“She’s unresponsive. She won’t eat or drink. We’re having to diaper her.”
With a sinking heart I listened to Carrie’s report. I was in Puerto Princesa meeting my son and his wife and another short-term missionary. When I left Brooke’s Point for the trip to Puerto, Nurgina had already been admitted to the hospital in the lowlands. She had been at camp meeting when the fever started, and she was unable to return to the mountains.
I started praying for Nurgina often, sometimes waking in the middle of the night and feeling burdened for her. Nurgina is one of “my kids” and has quite a story. I remember when she came to know Jesus. She was a young teenager, outgoing, willing to speak publicly and had an evangelist’s heart. When word came that a group of people in the lowlands wanted a church “like they have in Kemantian,” young Nurgina was one who responded. “I’ll go each Sabbath and help teach these people.” That is what she did for over a year. Her enthusiasm was contagious, and we thrilled at her missionary spirit. She was part of a group that helped birth a church.
Nurgina had a testimony of God’s goodness in her life. She has been saved from two unwanted marriages—one to a young man she had been engaged to since birth, and another to a young man who threatened to kill himself if she didn’t follow through with the marriage plans. The Lord worked through us to help her at times, but always He gave her a certainty that she was not to marry these men, and this gave her courage to go against her culture, her tribal elders and others, enduring immense pressure and ridicule. Once freed from the alliances, she knew God had unfettered her so she could marry a Christian young man.
On other occasions she had been tormented by evil spirits that took control of her body and mind. All she could do was shriek, “Empu` tebangi` ku!” (“Lord, help me!”) over and over again. She would tell the devil she wanted no part of his evil designs, but it took some time before she was fully delivered from the spirits. Again, she knew without a doubt that God had rescued her.
When she was older, Nurgina came to me asking permission to quit school, leave the area and go work as a nanny in Manila. I was upset and disappointed that she was throwing her education away to go to Manila and the uncertainties and dangers there. We always told our students, “With your education, you can become anything you want. Dedicate your life and your work to God, and He will bless you.” I told Nurgina that I couldn’t give her my permission or my blessing, but that she was free to make her own choice. She went to Manila, and I was very sad. For several years I worried that not only would I never see her again, but that she would get ensnared in some plot of the devil through evil designs of men. But eventually she did come back to the area, though she was now shy and embarrassed, realizing she had made the wrong choice in leaving.
Several more years passed, and Nurgina decided to go to elementary school again. Though she was in her twenties, she entered fourth grade and blossomed. I started seeing the old Nurgina again—cheerful, light-hearted and growing in Christ.
Then I started hearing rumors that Nurgina was being indiscreet with another student. I didn’t want to believe it, but then she dropped out of school again—pregnant. She was greatly embarrassed and remained in denial for some months until the truth became impossible to ignore. She and the young man (considerably younger than herself) eventually married, and they have a beautiful baby girl. Still Nurgina didn’t come to church or associate with church members. She was living under a cloud of shame. But student missionary Yasmine Mansouri consistently visited Nurgina, having worship with her and praying for her.
In February 2016, I felt impressed to write a letter to all the church members in our mother church in Kemantian. They had been struggling with their spiritual walks for some time. After writing the letter, I reread and rewrote it several times over the ensuing weeks, praying that God’s Spirit would prepare the hearts of the members to receive this message from my heart to theirs. I prayed that if for some reason the timing was wrong or I wasn’t saying what God wanted to say, that He would intervene. Eventually everything came together, and I prepared personalized copies for each member (six pages!). I gave them space and an invitation to write a reply, and then I gave them out one Sabbath, still praying for God’s Spirit to use the letter to awaken them to their slumbering, backslidden ways.
At the end of church, I invited those who didn’t read to meet with me, and I would go through the letter with them. It was my turn to be shy. I really spoke my heart in that letter, but I didn’t want to offend. So, gingerly, I took it paragraph by paragraph, sometimes sentence by sentence, watching for comprehension, hoping for response. The members got excited as I read. “Yes, that is true!” they kept saying. “That is the way it is!”
When I got to the end and I asked them what they would like to say to me in response, they each replied something like, “It is true. I have wandered from God. I’m not as interested or devout as I once was. But I want to be fully God’s! Please help me. Please help me pray for my son, daughter, grandchildren, parents, etc.” And pray we did, each in turn. Bibi, Nurgina’s mother, had already been coming back to church for some time, and she was so burdened for her children.
The following Sabbath at church, Bibi gave me a big smile and a hug. “I brought the reply from Buba and Pupuy [her boys who had backslidden]. Please read it and tell me if it is good news!” I read their notes and gave her a big smile, which she returned with such relief in her eyes. That very day, Nurgina accompanied her to church, too. Nurgina was open and alive again. I was overjoyed to see her, and so thankful for the work of the Holy Spirit in her life. Nurgina started coming to church consistently after that. And a few Sabbaths later, Pupuy started coming back, too!
Fast forward to camp meeting 2016 held at Mountain View Farm and Training Center, our project’s lowland property in Pangobilian, Brooke’s Point. We spent months preparing for this event, building bamboo-and-tarp shelters and meeting houses. We prayed over our theme “God is Love,” and the Lord gave clarity to our core leadership about the progression of lessons we would present. Our aim was to take our people from a place where they recognized their hurts and shortcomings, inspiring them with longing for Christ to fill their emptiness, and ending at the cross where they could lay down their burdens and accept His forgiveness and peace.
As we ended Sunday morning at the cross, a number of people were really struggling to leave their burdens, but many gained the victory. During that worship I had an attack of Meniere’s disease (an inner-ear disorder) that made me so dizzy I had to have help to walk. After that, I was pretty much out of commission for the day. Then Carrie came and said urgently, “Minan, I need your help with Nurgina!” Carrie was concerned that perhaps Nurgina was experiencing a demonic attack. I couldn’t get up, but I started praying for Nurgina. Later when I could see Nurgina and hear her voice and what she was saying to others, I didn’t think the problem was demonic, but she was acting strangely. Later, unable to hike into the mountains, she was brought back to the farm where she continued to act agitated and confused.
When her fever spiked, we checked her into the hospital at Brooke’s Point. There she grew more and more listless, refusing to eat or drink or nurse her baby. She would not answer questions, and she was belligerent with the medical staff. Her tests came back negative, and the doctor decided she was suffering psychosis, which seemed strange to me since Nurgina had been fine just a few days earlier. Still, I kept waking up in the middle of the night burdened for her, praying for wisdom and insight into what was troubling her.
I had business in Puerto, but when I returned to Brooke’s Point I went to the hospital to visit Nurgina, look at her records, talk with the doctor and see what we could figure out. As I passed the nursing station on my way in, they informed me that she’d had no more fevers since admission, so the doctor wanted to transfer her to a psychiatric hospital in Puerto. I felt that was premature, but clearly they didn’t want to keep her anymore.
Praying, I went into Nurgina’s room. She lay curled up on her side, facing the wall, with just a shirt and a diaper on. Sitting on her bed, I leaned over and said cheerfully, “Nurgina, I’m here! I just got back from Puerto. How are you doing?” I continued talking to her as if she was normal, expecting a response. Eventually she rolled over. With tears in her eyes she acknowledged that she wasn’t doing very well, that there was really no hope for her. I thanked the Lord that she was responding to me and seemed self-aware. As I gently probed her with questions, she revealed that she was riddled with guilt over many things and sure her sins were too great for God to forgive. This conversation took quite a while as Nurgina was very weak, but I waited patiently for her responses to my questions, praying for the Holy Spirit to give me wisdom and for Nurgina to be open to His work in her heart. When she said she didn’t think God could forgive her sins, I leaned over and said in a surprised tone, “You mean to tell me that you don’t think our God is big enough to take care of your sins?” She got my point. When I asked Nurgina if she remembered what God does with the sins and burdens we give Him, she looked at me with her large black eyes and said, “He will throw me into the middle of the ocean?” Knowing she knew better, I grinned and said, “No! God doesn’t throw you there; He only throws your sins there.” She smiled back at me—she had been teasing.
Eventually she was ready to confess everything to God and leave her burdens with Him. She asked for help to sit up on the edge of the bed. She bowed her head and started praying. As she confessed, she several times broke down sobbing, sometimes laying her head in my lap, other times flopping back on the bed exhausted. But I felt impressed to wait, to give her time before I jumped in and prayed aloud for her. After a brief rest, she would grab my hand to help her sit up, and she would pray again, confessing something else, ending in sobs. After this repeated several times, she was done. I prayed for her and then got called out of the room.
When I returned, Nurgina was up and dressed and was in the bathroom taking care of her needs there instead of using the diaper. When she came out she was all smiles, and I knew the Lord had truly broken her free from the things that had bound her. I arranged for her release—against medical advice since we weren’t taking her to Puerto—and we took her back to the farm where she could convalesce.
The following morning when I went by the farm on my way back into the mountains, she told me, “I want to go with you.” She said she had been eating well and drinking, the baby was happily nursing again, and she felt she could make the hike. And she did.
Several months prior to this I had read the following passage in Oswald Chambers’ book My Utmost for His Highest: “If you become a necessity to a soul, you are out of God’s order. As a worker, your great responsibility is to be a friend of the Bridegroom. When once you see a soul in sight of the claims of Jesus Christ, you know that your influence has been in the right direction, and instead of putting out a hand to prevent the throes, pray that they grow ten times stronger until there is no power on earth or in hell that can hold that soul away from Jesus Christ. Over and over again, we become amateur providences; we come in and prevent God, and say, ‘This and that must not be.’ Instead of proving friends of the Bridegroom, we put our sympathy in the way, and the soul will one day say, ‘That one was a thief, he stole my affections from Jesus, and I lost my vision of Him.’”
This had given me much to ponder, and I believe it is what gave me the presence of mind to be patient and wait with Nurgina, giving the Holy Spirit time to do His gentle work.
Thank you, Lord, for giving me the opportunity to again witness Your saving power! You are awesome and able to save to the utmost! I love working for You and having a front-row seat to witness the miracles You work in people’s lives. Increase my faith and my trust in You, Jesus. Amen.
