“God fulfilled his side of the bargain. I guess it’s time for me to fulfill mine: How do I become a Christian?”
Wang (name changed) has been wrestling with giving his life to Jesus for as long as my husband and I have known him. We have prayed and studied the Bible together, talked through our lunch breaks at work together, attended church, and had endless meetings to work through parts of scripture he didn’t understand. But he still wasn’t ready to commit. He was waiting for a supernatural “experience” of God.
Well. Our God is pretty good at those.
A few months ago, Ben—our good friend, and the General Manager at the company we work for in Asia doing business as mission—left work early with intense back pain. That night he was admitted to the best hospital in town with kidney problems and a high fever. After a week there and some inconclusive tests, he and his wife flew back to the States to confirm a diagnosis nobody wants to hear: cancer. Ben had stage 4 lymphoma.
News of his diagnosis was met with shocked devastation at our company. How could such a good guy, a Christ-follower, have such a horrible thing happen to him? Wang in particular was crushed. He respected Ben so much for the care and integrity he had in running our company. Privately, Wang promised God that if he healed Ben, then he would accept Christ as his Savior.
Ben began treatment right away and my husband stepped in to act as General Manager for the site, helping people process what they were feeling. Many employees who had no relationship with Jesus asked if they could join us in praying for Ben, learning how to pray and intercede.
Just before beginning his third round of chemo in the US, Ben attended a prayer meeting where they laid hands on him. He began feeling hot all over. He was warm to the touch, and concerned he’d gotten a fever from being around other people with his compromised immune system. But his temperature was normal.
The next day before starting his treatment, the doctors ordered an additional PET scan to see if the cancer was responding to treatment at all. They said that a 30% decrease would be the very best he could hope for after just two rounds, and that often there is no response at all by that point. However, to everyone’s surprise, his tests showed no cancer at all!
It was a miracle! The celebration that day in Asia when we told the other employees was nuts! Full of amazement and tears, people responded by diving into scripture. More employees, wanting to know about this healing Jesus, joined prayer groups and Bible studies. And Wang? Well, he told us of his bargain with God, and Nick had the great pleasure of leading him to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sophie and Nick have lived and worked in Asia for the last two years. Ministering within the context of a business not only gives them many opportunities to minister to employees, but also offers a stark contrast to the broken world of business by showing how to lead with integrity like Jesus. They are welcoming their first daughter by adoption soon!