11 year old Mik Young was my 35th patient that day. He approached my clinic station in silence and took a seat at the end of the table; his gaze was fixed on the floor. My interpreters (I had two, one for English to Khmer and the other Khmer to the tribal language) asked the customary question; “What brings you to the clinic today?”
We waited several minutes for an answer but Mik just silently fidgeting in the chair. After a few minutes, one of the interpreters set off to find the boy’s mother. Slowly, the story unraveled. Mik had been suffering from seizures for the last 7 years. His mother stated that he would often have 4 or 5 seizures in a day. Mik had been seen at the local hospital for this before but doctors said they were unable to do anything for him.
Seizure medication must be loaded and titrated to maintain the therapeutic levels in the blood. This requires close surveillance and laboratory monitoring. Our little clinic was not prepared to provide care at this level or for the longer term that the boy would need. There was nothing we could do either, nothing but pray that is.
Emily, the nursing student I was working with day, called Ernie and Mary and Paige over to pray for the child. The more we prayed, the more we found out about the situation.
Mik and his mother where both Christians and attended a local house group. However, before they became believers, Mik’s parents practiced the tribal religion which included devil worship and animal sacrifices. When he was a baby, he too had been offered to the devil. In the past when the boy began to have seizures, his parents would sacrifice an animal and the seizures would stop for a while. However, since they became Christians, they no longer made the animal sacrifices and seizures got worse.
As we continued to pray, the boy’s mother joined us. Mik said he saw a light shining brightly in his face. I found myself secretly hoping it wasn’t the precursor to another seizure. We kept praying and Mik held his hands up.
Mary spoke over him and his mother. Being a Christian means that you have offered yourself to God, the devil has no power anymore. Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice; no more animal sacrifices were needed. Both Mik and his mother prayed and to God that Mik now belonged to him.
When we finished praying Mik spoke to us for the first time and said he was hungry, something his mother said he hadn’t been for quite some time. We managed to dig a up a cliff bar and he went off nibbling on it happily.
I don’t know what happened to Mik after that, but I do know that when you offer yourself to Jesus and surrender to Him, Satan has no power.
