How a man's feet made my day

     About a month ago a man named Vadu came to our house, seeking help for a foot problem he had been suffering from for three years. His feet were fissured, sore and peeling and whatever it was had begun to spread to his hands. Before coming to us his friends told him he had been cursed and he sought treatment from a witch doctor. I thought the problem was fungal and we referred him to a clinic for medication. In a move that I am coming to see as significant, he went to the clinic and followed the instructions given to him for treatment. Now his feet are completely healed. You cannot even see where there was a problem. I wish I could explain how significant the change in his feet is in just a few weeks.  Healing that I expected  to take weeks or months happened in just a couple of weeks and it is as though he was never sick.

  Vadu came by our house yesterday to thank us and talk to us again and tell us more about that the last few years have been like for him. He said he spent the equivalent of a couple hundred American dollars (a tremendous sum here) seeking help from a witch doctor but he only got worse. His kids were sent home from school since he could not pay their school fees because he had spent all of his money on the witch doctor and his remedies. Even the people in his church had encouraged him to spend more money on cures from the witch doctor that did not work. He suffered for three years and no one recommended he seek conventional medical care. Today, he is healed and praising the Lord.

 On a medical level this man’s story thrilled me because he was suffering, there was a simple fix and now he is not suffering. I am learning that people in Haiti often see a division between sicknesses doctors can cure (physical in origin) and sicknesses doctors cannot cure (spiritual in origin). Vadu’s friends told him his sickness was spiritual in origin and thus could not be cured be conventional medicine. I love that he got a concrete and surprisingly quick lesson in how much medicine can help.

  On another level, I see the Lord moving in this Vadu’s life to free him from another type of suffering. Vadu is apparently part of a church that mixes a variety of beliefs (voodoo, Catholic, Christian, other) together into one big pot. By his own account people in his church contributed to his suffering for years by encouraging him to continue to seek the witch doctor’s treatments. Now, he is considering finding another church as he believes his prayers were answered elsewhere.

  Will you join me in prayer for Vadu? Pray that his feet will stay healed and that our gracious Lord would continue to make Himself known in Vadu’s life, that this would not be the emotional change of a happy moment, but the beginning of a true and richer relationship with his Creator.