Sunday, August 06, 2017

Rapha Encounters (1)


Launching into our next missionary journey, my wife and I have planned to start a Rapha Encounters ministry to pray for the sick . (Jehovah Rapha means God the Healer- Exodus 15:26 ) This ministry is prompted by the numerous referrals of sick, broken and tormented people from time to time over the years by brothers and sisters from other churches in Paris to visit us.
We thank God and give glory to HIM that many were healed and set free.
But my personal encounters with healing had come a long way and I will take time to share some of them here.
The 1st Rapha encounter - March 1990
Barely 4 months after being rescued by Jesus from suicidal thoughts and accepted Jesus into my heart to be my Lord and savior, I was picked by my pastor ( Benedict Rajan) (Calvary City Church, Johor Bahru) to attend a healing seminar organized for the church life group leaders. For a baby Christian, I must have impressed him to earn this reward for having listened to all his dozens of sermon tapes and dozens and dozens of Derek Prince's teaching tapes and read many of the books in the church library. I was hungry for God.

My pastor also picked my wife (girl friend then) knowing that the two of us would become one.
At the end of the seminar, a healing crusade was organized at a down town hotel ballroom. After the course teacher, travelling evangelist AL Gill let out a barrages of testimonies of how Jesus healed the sick, cast out demons and set the captive free from the gospels, he then told the crowd that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.
He then told us the students to stand in front in a row and he told the crowd that the same Jesus Christ still loves to see sick people healed today through His believers (us!!!). He then invited them to bring the sick to us so that we can lay hand on them and heal them in Jesus's name.
I began to see people coming. Oh no I saw one pushing a man in a wheelchair toward me! I could see from a distance he must have just suffered a stroke recently as water still drips from his mouth uncontrollably. In a panic, my faith sank, in fact it dropped on the floor like a melting ice creme.
As the wheelchair came closer and closer, that newbie in the Lord did the only thing he knew best. I froze and shut my eyes. YES I did a shut eye! And I could hear my heart thumping, thumping, thumping !!!
Lo and behold I soon heard the wheelchair stopped at a leader next to me. What a sigh of relief I thought and began to gather back half my composure and I opened my eyes wanting to pick up what's left of that melting ice creme, my faith in the Lord.
Then I was shocked to find this man smiling at me, who has been standing right in front of me all this while!!! That was why the wheelchair couldn't come to me. ( What a Mr. Bean I was!)
Then I asked this smiling man what's not right with him since he looks perfectly normal to me. He said he is from another church and he has been suffering for months now he has these pins and needles sensation underneath his soles. Every step he walks would cause such discomfort and unbearable pain.
My heart began to pound again!
So, with whatever little left of my faith I prayed " In the name of Jesus I command the pain to leave this man and his soles be healed".
Honest I did not expect anything would happen and I'm sure neither did he.
But I could see his eyes became so big as if in disbelief, and he shouted that his pain has gone! WHAT???
I didn't even know how to respond to THAT except to let him go in joy.

Anyway, that was my 1st Rapha encounter and more will follow.
But for now, do you have a need to encounter Jehovah Rapha God the Healer yourself ? Your friends? Your love ones?
Are they suffering from sickness? Broken relationships? Mentally tormented? Dangerous addiction? Husband and wife who wish to have children but couldn't? etc .... etc?
Well, you are more than welcomed to PM me. My wife and I are happy to pray for you.
Just remember, Jesus Christ loves all the people and He wants them healed!!!