|
Pictures (clockwise): FBC
McKinney; Celeste/Greenville TX team; FBC Glen
Rose; Bibles and baseball
First Time
for Everything
|
|
|
Saturday is the day when our teams are picked up by
their churches and taken to the towns and villages
across the country where they will serve in the
English Bible camps. We have seven camps this first
week, and thirty-seven participants. On Sunday, the
teams will be in their respective churches, getting
to know the families, sometimes preaching, singing,
and just praising God together. The day camps start
on Monday.
So, even though it’s too soon to give you much of a
report about what is happening in the camps, let me
share a miracle I experienced yesterday in Budapest.
Saturday morning as the teams were leaving the
hotel, a 78-year-old woman, Ruth Baggett, fell on
the steps in the hotel. We knew her shoulder was
dislocated and needed attention. The entire team
from Amarillo got in the Szombathely church van and
went to the hospital. The driver of the van from
Szombathely called to alert the church that they
would be delayed because of Ruth’s situation. It’s a
three-hour drive to Szombathely. Here’s where the
miracle begins.
The woman in the home where Ruth usually stays in
Szombathely, who is a doctor herself, knew that her
husband, a fluent English-speaker and translator,
was on his way back from Ukraine and would be
passing through Budapest sometime that day.
Actually, Csaba had been delayed at the border and
was behind schedule in his ten-hour drive home. When
he got the call from his wife, he was in Budapest.
He went to the hospital and was there waiting for
the team in the ER to help with the translation. Of
course, most of them knew him from the church. You
can imagine their relief in having somewhere there
to understand what was going on!
When I got the word that Ruth needed immediate
surgery, I took a cab to the hospital. Her friends
were trying to get her to go back to the States for
surgery, but Ruth was in a lot of pain and wanted to
have the surgery done here. (Ruth and her husband
had been career missionaries in Mexico for over
forty years. Ruth told me that if she could have a
hysterectomy in Mexico, she could surely have
shoulder surgery in Hungary.) At that point, the
rest of the team decided to go on to Szombathely,
while Csaba stayed with me. There was no place to
wait at the hospital, so we both came back to the
hotel and called in every hour to see how things
were going. As with shoulder surgery in the US, they
were expecting her to leave the hospital a few hours
after the surgery. I tried to get her a room in the
hotel, but they were fully booked on Saturday night.
Meanwhile, I called the insurance company, Ruth’s
husband, her prayer team from FBC Amarillo,
International Commission and the IC prayer team
Encounter was activated. People in
Hungary, Texas, and Mexico began praying. For
unknown reasons to me, Ruth’s surgery was delayed
for hours. Finally, around 6:30 pm, we were told she
was going into surgery. It was so late, in fact,
that they had to keep her overnight. Praise God!
About half an hour later we heard from the hospital
that it was done. Once they had her sedated they
were able to manipulate her arm back into the socket
and the crack closed. There was nothing else to do.
They called it an “closed surgery” although I
wouldn’t call it surgery at all! There was no
incision, no stitches, no danger of infection, no
cut muscles, no torn ligaments or tendons, and very
little pain.
Csaba and I went back to the hospital this morning
and helped Ruth “escape.” That’s what they called it
because on Sundays there are no doctors around to
discharge anybody. If you want to leave, “you have
to be rebellious,” the nurse said. So Csaba is
taking Ruth to Szombathely to join her team for
English Bible camp this week. She’s actually
scheduled to stay a second week to work in another
camp. We’ll see. Meanwhile, she’ll be staying in the
home of a doctor she loves and knows well.
Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
according to his power that is at work within us, to
Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus
throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:20-21
Janice
|
|
Janice Byrd
Hungary Leadership, Western Europe
Home office:
Skype: janicebyrd
Mobile:
Home:
Fax:
Email: [email protected]
www.IC-World.org
|
|
|
|
