Last Chance

August 31, 2012

By Esther Schaeffer, serving in Burkina Faso

Our Alliance churches in Burkina are finding that people are coming to Christ through healing. These are often cases in which the patients have been told that there is no hope for a cure.

A young woman became sickly and lost her appetite. Most of her days were now spent in bed. Local doctors prescribed medicine, but nothing helped.

Life became more difficult when she could no longer help her husband farm his fields. After several months of illness, she was unable to care for herself or her child.

When she had suffered with the mysterious illness for almost a year, the young woman’s husband sent her to live at a friend’s house in the city. He thought the hospital there would give his wife the help she needed.

Although much money was spent on her medical exams and treatment, the young woman’s health did not improve. Eventually her husband abandoned her, discontinuing the payments for her care. Even the doctors at the hospital gave up.

“Your Last Option”

Although her daughter helped care for her, the young woman’s situation was desperate. She begged her doctor to help and was again told that nothing more could be done.

“But you might try going to a church,” he said. “Sometimes when Christians pray, people are healed—that is your last option.”

So she went to the only church she had seen in the city, Central Alliance, located by the city market. Weak and sickly, she made her way slowly to the front of the church and asked the members to pray for her to be healed.

As the elders gathered around her, they told her about Jesus and what He had already done for her through His death on the cross and Resurrection.

New Strength

She joyfully accepted this Savior, asking Him to be the Lord of her life. After the prayer, she sensed that her burden was lifted and that God would care for her.

As she walked home, her body began to gain strength. She started doing the daily chores and activities she had done before the onset of her illness; the next Sunday she and her daughter were in church.

Today, this woman is a part of our Tuesday afternoon Bible study and is being discipled. Now able to care for her daughter, she is also working through some of the reconciliation issues in her marriage.

Everyone had given up on her—but not God. She praises Him for the physical and spiritual healing that only He could bring to her life.

“My whole life has been changed,” she says, beaming. “Jesus has healed me! I’m so glad to know Him.”