Has he died? But now he stands up and walks!
In the year 2002, our Shan Missions Team went to Northern Thailand for one week short term mission trip. All together we had 23 members in out team. There were three medical doctors, one dentist, three nurses and other professionals and members of churches joining our team. We went to villages and offered our dental and medical services to the poor villagers. We also showed Biblical drama and preached gospel to the people.
On the final day of our trip, we went to a village which was quite far from town. The village-head gave us a place to use for our clinic in old Buddhist monastery fulled of old idols which were abandoned on the tables. We did not care. We divided out team into three teams, one was medical, another was dental and another was gospel team. We always prayed before we began our clinic. The gospel team went into the village visiting the homes and giving witnesses and preaching gospel. Dental team gave tooth extraction and medical team gave medical services to the people. The services were very smooth for the first half of the day. Three young men from Australia had never been to Thailand and had never seen the idols in monastery. During lunch time they played the idols by moving and putting them in different places and making fun with it. After lunch we started our clinic again.
While I was examining a patient, a nurse from dental team called out to me in a loud voice, “Dr. Sai, please come here quickly and see this patient.” When I went there I saw a middle age man slumping on his chair unconscious. What’s happened? He just collapsed on the chair when dentist tried to give him analgesic (pain relief) injection over his gum before doing tooth extraction. Nothing was done yet. Then I called out to our members to carry him on to the wooden bench since we did not have bed in monastery. When the man was lying on the bench, I examined him and found out that his blood pressure was zero, his pupil was dilated and fixed, I could not hear his heart beat by my stethoscope, his respiration stopped. Was he death? I have 26 years of medical experience including 10 years in emergency unit. I know what I have to do. I have done CPR many times. Then I asked my nurse to give me emergency kit which was fulled of emergency medicines and equipments to do CPR and save life. But the answer from my nurse shocked me. “Sorry. I have forgotten to bring emergency kit today. I’ve left it in our hotel.”
What should I do? Three experienced doctors and three nurses were there but there was no medicine. What should all these doctors do? No medicine! Oh my God! That was the only thing I could do. Then I shouted, “Please pray”. When I said please pray, they all knew what did it mean. All our team members holding one another, crying and praying out very loud in tears in that old monastery. I kneed down near the body of the man and prayed. “Lord, please have mercy on me. Please do not allow this thing to happen. Please do not let this man die. Please save him Lord. Please I know you are able. I know you can do it. Please Lord have mercy.” Again and again I did not know how many time I repeated this prayer until a local young evangelist shouted, “Dr. Sai. I think his eye is moving.” Then I opened my eyes. I tested his reflexion. Yes. There was slight reflexion on his eye lids. I listened to his heart. I could hear his heart beat again but very faint and very slow. Later he started to breathe. About half an hour later he made a loud voice “AH” and opened his eyes. I shook him and asked, “Are you OK. Do you hear me?” He said, “Yes. I am OK.” I gave him water to drink and see if he’s really OK. He drank a cup of water, stood up, put his booth on and walked out of the monastery straight back to his village. Oh my God! Thank you Lord! What would happen if this man died? (I had forgotten to do external cardiac massage and mouth to mouth respiration because I was so shocked when I heard that emergency kit was not there)
Acts 9:40-41 Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, "Tabitha, get up." She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called the believers and the widows and presented her to them alive.
May this testimony be an encouragement to you.
Sai Htwe Maung
Shan Missions