The Hospital Registrar called our friend Gerrit, "You are coming to collect Dan's body? Don't bother he's just burst out of the morgue screaming "Jesus really is alive and hell is real". He's heading your way.
Dan had been certified clinically dead 48 hours earlier, he told me how he fell through his body, descended in to hell and remained there for two days until the unbelievable happened...
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| From left - John - George - Dan |
Dan’s Story
Before
coming to Philippines we stayed with our friends Gerrit & Ami at their
rapidly developing orphanage in a township called Grabouw just outside Cape
Town, South Africa. As with most
townships violent death, AIDS & rape all seemed to be the culture.
Regardless,
despite the threat to life our friends were doing a great work for the Lord there
and we had returned to help out with some painting. We later learnt from a
Christian detective in the township, that during our first week there his
department were investigating seven child rapes, three murders and a further
seven road accident deaths, all of which they believed were actually murders
and this he considered as an average week. Interesting place eh!
Our
friends shared some amazing, tragic & glorious experiences from their lives
there. Jesus was surely with them. Their
testimonies would make a great book, several books. One particularly sad episode
was that shortly after committing to reside there one of their young lady
volunteers was hacked to death as she tried to escape a possessed man with a
machete who attacked her at the gate directly outside the window of our room. They overcame the temptation to pack up and
leave and as a result the community is profoundly touched by their presence and
faith in Christ.
Their
primary mission in Grabouw is to run the large orphanage and school that they
have founded. They have personally adopted nine of the numerous children in
their care, they also have fourteen other resident children that are profoundly
disabled with cerebral palsy, some because of the drugs the mother had taken,
some because the child was hit in the head with a bottle, some were just born
that way and abandoned.
They
have seen children with aids healed by prayer; one abandoned child had become an
honours student at school. Many times they had been told by doctors “that a child
will be dead by morning” but today the child is well and strong.
One
time, Jo & I journeyed with them to the hospital to collect another “at
risk” child called “Daisy”. The mother, a drug addict and the father an
alcoholic were required to be there for the hand over, They both were and what
a sorry sight. They passed Daisy into my hands as if they were making a Pizza
delivery. No tears, no emotion, just “there you go – She’s Daisy”.
In
addition, Gerrit & Ami also feed over 400 children daily at the free school
they have opened. Recently, they also added a drug rehab unit for single mothers
& babies. For the record they have no regular supporters and run the whole
operation by faith. Just saying!
Gerrit
& Ami’s testimony is this “All by the grace of God in our Lord Jesus Christ”.
THE CHILD WAS IN THE GUTTER
The
first child they adopted is now sixteen and that story has the most tragic beginning
and miraculous ending. Thirteen years ago, Gerrit and Ami observed the same
small child on many occasions playing dangerously in the middle of the dirty
little road that separated the shanty houses. Despite investigating they could
never identify the mother or home that the child belonged to. One day of
pouring rain, there was the child as usual sat in the road scarcely clothed.
The street was deserted and Ami could take it no more, she picked the baby up
and took it home fearing it may have already caught pneumonia. Three days later
an old woman came to Ami’s door, which actually was close to the place where
the child had been rescued. The woman identified herself as the grandmother and
asked could she have the child back. Ami replied that when you can show me
proof you will look after this child I will readily return him, until then the
child is better here. Fourteen years later the child is still there.
To
this day the details regarding the mother remain sketchy to me, not so the
father “Dan”. Gerrit told me that later we would see the father working in the
gardens. “The gardens” by the way, was a former local land fill site where many
executions, rapes and other terrible acts had taken place. The owner had gifted
the land to the orphanage. Gerrit said “Dan is my adopted son’s biological
father, when you see him ask him to tell you his story, you will hardly believe
it”. He went on, “I’ll tell you this - Dan was a member of the “26 Gang” and
proudly wears that tattoo on the centre of his forehead surrounded by a host of other homemade or otherwise prison
“tats””.
“FIRST - RAPE A BABY”
Around
the second day Gerrit pointed Dan out to me, he was working in the grounds
along with several other heavily tattooed ex gang members whose lives had been
totally transformed by Christ and now offered their services freely as a
payment for the light and hope our friends had brought to that demonised
community.
I was
shocked at what Gerrit told me was the uncompromising criteria for initiation
into all of the three major gangs there, ”the 26 the 28” &, “the Hard
Living Kids”.
a)
Rape a baby, because that will get rid of your AIDS
b)
Rape a pregnant woman – Because that will send the message to your enemies that
you rule
c)
Kill the person that we tell you – And it may be a member of your family
d) If
you complete the above the gang beat you near senseless, if you survive, you are
in and you will die if you try to leave.
Later,
I went over and said hi to Dan and his workmates and we all became fast friends.
A couple of days later Dan and John, a former sworn enemy of Dan while he was a
member of “The Hard Living Kids” joined me for a coffee at the “Jail House
Café”. It had been converted and was in fact the town’s original jailhouse and
both of these new friends had many unhappy memories of hardship in this building.
Original restraining irons are still visible and now included in the decoration
of the place. Their first involuntary visits to the jail house had begun at the
young age of only fourteen years old.
HE FIRED TWO SHOTS
I
asked Dan to tell me his story while we drank coffee and ate homemade cake. He began
by saying that several years ago whilst he sat in an illegal drinking house,
his friend had left for the outhouse out back. Nothing unusual about that
except that two strangers from out of town got up and followed him. Soon after a
local ran in the bar shouting that someone was being attacked. Dan guessing it
was his companion grabbed a knife from off the table and flew to the aid of his
friend. As he was about to strike one of the attacker’s he turned with gun in
hand fired two shots at Dan. Dan turned and ran for his life, his friend will
have to take care of himself.
Dan
thought he had escaped without injury, that the shooter had missed but as he
was still running the last thing he remembers was darkness descending on him.
It was two days later he regained a mental consciousness to the bleeps of medical
monitoring instruments and instinctively knew he was in an Intensive Care Unit
somewhere. He later learnt that only one of bullets had hit him tearing right
through the elbow, then entering the torso and ripping up several major organs
before lodging deep in his body. The surgeon had removed the bullet but Dan lay
in an induced coma for two days with a high likely hood that he would not
survive.
He
lay there unable to move a single muscle but could clearly hear everything that
was going on around him. If only he could move. It seemed only minutes before a loud and
incessant beep began to sound out right beside his head. That was coupled by what he guessed was a
nurse calling out some kind of medical jargon in a rather anxious voice for what
he also assumed was an alert for a doctor too come quickly. He was right..
“WE’RE LOSING HIM, WE’RE
LOSING HIM”
He was
aware that others were quickly pouring into the space around him and that he
was the focus of their attention. He could sense that a tense atmosphere had
developed and though he didn’t understand the phrases they used he did realise
he was in some kind of trouble. The loud and rapid beeping continued to sound.
Dan said the absence of any physical sensation gave little false sense of
security because he could feel no pain, could feel nothing at all. He never
considered that his condition might be as bad as it actually was and that his
life was hanging by a thread.
He
confessed that the urgency in their voices coupled with the monitor sounds was
increasingly disturbing, which concern elevated substantially when he heard a
doctor call out “we are losing him, we are losing him”! Dan had seen enough TV
& movies to know exactly what that meant. But, surely they were over
reacting, he felt fine. Obviously they are making a mistake they will discover
that in just a moment or two.
He
heard the alarm state of the monitor audibly switch to “flat line” and any
remaining optimism he had managed to hold on to received another big dent. Then
a calmer, less frantic voice spoke and simply said – “he’s gone”.
Dan said
he was in total disbelief. How could they call themselves doctors? “I’m right here;
I hear you and you are wrong”. As far as he was concerned he was as alert and
consciences as he ever had been. Again, he tried his hardest to at least open
his eyes and let them see he was fully there, he wanted to shout out loud from
his eyes "Hey I'm not dead, I'm alive, I'm alive don’t quit on me, I can
hear you I just can’t talk yet, you haven’t lost me, I'm NOT dead.
Fear
began to well up as the possibility of a shocking reality began to dawn. Maybe,
just maybe this was IT, THIS WAS DEAD! Fully aware but totally incapable of
expressing anything! Dan said “I wanted to scream as loud as I could but I had
no control whatsoever over my body and no sounds would come out.
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| Dan today with surgical scar when the bullet was removed |
WE HAVE A BODY FOR COLLECTION
IN THE ICU
Dan
noticed an immediate change of mood among the medical staff that were around
him.
A
click and the electronic flat line wail ceased. The voices became normal,
quieter even. Someone spoke “No vital signs, no pulse, something about his eyes
and - CLINICALLY DEAD”.
He
could still hear and detect that someone was dialling a wall phone and a call
was being made from within the room close beside him. The caller spoke to someone
at the other end “we have a body for collection in the ICU, Please arrange to
have it removed”. Dan still carried a
degree of shock as he relayed to me “They were talking about me, can you even
believe that – A body for collection”. Dan was more frightened than he had ever
been in his entire gang member life... So this was death, they say I'm dead
but I still right here!
The
medical people spoke among themselves, then another call was made. The same
caller as before spoke and said “Mrs ---------“Oh no! They were calling my mam”.
The voice apologised and explained they were very sorry but due to massive
complications they had failed to save her sons life and could she make
arrangements to collect the body from the morgue. Still pained by that call, Dan told me “I could
just make out my mam’s voice on the other end of the line; she was really upset
and told him she doesn't even have the money to get herself back to the
hospital again far less pay for her sons body to be removed”. Despite the
terror of his own predicament Dan said he felt incredibly sad that he had
caused his dear mam a life time of pain. Again, he wanted to wail out loud so
she could hear “Mam, Mam I’m okay, I’m still alive.. I’m sorry mam. But now
he’s a prisoner in his own dead body.
FALLING FOREVER INTO A PIT
Shortly
after, by voices and sounds alone he was aware that he had been transferred to
a trolley/gurney and was being wheeled along to some place. He said how he
still has no words to describe the anguish of slowly believing you really must
be dead but you feel as alive as usual only you just can’t move.
The
trolley stopped, more voices, doors banged closed and it was silent. Dan began
to reflect on his predicament. “How can I get them to realise I’m actually
still alive”? If the despair of unimaginable death was not enough of a shock to
his system what happened next was severely worse.
Without
warning, as if someone had opened an trap floor below him, he experienced
falling through his own body right through the trolley he was laid on and effortlessly
through the floor as if it wasn’t even there. Dan experienced what he can only
describe it as a long, long free fall in to an ever darker and seemingly
bottomless pit.
GOD IS EVERYWHERE BUT IN HELL
He
wasn’t aware of crashing to the bottom or of any kind of sudden stop, it just
seemed as if the falling was over and he was enveloped in a most awful darkness,
worse than darkness, a black mist surrounded him like a thick cloud. Not like the
dark of night but a thick and oppressive blackness. Absent of air
Before,
he had never really believed or even considered God but later testified that a
surprise horror of hell is the total absence of the presence of God. That God
presence and works are everywhere when your eyes are open to see. So prevailing
and normal” that we learn to experience the “feel good” of life on earth as
just the way it is. Not until the light and hope of His presence is completely absent
does the soul experience the most awful aloneness and deep anguish of soul. “Treasure
God’s presence – its everywhere”.
And
so began the living nightmare of being in hell and the collective terror of the
living dead that seemed to surround him in that pitch darkness. He didn’t see
demons, worm’s, flames of fire. Scripture describes hell as having different
levels and conditions. Dan couldn’t see anything at all but knew there was no
freedom to roam around or even move. Instead describing as tight packed as all
the other wailing, howling dead writhe endlessly in suffering and restlessness. Screams of torment pierce the darkness. Young
voices, old voices, male, female, crying, weeping, Dan feely admitted his voice
was one of them.
Dan
felt inadequate to explain the deep sadness of his experience and I certainly
feel unqualified to write about it. He told how on many levels torment and
exhaustion with no way to rest was unbearable. He just longed for it to stop
but then there was the added anguish of knowing that it never would instead it
would just go on and on forever.
He
was utterly broken, shattered, couldn’t imagine ever being a brave and hardened
gang member. He certainly didn’t feel like a proud macho man anymore, emotionally
he was worse than a very lost and frightened little boy. Though no longer in a
physical body all feelings, senses and emotions remained and he wept bitterly, uncontrollably
as hopelessness and regret overwhelmed him. Surely, this was now his punishment
night and day forever and ever. Wailing came easy. Surely all was lost...
A BRIGHT LIGHT
With no comprehension of time
the terror, the agony, the deep despair seemed like the blackness was forever.
Instinctively, Dan had cried and cried out with everything within him to the
God he had never considered for forgiveness, for another chance if only he
could be delivered from this place. Dan little realised that he had actually
been there for two days when after what seemed like forever the brightest of
lights suddenly appeared, regardless of the darkness he said he could look
directly at the light. it was so bright and coming closer all the time, he was
so mesmerised by it that for that moment he even forgot where he was. The light
came and stopped close to where he was and then he heard the most beautiful
voice I had ever heard. It said “Dan I am Jesus I am sending you back and you
will tell them my message that I am alive”.
Aaarghh! A Sudden violent jolt
and Dan found himself surrounded by a dim glowing light as he gasped and sucking
in large gulps of air. He was again experiencing shock, adrenaline coursing
through him, he’s confused but oh there is such a wonderful sense of relief,
the darkness and fear is gone, the bright light is gone but this dim glow is
welcome. Dan began to experience coldness, suddenly he felt very cold. He
stretches out his hand in the direction where the glowing light is brightest;
he sees his own hand again. He felt something strange, but it easily moves away
at the touch of his finger tips. He continues to push his hand forward until
the sheet that was covering him falls from off his head and body. He realises
he is sat bolt upright on a trolley, he cast aside the sheet that covered him.
He is in a kind of chiller room with several other corpses also stretched out
on steel tables under sheets alongside his. Leaping off the bed Dan said I just
ran for the doors, crashing through them
directly into what was the downstairs staff corridor of the hospital.
RUNNING DOWN THE CORRIDOR NAKED
GERRIT CONFIRMS THE STORY: I’ll
take up Gerrit’s account for this next section of the story.
He said “The hospital had called
me a couple of days earlier to say that Dan had died and the family were unable
to collect the body so would I, or our church, be willing to do that for
whatever funeral arrangements the family wanted ? Bearing in mind we had
adopted his son; I knew this man and had no time for him. When word was
received that our adopted sons father had been shot and was fighting for his
life in the ICU I thought “he is a gang member, he’s lived a life destroying
the lives of others, he has rejected the gospel, rejecting his own offspring, its
payback time if he dies he dies”. Oh! But Ami felt very differently and wanted
to go to the ICU and pray for his life. Against my commands to the contrary
that’s what she did; she went to the ICU and prayed for Dan. But nothing
happened, no healing, no flinch, nothing at all happened when Ami prayed”.
“So, with a heavy heart of
community obligation and all the cost and hassle that involved I agreed and
began to make the arrangements for a casket, the service and the notifications”.
“However, shortly before we are
due to leave for the hospital with the casket to collect Dan’s body, the
hospital called again, telling us not to bother collecting the body because
around 30 minutes ago, aprx. 48 hours after being certified clinically dead Dan has just burst out of the morgue stark naked and was running up
and down the staff corridor shouting that “Jesus really is alive, hell is real
and that they should all turn to him now if they did not want to go there”.
“It wasn’t easy but we have
managed to restrain and clothe him and he’s heading your way right now”…
Gerrit questioned the doctor
“Are you sure he was actually dead”? too which he received a very energetic and
irate reply assuring Gerrit that not only did several reliable medical monitors
confirm him as dead but also a professional and the highly qualified Consultant
of the ICU was not in the habit of making mistakes, “Yes, Mr Dan ---------- was
in fact very dead when the death certificate had been completed and signed off”.
“About thirty minutes later a
wide eyed and highly animated Dan shows up here at our place preaching the same
message the doctor told us he preached there. Amazingly, he was quoting many verses
from the bible despite never having opened a bible in his life. “He said Jesus
had put His words in him and that was the message he should preach””.
DAN PREACHED HIS OWN FUNERAL SERVICE
Gerrit continued that Dan was
insisting that he be baptised in water right away. Gerrit having the dry humour
that he does said “well we had planned to have your funeral service at 2pm then
bury you I guess we could make a small adjustment to the order of service and
turn that into your water baptism”.
From 1; 45pm on the “would be”
mourners began to file into the sanctuary, each one more amazed than the next
to see the casket right there upfront and Dan himself stalking about the
platform like a caged tiger preaching and confessing sin to many of the
attendees. Pointing as the opportunity arose “You ma’am, yes you – twelve years
ago your handbag was stolen out of your house – It was me, please forgive me”.
“You sir, five years ago your television went missing, I’m the one who stole
it, please forgive me”, and as more attendees came so did Dan’s confessions of
sin and pleas for forgiveness.
WHERE’S THE MAN THAT WAS RAISED FROM THE DEAD?
Two years or so after this, Dan is
no longer a gang member, he has a small business, a ministry reconciling separated
couples that he runs with his wife and Dan works voluntarily one day a week in
the grounds of the orphanage.
One day Ami had again lectured
Gerrit on clearing the attic of their small home. She really needed the space
but couldn’t get up there. Eventually Gerrit complied and climbed up there and
found that the offending blockage that prevented Ami’s access was the casket
that had been made for Dan. Gerrit lowered it down from the attic and placed it
outside the house. Seeing Dan in the garden later that morning he asked him to
please remove the casket since technically it was his.
Later that morning a small group
of from New York had heard about the work and had requested to see the
orphanage. Whilst getting the tour one young lady happened to ask Gerrit “Where’s
the guy that was raised from the dead”, since the place is full of never ending
miracles Gerrit in his usual humour asked “which one”? The girl replied the one
that was in hell for two days! Oh, that one, well he is around here somewhere,
as if on cue at that exact moment Dan walked around the side of the building
where the group were standing holding his casket under his arm. To which the
young lady exclaimed “Wow! Does he carry that with him everywhere he goes”.
Jesus is alive & Hell is real and we should absolutely repent if
we do not want to go there.
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