pray for those who are there at every service there is a book that has all the names of people in it who need prayer. This book is lifted up to the Lord in prayer with the assurance that the Lord will indeed hear and answer these prayers. Once again we will regularly hear of these prayers being answered. So many people tell stories of how God has heard and answered their prayers bringing often dramatic healing. We have seen people healed of heart disease various cancers and even children with congenital illnesses. These healings however dramatic do not compare to the resurrection’s we have seen. Let me take this opportunity to tell you just two of these stories. I have mentioned already that on Saturday afternoon our Mothers Union members go to visit those who are very much suffering, on one occasion they went to se a lady who was pregnant and ill in hospital. They went into the ward to see her and there was another patient in the ward crying hysterically. Our ladies asked what was wrong with her and were told that her baby had just died and been taken to the mortuary. Immediately our ladies asked to go to the mortuary to see the baby. They went and the baby was in the fridge. They took the dead lifeless baby from the fridge held him and prayed that life would come back to him. The baby started crying and they took him back to his mother in the ward and now there were two people crying. The next story is my favourite. Ahmed was a normal workingman in Baghdad. He came to our clinic one day and pleaded with one of our doctors to treat his daughter. It turned out that his teenage daughter was seriously ill in the Medical City our main University hospital. He asked if our doctors could treat her in the popular belief that the so-called “English Clinic” could treat anybody. Our doctors explained that sadly they could nod treat a patient in another hospital. The father was distressed and one of the doctors suggested he go over to see the Abouna. I saw him and prayed with him. As I did so I was sure that our Lord was going to heal her and told him to go to the hospital and all the way just say Yasua, Yasua, Yasua continuously which is the name of Jesus in Aramaic. He did this and got to the ward only to be greeted by one of the doctors who told him that tragically whilst he was away his daughter had died. In desperate tears he went to her bed through his arms around her body and said Yasua, Yasua, Yasua. She immediately sat up and said “Baba (Daddy) I’m hungry can I have some food”. When I heard this I told him, “Don’t worry it has happened before”. More to come tomorrow
Posted on: Mon, 26 May 2014 19:54:13 +0000
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