While He Is Sleeping

I lack the words to adequately desribe the last couple of weeks. Our friends, Thomas and Chrisitiane Weber, who were soon to leave PNG, after finishing the Bimin New Testament, had a house fire. Their home was destroyed. Thomas had significant burns and had to be flown to Australia where he is now in the burn unit at Royal Brisbane Hospital. I came to Australia within a day to join Christiane for the same practical reasons she did that for me three years ago.
On the bright side, after a week of praying and seeking the Lord for his healing while Thomas “was sleeping” through surgeries, he woke up and his first word, ever so slight and said with great effort was “Coffee”. If you don’t know him you might think he was in bad shape but everyone who knows him knew it was a good sign.
A bit of history:
In 2006, when Neil nearly lost his life as the passenger in a truck accident I felt like I was living in a movie. It had been a very hard year. Neil had broken his collar bone in an accident. Tony had broken his arm. I was diagnosed with a cancerous condition and had surgery (praise God it was later changed to a “misdiagnosis”). Then close friend had a terrible stroke. A road collapsed under Neil when he was teaching a friend to drive. The next month someone else close to us was diagnosed with HIV. Four weeks later another dear friend died. While waiting for her burial, we got word my cousin Rosaria had cancer and I went to Germany. I was back less than a week when Christiane came over to pray with me and I said, “I feel like a sponge held under water too long. I can’t take one more thing”. When she knocked at the door that night with Thomas alongside I remarked, “So, one more thing?
Had Webers not been there in Australia I am not sure what I would have done. Had friends in the US and Europe not rallied with the necessary practical needs I don’t know how I would have made it. But you did rally and God, I pray, has blessed you back a dozen times over. Now I see Webers and I feel it was somehow easier to be the victim than it was to be along side. I would never want burns but I hate to see those I love suffer. We feel like we can’t do anything. We know we need God.
I read a good quote recently. It said that the early church prayed ten days, then Peter preached ten minutes and three thousand got saved. Nowadays we pray ten minutes, preach ten days and three people get saved. We want to pray Thomas and his family through to an amazing recovery. We have given and loved but we must pray. We feel so dependent when we pray. What did WE do when we prayed? Nothing but God is working. As our brother sleeps and heals, let’s pray.