People in the village used to steer clear of Hank*. He was trouble with a capital T. His drug addiction made him dangerous. He was involved in a local gang and thought nothing of harassing people. His gang activity had even led him to kill several people. If you were looking for a person who might be open to the Gospel, Hank would be the last person you’d pick.
Hank recalled getting a letter from gang friends who had moved to a large city. They invited Hank to come and join them in an even more notorious gang. Hank was enthusiastic about this invitation and planned to leave the next day.
After making his decision Hank went out to play some basketball. During the game, the bone above his ankle snapped. The pain was incredible, but he was too poor to afford medical treatment, so he hobbled home.
For the next year, Hank was unable to walk, so he just lay around the house. His gang friends would regularly visit him and bring drugs. Hank’s uncle knew of a man who had been healed of a drug addiction by Jesus. Since Hank’s situation looked so hopeless, the uncle thought he had nothing to lose by visiting this man.
Hank didn’t want to go. He even refused to sit with the rest of the group, so they sat him in a corner of the room. The group had gathered to tell stories from the Bible and pray. Hank didn’t even want to listen. He tried not to, but the stories were compelling. One of the stories was of Jesus healing a man who was born blind. Hank was stunned. As a boy Hank had memorized phrases in English to impress his friends. This very story that he heard was one of the phrases he had memorized, but he hadn’t known that it was from the Bible.
After the meeting, the believers offered to take Hank to the hospital to see if they could get some treatment for his leg. As part of a hated minority, Hank didn’t believe that they’d be able to do anything, but he agreed to go. At the hospital a doctor came over to Hank as he was waiting and looked at his leg. The doctor said, “That leg needs to be operated on right away.”
Again Hank was stunned. That a doctor would even acknowledge his existence, much less examine him with-out first being paid, was miraculous. The doctor scheduled the surgery and returned with the date for Hank to be admitted to the hospital. The believer who brought Hank told the doctor that they had no money to pay for treatment. The doctor replied, “Don’t worry about the money; let’s get his leg take care of.” Hank was confused. Doctors just didn’t do that type of thing for his people. Just before the operation, the believers gathered around Hank to pray. At that moment, Hank knew that he needed Jesus. He thought, “I have fear but Jesus is the answer.” Hank’s journey towards faith had begun.
During the operation they found that Hank had cancer of the bone in his leg.. The smell of infection that had set in over the course of a year without treatment was so bad that one of the nurses passed out. It took surgeons over three hours to scrape down the bone. After surgery, the doctor told the believers that if the leg did not improve, it would have to be amputated. Every day a group of believers visited Hank and prayed over his leg. Hank did not know his leg was in danger, so he didn’t understand why the believers visited him everyday. These believers knew Hank’s desperate situation and interceded for him with tenacious faith. When the doctor checked on Hank’s progress, he was amazed at how well he had healed. He told Hank, “If these believers had not prayed for your leg you would have lost it.”
When Hank returned to the village he willingly started going to the weekly gathering of believers. At first he just listened, but then he started sharing Bible verses that God had given him to share. After several weeks of coming to the meetings Hank got the courage to confess that he had become a follower of Jesus just before the operation. The believers gathered around him and lifted him up in a prayer of rejoicing and thanksgiving.
In the end, the healing of the broken bone was not the real miracle. The fact that a doctor showed concern for Hank was not the miracle. Hank’s completely transformed life was the miracle that people can’t explain or ignore. The man who used to be trouble with a capital T had become a blessing with a capital B!
