By Hope Catalano –
We were in Jamaica to provide medical care for people in need, so why did the pastor ask for prayer for a miracle? And why did he ask ME?
I grew up as a pastor’s daughter. Seeing people getting prayer for healing was normal. I just never did it myself.
Oh sure, I’ve prayed for lots of people – but in the background.
It was entirely a different thing for me to pray for a lady with pain in her neck in front of others. What if she didn’t get healed? What would others think? It was a bit of an understatement to say I was intimidated by the dynamic.
But Pastor Patrick Jordan didn’t care about my shyness and insecurities. He wanted God to move, and he wanted God to use me as servant.
I was part of a 35-member team of doctors, nurses and logistics volunteers who went to the needy neighborhoods of Kingston and Savannah La Mar Jan. 13-20. I was in Kingston with my three high school buddies from the Lighthouse Christian Academy in Santa Monica.
During the four days, more than 1,100 people received free medical attention. There were 40 people that received Christ and there were 46 miraculous healings!
It’s funny that when we go to provide conventional medical care that God miraculously heals people. But medicine can’t fix every case, and sometimes God short-circuits the process and does the healing miraculously.
That was the case of the lady that received prayer from me. In spite of my apprehension, God healed her.
I laid my hands on her neck where the pain was, and suddenly I started speaking in tongues. It just started flowing out of me. I asked her to move her neck around. She said it still hurt a little bit.
I prayed for her again and again – a little more vigorously. Finally, she said it felt better and the nerves were not hurting her like they did before.
This was a supernatural experience for me. I was able to lay hands over someone, and in the name of Jesus I prayed that God would cast out any spirits of pain or discomfort in her body.
It was an eye-opening and humbling experience. Until you go on a trip like this, you don’t understand all the work that takes place and the miracles that are seen every day.
It made me have a lot of appreciation for people in other nations and showed me how blessed I am to live in America.
You start out just helping people medically but it ends up you’re helping people with their soul as well. Jamaica is 81% Christian, according to Joshua Project, but a lot of people still don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus.
Some of the people I helped came to revival services at night. One old man came every night. He gave his life to Jesus one of those nights. There were entire families who came to church.
The last night we held a revival service. There were so many people who received care earlier from the clinic they didn’t have enough chairs for all of them.
Now it happened on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was present to heal them. Then behold, men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before Him. And when they could not find how they might bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the housetop and let him down with his bed through the tiling into the midst before Jesus.
When He saw their faith, He said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”
And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answered and said to them, “Why are you reasoning in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the man who was paralyzed, “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.”
Immediately he rose up before them, took up what he had been lying on, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. And they were all amazed, and they glorified God and were filled with fear, saying, “We have seen strange things today!” (Luke 5:17-39)
If you want to know more about a personal relationship with God, go here
About the writer of this article: Hope Catalano studies at Lighthouse Christian Academy near the Westchester neighborhood in Los Angeles.
