Testimony
An Influential Encounter with an Influential Man
Written by Caleb Skipper, Apprentice to Ethiopia
Late one night, a man stumbled into our clinic. Although the clinic was closed, as it is every night, Lemma and Samuel, our clinic nurses who live right next door, opened up the clinic to help this man. He presented sharp chest pains, a fever, headache, and difficulty breathing. Our nurses prescribed him several medications. Aboma, one of our evangelists, came and prayed for him, and they sent him on his way. This could have been the end to the story, but it seems that God had greater plans in store.
The next morning I was working in the new laboratory we have set up, thanks to some generous contributions. Suddenly, Craig came driving up with another young man in the car. He relayed to me that the man with him in the car had walked from Duban (about 30 minutes away), braved our dog, and was asking us to come help his sick father. So Craig and I drove to Duban. On the way, we passed several people who were walking to Duban to see this sick man. And when we arrived, we saw a large crowd outside one of the huts. What we found inside just further added to the not yet understood complexity of the matter.
Inside we found a man who was unresponsive and who had severely labored breathing. I checked his breath sounds and his pulse; both were abnormal. To be quite honest, Craig’s and my first impression was that this man could very well be dead soon. We were trying to figure out our next course of action when Craig noticed some blood on the sick man’s head. The blood wasn’t from a wound, and upon further inquiry, Craig discovered its source: a chicken. Then things began falling into place.
The sick man’s name was Biesya. Biesya is an influential witch doctor in our area. Not only is he an influential witch doctor (a Kaleecha Witch Doctor, specifically), but he has been the witch doctor opposing our evangelist’s work. Now here he was, seemingly on his death bed. The possible consequences of this situation began playing out in our minds. We began realizing how significant this whole situation was becoming. Would the white Christians who were despised by this witch doctor, be the very people to save his life? Would our medicine and prayer prove more powerful than his chants and rituals? Essentially, to the people’s eyes, it was an issue of the power of God compared to Biesya’s spirits. You can now see the extremely interesting and important nature of this situation. After that first visit with Biesya, Craig, Allison, and I committed to trying to save this man’s life. Allison and I decided that some kind of severe acute pneumonia was our most likely diagnosis. We visited him three more times over the next 12 hours. We started an IV and gave him some injectable antibiotics. That evening, we did notice some improvement in him, though his breathing was still severely labored.
It dawned on me to let Biesya try to use my asthma inhalers to see if it helped his breathing; and while not terribly successful in his use of it, he thought it had helped him. Based on that, Craig, Allison, and I came up with the idea of hooking up a nebulizer to the solar power at the clinic and then bringing Biesya there. We all thought it was worth a shot, so that’s what we did. It was a memorable scene seeing Craig carry this emaciated witch doctor in his arms to the car in an attempt to save his life. Biesya spent the day at the clinic, receiving more IV fluid and albuterol from the nebulizer – which did indeed prove to help his breathing. The end of the story so far: the man whom everyone thought was dead the day before and who Craig carried out of the hut, walked back into his hut under his own power later that day. In the minds of the people, we had brought him back to life.
I walked to Duban this morning to check on him (4 days after the first day we saw him). He is doing great. You could barely even tell he had been sick. His respirations were normal, and he was eating and drinking. He was also quite friendly with me, so I think he is at least thinking reconsidering his attitude toward us. It will be interesting to see the repercussions of this event. It is definitely something to pray about. I would ask for prayer for Biesya. That this encounter would help him reconsider an animistic faith he has truly dedicated himself too, and which is hard to escape. Please pray for the people who watched and witnessed this event. That through compassion and healing they would see both the love and power of God. And I would ask prayer for myself, that an experience such as this would leave an impression on my heart about just what our God is capable of, and that I can continue to learn, discern, be a blessing to the Fowlers, and can be a vessel for our Lord.
Thank you for all of you who have been praying, especially those praying for Duban. It has been exciting to see what God has been doing here in just my first month in Ethiopia, and I look forward to seeing what the future holds.
