Minnie Goes to Heaven (125)

(a novel continued)

“You mean to say that not a single one of these families go to Rockwood?” Minnie said.

“I was looking through our church directory on Sunday night after we left your place and of all the 400 addresses I didn’t find a single one that corresponded. Our people are mostly in Old Haven with a few in West New Haven.

“I wonder if any of the other churches have people from here?”

“We’ll probably find out sooner or later.”

“Wouldn't it be great if everyone living here all became Bible-believing, church attending Christians? Maybe they’ll build a church here, right by the stream on that knoll we keep driving around.”

“That’s pretty well the only logical location.” Judy said.             

Minnie could practically see the church. She prayed there would be a church there.

Every morning except Sunday for the next 11 days, Judy and Minnie drove around and through their area always praying and trusting the Lord to guide their prayers.

Then Judy had a seven day stint of night shift at the hospital, so they spent an hour or so in the early evening prayer-driving through their area.

A month after the kick-off rally, the teams got together again. Father George was more than pleased to have the prayer teams meet in the room at the cathedral. He had four round tables set up for them.
Everyone was there. Each team in turn reported. The strategies varied. The teams in Old Haven invariably met up with Christians who offered to partner with them in prayer. In parts of New Haven several of the teams reported miracles.

Nan and her partner from the Seventh Day Adventist church were out in West New Haven. They had met up with a man in a wheelchair. Nan’s partner Jean asked him if there was anything they could pray for him. He looked at them sideways and asked if they were real. Nan pinched herself and said “Ouch.” He laughed at that. They got talking and he told them about the car accident that had put him in the wheelchair. “The doctors say that there is zero percent chance I will every walk again.”

“Do you believe that?” Jean asked.

“I don’t want to, but doctors usually know what they are talking about.”

“Well, we know someone who always knows what He’s talking about and He can heal you.” Nan said.

“Take me to him,” the man said.

“Jesus can heal you.” Nan said.

“I haven’t been to church for years.” 

“That can’t stop him from healing you. I stop going to church for about twenty years and He still got hold of me.” Nan said.

“Do you want us to pray for you?” Jean asked.

“Okay, it can’t hurt.”

“Let’s just do it the way the disciples did it,” Nan said. She grabbed one of the man’s hands and motioned to Jean to grab the man’s other hand.

As Nan told the story to the women at the team meeting she stopped here and looked around the room. “I can’t explain what came over me. At that moment I had so much faith that man could walk if I only obeyed what Jesus was showing me to do inside, that if I didn’t follow through right then, that man would lose a miracle.”

Jean did grab the man’s other hand. Nan said to the man, “In the name of Jesus Christ who died for all your sins, to save you from hell and destruction, stand up and walk.” They pulled the man up to his feet. He started walking, then dancing around his wheelchair. “Holy crow,” he said. He sat down in the wheelchair and began to cry. “Thank you, thank you,” he repeated.

“Don’t thank us, thank Jesus,” Jean said, a big smile plastered across her face.

The man stood up again. “I can walk. I can really walk, thank you Jesus. Wait till my wife sees this.” He took his chair by the handles, turned it around and headed up the street.

“That was yesterday,” Jean said. “We haven’t seen him since. We don’t even know his name.”