A friend volunteers with sick people. Last Friday she stopped in after her evening shift and shared a troubling situation with us. 

A young man had overdosed about a week before and suffered severe brain damage. His family and the doctors decided that he wouldn’t have wanted to live life like a ‘vegetable’ so they pulled the plug on the life support machines.  The young man miraculously continued to survive on his own and so they moved him to hospice to die. 

With no food and no water it would only be a few days before he was gone. 

Our friend had been sitting with the young man and heard from the other nurses that he had been slightly improving.  He could open and move his eyes, he’d flinch when the nurse would adjust his sheet and they sometimes even had him blinking twice for yes and once for no. 

Yet for some reason unknown to me, his family and friends wouldn’t visit him.  

It was a terrible situation, so we decided to do something about it.

I found out where the guy had worked and called in, but no one had heard of any employee getting sick or dying.

The next morning I found out the young mans name (we’ll call him Matt), and decided to go visit him myself.  No one should suffer death alone.

My wife and the volunteer friend got on the phone together and prayed while I was visiting him. 

I entered his room and a really small old nurse walked in behind me.  She reached up and grabbed my hand and said, “ohhhh I am so thankful you have come to visit!”

She then walked to Matt’s bedside, grabbed his face with two hands and said, “Matt! You are so beautiful and handsome! Your friend is hear to see you!” Then she turned to me again and said, “We have been praying for God’s mercy. Thank you so much for coming”. Then she left.

“Well that lady is h-core Christian,” I thought to myself. I pulled up a chair and sat down beside Matt. His eyes were wide open and staring straight into mine.  It was intimidating. 

“Ummmm…. I’m Andrew – you don’t know me obviously.  Nope I’m not an angel if that’s what your thinking.” (I was trying to break the ice with someone who couldn’t speak). 

I shared who I was and why I was there – To tell him about Jesus. 

I wanted to know if he could hear/respond to me, so I started with the one blink/two blink method. I explained to him 1 blink = no and 2 blinks = yes. 

“Are you Matt?” – 2 blinks.

I played a song on my phone “Do you like this song?” – 2 blinks.

I changed the song “Do you like this song?” – 1 blink.

It seemed like every time I would ask him something; he would have an internal struggle to communicate back to me.  I would ask if he could squeeze my hand and he wouldn’t be able to do it, but I could see his neck muscles tightening and twisting as he fought to do it.

It seemed sad but promising. 

I grabbed his hand and started massaging it. It was burning hot.

“Well Matt, I’m here to tell you there is a God who absolutely loves you and is here with us now. I’m not sure if you’ve ever read or heard anything about the bible, but I’m going to read some chapters to you and tell you about Jesus. To be honest you don’t really have a choice – sorry about that…”

I started reading from my phone Ephesians 2:1, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins….” I paused and thought…“maybe this is a bad idea. Oh well – keep reading.”

I read to Matt that, “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not works, so that no one can boast (Eph 2:8)”

I then skipped to the end of Matthew and read about Jesus on the cross. I spent time explaining the Old testament, how people used to make sacrifices as payment to God for their sins – but then he sent his son Jesus to be final sacrifice for all sins.  I couldn’t help but keep thinking of the story of Phillip and the Ethiopian – where the Ethiopian can’t understand the book of Isaiah until Phillip explained it to him.  I knew I wasn’t just supposed to just read the bible to Matt, I was suppose to EXPLAIN it to him. I felt totally empowered by the Holy Spirit at this moment and felt a wealth of wisdom in explaining scripture. 

Different workers would come in and out the room, and I would quickly turn off my phone bible as I wasn’t sure if this was ‘allowed’.  One time the nurse left and I turned to Matt and asked, “Do you want me to keep reading?”

2 blinks.

“Ok”. 

Eventually I was done reading the book of Matthew and I turned off my phone and said, “Ok Bro, it’s decision time.”

“Just like the dude who was crucified on the cross next to Jesus, you can make a decision in your final moments of life to believe in Him. So what do you say? Do you want to accept Jesus as the final payment of your sins?”

2 blinks.

“Um, I’m not sure if that was a ‘yes’ or whether you just maybe had something in your eye so I’ll ask again, do you want to put your faith in Jesus as the final payment of your sins?”

2 blinks. 

“Ok. The bible says if you confess with your tongue and believe in your heart, then you will be saved – but to be honest I don’t think God is too worried about your tongue right now….so maybe just pray in your heart and tell Jesus you believe.”

The second I finished the sentence, a nurse walked in and said, “I just need to give him something to make him feel better.”

She put a needle in his arm and he instantly fell asleep. 

“I guess that’s that” I thought. I picked up my coat and headed out, praising God to my car as I had just witnessed him save this young man within an inch of hell. 

Matt died a few days later and now he is with Jesus - His savior who he had met a few days before dying. That’s cool.

Other cool things

1.  Another friend in our small group had been fasting for the day when she heard about Matt. Her fast was going to end at 12:30pm – but in the last minute God told her to extend it to 1pm. So she did. Matt accepted Christ at 12:45pm. 
    
2. Somehow Matt’s family heard he had a visitor and they were not impressed.  That night, they made a decision that absolutely no visitors or volunteers were allowed in the room. Basically, I was the last person to speak to him.
3. This Monday a friend who is a part of the Gideons invited me to a Christmas dinner/party.  I couldn’t go, but my other volunteer friend and her husband did go. After dinner they were sitting around the living room sharing testimony of cool experiences where they had given out bibles and people had become Christians.  It came time for an Indonesian man to share.  He said that he didn’t have any cool stories like that, because he had only been doing it for about a month.  He had been praying to God for a cool testimony – but nothing seemed to happen yet.
   
   Before it went onto the next person, he quickly added, “There was this one young guy I was able to give a bible to and talk to. He was my neighbour - a nice young man. But crazy thing is I was talking to his parents just last week and they said he had died from overdose.”
   My volunteer friend just stared wide eyed at her husband….. Could it be?
   
   She left the room and called out the Indonesian man – and after talking for a bit they found out it was the same guy – Matt! 
   
   

We are now meeting with the Indonesian guy and going to Matt’s funeral this weekend. I can’t wait to hear this story get even crazier. 

How cool is it when the body of Christ is working together?