“At the Right Time, I, the Lord, Made it Happen”

As we finished our time in Kenya, the Lord brought something full-circle that I would have said is unbelievable if I didn’t see it for myself. It’s a long story, woven together between two countries, ten weeks, and about eight doctors’ visits, but well-worth the read. I hope this gets you thinking.

Let’s start at the beginning, on Sunday, July 13th. In the church service that morning in Ethiopia, my teammate and good friend Brice first started to feel ill. Days went on, and he was not improving. We were three hours from the closest hospital. The nearby clinic didn’t have any answers for him. He was experiencing trouble breathing, head and body aches, dizziness, nausea and vomiting, fever and chills, stomach pain; you name it, he had it. Hearing him struggle to breathe was unnerving. I even have notes in my daily travel journal on the days we were really worried about him. We were beginning to grow concerned, to say the least.

Early on during all of this, Brice had a dream from God. In this dream, he heard the words, “At the right time, I, the Lord, will make it happen.” This is Isaiah 60:22. He took this to mean that at the right time, God will heal him. And that was all he needed to keep going.

His condition reached the point that our leadership team back in the States advised Brice to consider staying with the other team in Addis Ababa, closer to the hospital. He asked our team to pray into this decision with him, whether or not he should go. As I sat in silence with my teammates, listening for the Lord, as I’ve been learning how to do on this World Race, I believe that this thought came from Him. “I’m already there at the end of this, and I’m not worried about it, so neither should you be worried.” And in my mind He seemed to be happy, almost giddy, as He said this to me. Little did I know He was writing one of the most powerful testimonies of our race and just couldn’t wait for us to see its ending. I took this concept back to Scripture, and His Word already says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” That’s Philippians‬ ‭4:6-7‬. And 1 John 3:20 assures us that God knows all things, so to believe that God is already there at the end of Brice’s trial, and that He is not worried about it, therefore I should not be worried either, is true. I’ll touch on more of what I’ve learned about this kind of listening prayer later on.

We continued in prayer, and decided it was best for Brice to stay with the other team. Weeks go by, Brice had been to the hospital three or four times by this point. The only thing the doctors could find wrong with him was an ear and sinus infection, but that couldn’t explain all of his symptoms. Even with the medication to treat that, his other symptoms were worsening. The doctors could find nothing else technically wrong with him. Yet his dizziness was so bad, to the point of stumbling and having to be caught by his teammates before he fell. This man who wore a tee shirt and shorts throughout our January training camp in Gainesville, Georgia in below 20 degrees F weather, was now shivering in a hoodie and a blanket at all times. In Africa. Something’s not right.

Flash forward to our orientation into Kenya in early August, Brice was still unwell and took another hospital visit. The option of him going home to America to receive treatment was discussed, but he wanted to stick it out on the field. While all fourteen of us were together at orientation, our host led us in a listening prayer. This kind of thing was something I had never heard of before the World Race, but over the course of these nine months I’ve seen the value in it. A listening prayer is basically a two-way conversation with God, not only speaking to Him in prayer, but also listening for Him in prayer. And expecting to hear Him. I’ve learned what He “sounds like” to me versus my own thoughts, how to test what I think I heard against Scripture to determine if it’s true, and how to trust that He still has me in the palm of His hand even if I misinterpret His voice as I’m learning.

So we all sat in prayer silently before the Lord and waited for Him to speak whatever He would over our squad. One squad mate, Lillie, saw a picture from the Lord in her mind of Brice baptizing someone and then being healed afterwards. She shared that with Brice, who was very excited to hear that, as he had also been feeling that baptizing someone while on the race was something the Lord had for him to do. He again clung to this word from God and was expectant to be healed soon.

To be completely honest with you, when I heard Lillie share this picture with Brice, I brushed it off and let myself forget it for the time being. I didn’t believe it was really from God. My own doubt didn’t let me hope in this. I let myself explain it away. We all wanted to see Brice healed, so of course it was on her mind, maybe that’s the only reason it popped into her head. I struggle to understand how my faith can be solely rooted in God Himself, while still being open to hope that what I think He’s speaking to me and my friends will come to pass. I’d much rather choose not to believe and then be pleasantly surprised later. I’m nervous to believe it and then be disappointed because someone accidentally misinterpreted God, even if that someone is myself. I’m scared to test my faith like that. Praise God that wasn’t Brice’s heart, because he needed to have faith for this to actually happen. And praise God that He wasn’t done with me yet either, oh me of little faith.

We split into three different teams, and Brice and all the guys were on one team. A couple of them had the opportunity to travel off-site a couple hours away from their host and lodging to baptize people there. Brice was one of them, hopeful to baptize someone and be healed, but when they arrived the pool that had been reserved was already being used, so Brice couldn’t baptize anyone that weekend. Funnily enough, the other half of his team that stayed behind spontaneously baptized people in that town. God pulled Brice clean out of that opportunity because it was not his time to be healed yet.

A couple of days before Brice was scheduled to baptize someone and then couldn’t, my team in Nairobi was leading a devotional with the young pregnant moms at Eden’s Hope. The plan was to open it up for Q&A, for the women to ask anything they wanted about God or faith or the Bible, or anything along those lines. One of the concepts that came up was baptism, what it means, why we do it, why it’s important. It was through this conversation that I just knew that I knew that I needed to get baptized. The Lord impressed it upon my heart to do it while still on the mission field. I had thought about getting baptized at training camp in January when it was offered, but decided against it and to instead plan on getting baptized at home. That way my family and friends, people pivotal on my faith journey, could be there. But the Lord made it abundantly clear to me during that devotional in Kenya that my baptism is for the audience of One, my Father in heaven, not anyone else. It’s not about planning it, inviting certain people, or making sure that it’s at a specific place. It’s solely about Christ. About choosing Him. About being saved by Him alone. About going completely under the water to be raised up again. I go under to choose to die to this life as He did, to then be resurrected into new life as He was. It’s an outward expression of the inward shift in me, one that happened twelve years ago, almost to the day, when I gave my life to Christ, accepted the Gospel, and was saved. I had been baptized as an infant, and all these years I subconsciously assumed that was enough, but I needed to be baptized after actually choosing Jesus for myself. Not that that is what saves me, because we are saved by grace through faith alone, but that it’s what God outlines in Scripture for His children to do once they are saved and understand what they are saying when they go under the water and come back up. To go under is to die with Him, even when that means suffering for His namesake. To come up again is to resurrect with Him, knowing that only through His death and resurrection do we have hope. Only because He died for me, and anyone who believes, by paying the price for our sins on the cross, and only because He defeated death by rising again, do I have any hope. I will live forever in heaven with God because of Christ, and for no other reason. And that invitation is open to everyone.

When I knew that I knew that I had to be baptized, I also knew that I knew that it had to be Brice to baptize me. No other option felt “right”, if that makes sense. Just a deep conviction that it should be him to do it, and honestly Lillie’s picture from the Lord had slipped my mind. So I prayed into it over the course of the week, then called him up a couple of days after he was supposed to have baptized someone off-site but couldn’t, and I asked him. Needless to say, he was overjoyed. Reluctant to believe it at first, even. Incredibly touched and moved. Hopeful.

After calling Brice, I called some family and friends back home to share the exciting news with them. One phone call was to Meg and Mike, two important pillars in my life and story. They’ve been there throughout my entire faith journey from even before day one. They led my church’s youth group when I was in school, and we have stayed lifelong friends since then. I would not be here today if it weren’t for them and their entire family (shout out to their son, Max, on his birthday today! Happy Birthday, Max!). Now I’m sure that I scared them half to death when I said I needed to speak with both of them on the phone while I’m on the other side of the planet; Lord only knows what went through their minds when I said I have to tell them something. But soon they were overjoyed to hear that I would be getting baptized! I could hear it in their voices as they were reflecting over the past decade or so, reminiscing on how much the Lord has done in my life, feeling grateful that they’ve had a front row seat to it all. They’ve been there for me through everything, seasons of rejoicing and mourning alike. I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t crying as they both prayed for me before ending the call. I’m so glad to have shared this important step in my faith with them even from thousands of miles away.

Brice and I planned to baptize me at debrief while the whole squad was together closing out our time in Kenya before beginning our new adventure in Uganda. An important tidbit about Brice, though, is that he was terrified of water due to a traumatic incident when he was a child involving water. He’s refused to go in any body of water, beyond dipping his feet in a pool, for the whole race thus far. I remember when we took a group photo on the beach in the Philippines too close to the shoreline, Brice crossed over into panic for a moment until he prayed with a friend. And now he’s agreeing to walk deep into the Indian Ocean in Diani, Kenya to dunk me under and lift me out again. Because I’m just the bestest friend ever to ask him to do something he’s terrified of (something that also slipped my mind when the Lord put it on my heart to ask him to be the one to do it, oops sorry Brice). I emphasized that he does not have to when I called him, and I asked him to pray into it, but he emphasized that his answer is yes and the Lord will deal with his fear. Praise God for this man’s faith.

Towards the end of our time in Kenya, less than a week after I asked Brice to baptize me, he had another dream. This time of the devil speaking to him. Satan was taunting Brice about his friends back home who don’t yet know Jesus, saying that they belong to him. Brice retaliated saying, “No, they belong to God their Creator, and I will always fight for them.” Then Brice could see that Satan had a huge syringe in his back, sucking all of the strength out of his body, and a second one pushing in this sickness. In the dream, he heard the devil say to him, “If I can do this to you so easily, what makes you think you can do anything to save your friends?” Then he woke up, knowing his sickness was confirmed to be spiritual, not physical. This didn’t scare him. I’d say it fired him up even more to keep fighting.

I’ve never heard of this happening in today’s day and age. Someone with a spiritual sickness? That was physically affecting their body? Yeah, okay, like that could be a thing. But here it is, stumping at least eight different doctors. Here it is before my own eyes over the course of ten weeks in the life of someone I’ve grown to know and trust well over the course of this race. Someone who wouldn’t try to deceive me or anyone else, someone who hated the extra attention that being seriously sick brought him, someone who wants Jesus to get all of the glory. And if it had all been a sham, then he wouldn’t have agreed to face his worst fear, water, as the only way to be healed. You may not know him, but I do, and you all know me. You know that I wouldn’t share this if it wasn’t important, if it wasn’t true, if it wasn’t a miracle in the making. So do with that what you will.

We arrived in Diani a few weeks later and were blessed to stay on the oceanfront. On one of our first mornings, Michael walked out into the ocean with Brice to help him prepare. He shared 1 John 4:18 with him, which says “perfect love casts out fear”, referring to God’s perfect love. Later that morning, I gave him back a prayer that he wrote out in Ethiopia, his prayer through Psalm 93, in which he asked the Lord to take away his fear of water. In his written prayer, he said, “The things that I fear most in this world worship my God.” Our team had each of us pick out a Psalm to write out and pray through in our own words, and then randomly swap with each other so that we could pray for each other in this way. God gave me Brice’s prayer, knowing that I would be the one needing to give it back to him months later. Praise be to Him!

I was baptized Sunday morning, September 21st at sunrise, ten weeks to the day when Brice fell ill. He woke up earlier than ayone and walked down to the beach early to pray over the ocean and worship the Lord. He was inviting the Holy Spirit to come. He was thinking of Moses and the burning bush and how the Lord told Moses to remove his sandals because the place he was standing on was holy ground, not because the ground was anything special, but because the Lord was present there. Brice invited the Lord to be present on the beach in Diani, Kenya for my baptism, and for that of four more friends on the squad.

Around 6am, with my World Race family all on the beach to see me and four more of us get baptized, Brice and I walked out into the water, past where the waves were still crashing, and he baptized me in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. To come out of that water was surreal. What joy to hear my friends cheering for me on the beach, even more-so to know that God and all His angels were cheering from heaven. As we walked back to shore, I laid my hand on Brice’s shoulder and prayed out loud for God to heal him. And since walking out of the ocean that day, he has not experienced any of his symptoms. That was three weeks ago. Even when our whole team fell ill for one reason or another during our first couple of weeks in Uganda, Brice was the only one to stay 100% healthy. Since walking out of that water, I haven’t seen him stumble once nor need his sweatshirt. He even threw away his inhaler from Ethiopia that day and hasn’t missed it at all. The Lord healed my brother, Brice, just like He showed us that He would, and His divine hand of healing is still upon him.

Looking back, Brice calls those ten weeks his favorite out of his entire race so far. God moved in ways that were only made possible because of Brice’s sickness. God revealed more of Himself to Brice and others through this trial. The Lord blessed people through Brice that he otherwise never would have met, like a nurse in the hospital in Addis Ababa who was deeply encouraged in her own faith after meeting Brice with his confidence in the Lord to heal him despite not yet seeing results. She had been struggling in her own walk with God, and was considering leaving her faith until she met Brice. God also blessed everyone who met him during scheduled ministry, when he fought through his symptoms to be present and participate despite the pain. The fact that this work was still important enough to him to show up despite his body not obeying him, that spoke volumes louder than any sermon could to these people he met in Ethiopia and Kenya. God even blessed Brice in all of this as He taught him patience and trust in Him. On top of all that, Brice was healed, I was baptized, and Brice’s fear of water was conquered. He wouldn’t trade these ten weeks for anything, and he points it all back to God. It was never Brice in his own strength doing any of these things, but always God in him. All for His glory, and His glory alone.

All of you who usually read my blogs don’t know Brice like I do, so it can be hard to take some of these statements at his word. But you all know me well, and I pray that you can take my word for it as I share with you this miracle, most of which I witnessed firsthand and lived alongside him for the better part of ten weeks. I’ve never heard of God moving so obviously like this outside of biblical times, let alone witness it for myself. So do with this miracle what you will, but I pray that you take it to the Lord. I pray that it makes you ask real questions to yourself and to Him if you don’t how Him yet. If you do already know Him, I pray this makes you seek to know Him better than you already do, because He is so much bigger than we could ever imagine. He still moves today. He still peforms miracles today. He still invites us to believe that He can, and will, today. He’s challenged me to trust and believe in Him more in these ways by inviting me into this miracle, and I am grateful, to say the least. I challenge you to trust and believe in Him more, too.

For anyone who wants to hear this experience from Brice’s perspective, he posted his own blog that can be found at the following link <https://briceringer.theworldrace.org/post/kenya/>. Thank you for reading, and God bless!

My Baptism Video!