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Be surrounded by prayer warriors. Someday YOU will NEED them…
MY MIRACLE
See previous posts in this series
Wow! How could I have known that when I started writing this blog series a few months ago I was about to personally experience the greatest prayer miracle of my life? But not my prayers, oh NO! rather the mighty prayers of my warrior princess wife, my warrior kids, my amazing pastor and his family and our church, my precious Tres Dias Ministry brothers and sisters around the state, and thousands of friends and family around the world. They prayed oh so very BOLD prayers on my behalf and God so tenderly heard them and literally saved my life. Praise Jesus!!!!
This April 11th, 2017 I went to do a commercial building inspection to make a little money to help fund our ministry. The first thing I needed to do was inspect the roof which was 16′ high so I extended my ladder to full height, put my camera strap around my neck, and climbed to the edge of the roof. That’s the last thing I remember…
As I am told now, I fell 16′ and landed on concrete on my left side. Miraculously there was a young woman named Renee eating her lunch in her car nearby which was totally unplanned because she usually brings her lunch to work and eats at her desk BUT that day she forgot her lunch and so drove and bought some and was eating in the back parking lot (where no one usually is) and saw me fall. If God hadn’t placed her there I would have died there in just a few minutes. She called 911 and the EMTs got me to the hospital in 11 minutes. My now hero Dr. Timothy Hodges, trauma surgeon spent the next 8 hours working on me “putting out fires in my body” as he says. I had extensive internal bleeding, 3 brain bleeds, 8 broken ribs, my whole face was shattered with scores of fractures, 3 broken vertebrae, a Hemothorax lung, a Pneumothorax lung, dead spleen, partially damaged kidney, damaged colon, and later we found out partial blindness in my left eye and total blindness in my right eye.
My family rushed to the hospital and began to pray! Soon over 40 Christian brothers and sisters flooded the ICU waiting room that first night and prayed! Doctors told my family to prepare themselves because there was no way I would survive this. But they prayed! The next morning Dr. Hodges was shocked to find me still alive when he came in. I ended up with pneumonia, sepsis, a urinary tract infection, and a blood infection. I lay unconscious in that ICU for 25 days. My wife Lisa and my daughter Rebekah rarely left my side. My pastor, other pastors, and many friends and family came every day to pray over me. Many drove from Dallas and other parts of Texas. My daughter and son in law, Brooke and Oscar, were flown in from Colombia by my daughter Beverly, my daughter Mercy and her fiancee, Bobby came from Dallas and stayed, my mother and brother and family came from Missouri. A mighty wall of prayer surrounded me and rose up to heaven and pulled me back from the edge of death. Messages came in from around the world where I have ministered of people praying for me. One day my wife received a message from the radio host of an underground Christian radio station in Pakistan assuring her that 2.7 million Christians in Pakistan were praying for me!
Not only prayers but funds came in from precious brothers and sisters everywhere. Tens of thousands of dollars for medical bills came in. People would bring my family so much food and waters and Gatorade as they camped in the ICU waiting room day after day that my wife began to distribute the extra among other families with a loved on in the ICU and then she would go around and pray for each of them and share Jesus with them. Mighty miracles began to take place in that ICU with me and with others. Some of my Tres Dias sisters went way beyond in helping Lisa to protect me and to get me the best possible care. Others created artful fundraisers with a theme from one of my sermons of the past “But God…” It was beautiful the love, prayers, and help that was poured out on us.
Finally on May 3rd, 2017 the doctors told my wife she needed to put me in hospice to die. I just wasn’t going to get any better. She said,”ok but we are praying that he will wake up…” The next morning she had gone home to shower and change and was kneeling in her prayer closet begging God to wake me up when her phone rang and our pastor, Frankie Mazzapica said, “tell me what’s new.” She explained about hospice and that she was kneeling in her prayer closet praying for me to wake up. Pastor Frankie prayed over the phone that I would wake up. Lisa drove to the hospital, walked in my room and I said, “Good morning beautiful!” I was wide awake and my mom was holding my hand. Everyone started coming to see me and I knew each one and I was so happy to hear how I got there and that God had raised me up!!! I was moved the next day to a new room in the hospital and then a week later to Rehab to learn to walk and talk and such and in 3 weeks I was so back to normal that I got to come home!!! On the day I woke up when Dr. Hodges came to see me I took his hand in my two hands and said, “Thank you for saving my life.” He cursed accidentally and said, “YOU ARE A MIRACLE! sorry for my language” and then left. We laughed and praised God!
I’ve been home 5 weeks. Have loved attending church and many precious friends coming by and my pastors encouragement and time with my AMAZING family. Still praying for my left arm to work again and my right eye blindness to heal but filled with unspeakable joy because it is obvious that I will be strong enough soon to preach again and someday to travel and minister again and God did it all in answer to the promise that He loves, He hears, and He answers bold prayers!
[quote]”Every time you pray the tide of the battle turns” – Frankie Mazzapica (Psalm 56:9)[/quote]
A big thank you to our dear friend and ministry partner, Shannon Arnold, for prompting this series…
Totally unbeknownst to us, my worship leader of our church I pastored was currently and had been for years systematically sexually abusing his two teenage adopted daughters, one of which was our son’s (who was away in the Navy) girlfriend. She eventually cried out to him and then to me, I discreetly confirmed everything, and then brought in law enforcement to investigate. Once he and his wife got wind of the fact that I knew the truth, the war was on! I convinced them to bring the 16-year-old daughter who had cried out to me to stay with our family and after dropping her off they fled the city. They of course were very popular in the church and launched a campaign of lies to try and cover for this horrendous sin and they successfully convinced many of the church of his innocence and that she was a rebellious lying girl and that I was totally in the wrong. It was nightmarish! The battle was terrible! Our church disintegrated before our eyes. I was out of a job as a pastor by late spring of 2010 and our family went through a terrible time. Law enforcement pursued them and eventually after years of evading it the whole story came out finally and the other daughter was rescued. 