Last Friday, and again Tuesday, I made my now-regular pilgrimage to Londonderry, as it seems word is spreading like wildfire that God is pouring out miraculous healing power on that city, and across the north of Northern Ireland. Davy King is receiving constant phone calls from people asking for prayer – now covering an area from Londonderry to Portrush to Coleraine to Dungannon. What God is doing in the north of Northern Ireland (NornIron!!) is something I’ve not seen in the UK. The ‘days’ in Derry are getting longer – not just because of mid-summer and light evenings! – but because the number of people wanting prayer – from evangelicals to Catholics to not-yet-Christians, is increasing quite incredibly. It seems that Davy knows about half of the people in Londonderry (120,000 total population!), and the half he doesn’t know, know him!
I generally get there about 11 am, and I haven’t been leaving until around 12 hours later… and much of that time is praying, some driving of course… I was checking with Davy yesterday, to make sure, and he confirmed that, in the three months I’ve had involvement in Derry, there isn’t a single person who hasn’t either been healed, or is in process of being healed… I’ve not seen anything like it outside of Cali, Colombia, for the sheer volume of people healed, the ‘enormity’ of some of the diseases/sicknesses, and the ‘percentage’ rate of people healed…. we tried yesterday to think of people who HADN’T been healed – and couldn’t.
It reminds me of something that changed my life forever, back in 1987. I’ve said this in blogs in the past. but that year, I sat in a church above the Security Police station in Guangzhou, China, with five Chinese pastors, including Samuel Lamb, who thankfully spoke English(!), listened to them tell stories of endless miracles, resurrections, healings – and asked them what they say to people they pray for who AREN’T healed. They had a loud Cantonese discussion, some laughter, and Samuel said, ‘They don’t understand the question’… because ‘it’s NOT possible for God NOT to answer prayer, and that situation (people not healed) NEVER arises’…. What’s happening in Derry is the beginning….scratching the surface of that sort of Christian lifestyle, which SHOULD be our NORM…..
Yesterday, first visit, was to a lovely young woman, Emma, 37 years old, married, with a 9 year old daughter, Hope. Emma’s had 5 brain tumours spanning 14 years, had radiation, surgery… and back the tumours come. The last surgery she had, the surgeon took the tumour away, BUT…took away more of her brain than he needed to, or should have done. It left her with extremely limited movement down her right side, speech impairment, virtually blind in her right eye (about 15% sight), and 50% reduced sight in her left. With her was her husband, her sister Clare, and a long time friend from Melbourne, Australia (just like God to have someone there from another city I love!). I don’t know if any of them are Christians, but there was openness, faith, and expectation there. It was a GREAT time praying for Emma: she’d not been able to see Davy standing just at the end of her bed, but after praying for her, she could! The significance of that ISN’T so much that she could see – it’s that the damage to the brain, and the optic nerve, was being healed…. Her sister has texted Davy a couple of times today: Emma is feeling better than she’s ever felt, she’s been out in the street walking, she has energy… Is this 14 years of history ending? I believe so…
You might remember Julie, the young mum with four kids, who God healed of breast cancer, and lymphatic cancer, and then just recently, of cysts on her ovaries through a prayer prayed through Facebook messenger… when I first met Julie and Andrew, her husband, Julie’s mum, Gloria, was there. Seeing Julie last night, she told me that her mum has been totally healed – she had osteoarthritis, and fibromyalgia… she’s in her 70s, and since 4-5 weeks ago, she runs up and down stairs endlessly sorting out the kids, and before Andrew gets home from his night work (* am), Gloria has washed and polished the floors, tidies up toys, cleaned the house…. previously, she had no energy at all, she couldn’t sleep, and now she’s sleeping like a log…!
At the home of a lovely older couple, Joe and Pat, we thought we were going to pray just for Joe, with prostate cancer, cancer in pretty much every bone, and pancreatitis. When we got to the house, word had spread, and there were 13 people sick people there! I was talking to – and praying for – people for 5½ hours, with a 10 minute break for a sandwich and a cuppa! Later in the day, Joe said that his pancreas was hot, a feeling he’d never experienced: today, we heard that he feels really well, free from pain, with more energy… of course, with cancer the only ‘acid’ test of healing – unless there are some major ‘feelable’ changes, like tumours going – is the next scan, x-rays, blood tests…
Everyone at Joe and Pat’s house had major measures of healing – including the customary osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia! – and it was an amazing afternoon.
A good number of others were healed Friday and Tuesday: looking forward to going back on Friday!!
