The moment I woke up I knew something wasn’t right. As I rolled over, I peered through the morning darkness and noticed that my left ring finger felt very strange and I couldn’t bend it at all. At first I was convinced that it was just asleep, but after a few minutes passed and nothing changed I realized that I had been bitten by something, probably a spider, although I could not find the bite mark. As the day passed my finger got bigger and bigger until it was nearly twice the size of its counterpart on my right hand. After lunch the poison that the mystery bug had injected into my hand was on the move. In a matter of hours my whole hand began to swell and my finger still refused to bend. But it was Monday, and Monday is our day of rest so I didn’t want to my finger stop me from hanging out with friends or visiting the awesome local market so I tried to put it in the back of my mind and continue with the day. By the time dinner rolled around, a bunch of us were gathered in our apartment to share a meal and watch a movie and one of my friends asked how my hand was doing. As I looked down at the problematic limb, I realized that the strange poison had spread through my hand and had started streaking up my arm and had advanced 3 inches above my left elbow. I couldn’t ignore it anymore, this was starting to get serious.

My friends and I knew what we had to do, we had to talk to God. Everyone gathered around me and prayed about my hand and asked Him to take away the poison that was in my body and to prevent it from advancing any further up my arm. After we were done, I grabbed a pen and put a mark at the tip of the red streak and sat down to watch the movie. At the end of the movie, I noticed the red streak had not advanced any further. The next morning I woke up and saw that the swelling had begun to subside and the streaks were less red and pronounced. In a few days, all traces of the insect ordeal were gone. God had healed me and prevented the bite from the mystery insect from doing any more damage!

That is just one example of how the Lord has come through with healing for members of my team and for our friends. He has a great plan for us here and is ready and willing to show is power and might in our lives. Thank you Lord!