Something strange happened to Kue in northern Laos in late 2020. Her body, and especially her belly, started to swell. Her worried husband, Cheng, took her to the local shaman, who informed them that a dragon had impregnated Kue and intended to take her away to an underwater world. “You need to give animal sacrifices to appease the dragon and to call back Kue’s spirit,” the shaman said solemnly.
Cheng gave the shaman everything he demanded, but Kue got worse. Cheng turned to traditional healers for treatments over the next two months, but nothing helped. He spent everything on shamans and traditional healers, but Kue’s health continued to deteriorate.
Finally, Cheng thought about asking a Christian pastor to pray for Kue.
Two Seventh-day Adventist leaders happened to be visiting Kue’s village at the time and, after praying for her, decided to send her to a hospital in Laos’s capital, Vientiane. At the hospital, the physician diagnosed Kue with nephrotic syndrome, a kidney disorder whose symptoms include swelling linked to excess fluid retention. But after a week in the hospital, Kue sank into a coma and was placed on life support. She was transferred to the intensive care unit, where the doctor gave her a fifty-fifty chance of survival. He asked who would pay the high medical bills to keep her under his care.
Cheng spoke with his relatives, but they did not have the money. The Adventist leaders, who brought Kue to the capital and paid her initial hospital bills, also lacked funds. Faced with high bills and no assurance Kue would recover, Cheng made the difficult decision to remove her from life support and bring her home. “It was painful to send her back home to die, but there was nothing we could do for her,” a church leader said later. “The only hope left was that God would show mercy and perform a miracle for her.”
Days after returning home, Cheng called the Adventist district pastor to ask him to pray for Kue in their home. The pastor, who arrived with several Bible workers, lived far away. He decided to stay for a few days so he also could assist with the funeral. As the family waited for Kue to die, the pastor and Bible workers fasted and prayed daily. Instead of dying, Kue improved. She began to breathe easily on her own, and the swelling subsided. By May 2021, she was walking without help. Today, Kue is a living testimony to the people of northern Laos that there is a God in heaven.
Thank you for your Sabbath School mission offerings that support the spread of the gospel in Laos and around the world.