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When we pray, God answers!
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Here is an eyewitness account of the near drowning of Casey Montgomery (August 4th). It was given by Jill Gemmet at our 9:30 service on August 7th, 2005
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I know probably most of you here heard about the near drowning at Dorena Lake and we live at the lake all summer so we happened to be there with the Ladd family.
Jenny had just gotten back into camp and Allison had come over to our camp and was standing with me and Josh and I heard some loud loud screams and I looked over at Josh and I said “You know people shouldn’t scream like that,” and it was on the other side of the lake, “people shouldn’t scream like that unless they really need help.” And my son looked at me and he said “You know what mom, I think they really do!” And he took off running and I said, “Josh pray!” I didn’t know what was going on and he said, “I will mom,” as he ran off.
I saw Jenny running across the bank because she didn’t know where Allison was and she thought that it was Allison because at that time we knew that somebody was drowning. So I ran to find Jenny to tell her that I had Allison.
The man didn’t know how to swim and was playing on the trampoline and had lost touch with the trampoline and went down in the swim hole which is approximately 50 feet deep. Jenny and I stood there for...it seemed like eternity waiting for my son and the others that were diving to find him. And my son found him and he was five feet off the bottom lifeless. And when they pulled him up on the bank, Jenny looked at me and said “We need to go help.” And so we took hands and we went towards the other side of the lake and I looked at Jenny and I said “You know what Jenny, I don’t know how to pray for a whole group of partiers that don’t know the Lord when there is somebody dead laying on the bank.” And she said, “God will tell you how to do it Jill.”
We went over and as we were almost there, his best friend and girl friend ran by and he [the best friend] was going into shock and totally panicking. Jenny looks at me and says, “I need to be with him, you go ahead.” And my first thought was to run, but I said, “OK God, you’re on!” And Jenny went with the friend and I went over to the lakeside where he had been underwater for ten minutes. He was blue, he wasn’t breathing, and I just said, “God if You will bring this guy back to life, I will share Your love with him, somehow.” And I just looked up to heaven and I started to pray in a loud voice and as I prayed, everybody around me started going, “Yeah Casey, God’s here you can do it, you can do it!” And there was this girl that was giving him CPR but there was no breath, no color, no nothing. And it seemed to me like forever, it was about five minutes and he took his first breath and people started hooting and hollering saying, “Your prayer saved his life!” And I said, “No my prayer didn’t save his life, our God is saving his life.”
The paramedics got there at that time, and they had to put a breathing tube in him because he still wasn’t breathing on his own. And they took him off in the ambulance and I went and found Jenny and the boy that she was with who was his best friend said, “If God saves him, I’m going to church, every week!” And he had gone into shock so bad, that he had lost feeling in his hands and his legs and he was drug off in an ambulance too.
So Jenny and I went back to camp and it was a very different day and we spent the day in prayer. And that night we got an update – that he was on life support and he was in a comma and he probably wouldn’t make it. So we gathered campers around the camp and we all held hands and we prayed, “God, You can do this.” And we prayed for the doctors and we prayed for the family and the friends.
The next morning I went into town and ran into a nurse from Sacred Heart that said, “He’s breathing on his own now.” Another answer to prayer! And we went back to camp and spent the afternoon there and I got a visitor that night and it was Shema’s mom and dad who was the girlfriend of the best friend. And she came out and she said, “I just want to tell you, that words can not express to you how we feel and that you guys are the real heroes.” And I said, “No, God’s the real hero in this. And God used Josh to find him, Jenny to be Jesus to the devastated friends and me to speak out on His behalf.” And she said, “A week and a half ago, I’m ashamed to tell you this, but I had a conversation with my family. And I told my daughter, “There is no god, god isn’t real, He’s just an excuse that parents use when they don’t know how to answer real questions in life like ‘Why does it rain, mom?’ – ‘Oh, God’s watering the flowers.’”” And she said she was an atheist, and she said, “You know, I saw miracles today, and I want to tell you that he’s breathing and he’s talking and there’s no brain damage and he’s OK.”
It’s just such a testimony now to so many people that you know we don’t always know how or when God’s gona to use us and we don’t always know what to do in that case either, but if we just step out in faith and say, “God, You’re on,” God can do miracles and be a testimony to a lot of people. |
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But in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. |
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| Pray in the Sanctuary |
| Sunday with Rick |
| @ 6 pm |
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| Monday - Friday |
| Open @ 7 am |
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| Wednesday with the |
| Worship Team @ 7 pm |
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| Thursday (Men's) |
| @ 6:15 am |
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| Sunday Services |
| Ask a board member if you can join their team. Teams meet once a month
(in Rick's office) to pray during a specific service. |
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| If you need prayer, |
| contact the prayer chain. |
Barb Morgan 942-0816
Sharron Dwiggins 942-1644
Helen Virgil 942-5185
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| We would appreciate weekly updates. |
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