Speaking of being part of the process, Frank Dennis, the missionary doctor, 95 years old, that I wrote about a few days ago, just passed on a story that supports two themes. One is that we don’t work for God, we work with God – part of the process. The second theme is that God is not just an idea, he’s real and involved. Frank and his wife, newly in Taiwan, were driving…

We came to the town of Yuli and I remembered that a missionary I had met at a conference was working there. I asked where does the foreigner live and knocked on his door. Blake Bradley opened the door and said, “Frank ,you are an answer to prayer!” At that very moment members of the Bunan tribal church were having a prayer meeting at his home, praying for a member and elder of the church who had been bitten by a 100 pacer snake and was at that moment on the operating table in the nearby government hospital . They were in prayer because the surgeon wanted to remove his leg to save his life but the family would not sign the permit. They felt he would be better off dead than to be a one-legged man in the mountains. In 1966 artificial limbs were not as good as they are today. The special meeting was praying for what to do next? And I knocked on the door! That was the first and last time I was ever in that village and my timing was obviously an answer to their prayer. Blake said, “Let’s go to the hospital immediately.” and of course I agreed but was thinking, “What am I going to do in a hospital where nobody knows me and a government hospital at that!“

But I saw God was answering their prayer and that should include opening a door for me, right? “Let’s go!” No one was in the hospital to stop us as we went to the OR. Ignoring the keep out sign I pushed open the OR doors and from inside behind a mask someone said “Tan Yisheng, Jin lai, bangmang!” 譚醫⽣，進來幫忙！ “Dr Dennis, Come in and help!” “Who are you and how do you know my name?” “I am Dr. Li. When I was at the Air Force hospital in Chiayi I took time off and visited the Pingtung Christian hospital, and you taught me polio operations!” He was the only doctor that ever did that about a year earlier! God had really opened a perfect door!

Now the question was what am I gonna do for this poor man. I had very little experience with snakebite but it was obvious that his problem was that his blood would not clot because of the poison of the venom. “Why do you want to amputate his leg? “”Because he cut the wound with a dirty knife and if I stop the bleeding with silk sutures it will get infected and he may get gangrene and die. “Why don’t you use catgut suture which will absorb? That should prevent the infection.” We don’t have any! “A nurse said we have some in the storeroom that no one has ever used. Using the catgut suture the worst bleeding was controlled, but not only his wounds were bleeding but also there was blood in his catheter and from his nose and eyes.

“He will have to have a lot of fresh blood to really control his bleeding. Keep giving it to him until he stops the bleeding. The fresher the blood the better!”

Much later I met Blake and asked him what was God doing with that amazing exhibition of answered prayer. He said, “Well first of all the Bunan church members were lined up to give blood for him. The hospital staff were very impressed at the love of the Christians for each other. When he was finally well he went around the mountains preaching very effectively that his life was saved by the blood from the serpent’s poison by the blood of people who loved him, just like his life was saved from Satan’s poison which we all have by the blood of Jesus. Jesus didn’t give his blood into a nice clean blood bag but on the cross for our sin. People realized that Christianity isn’t just another religion but is actually all the people who have been saved by Jesus’ blood… It’s a personal thing, not just something you sign up for. All a sinner has to do is to is admit that he needs a savior and then ask Jesus to become his Savior and Lord.”

Frank would have been 37 years old in 1966, just starting out, and he’s still working with God nearly 60 years later!

But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” (John 5.17, ESV)

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace… (Ephesians 1.7, ESV)