GoD mAdE a MiRacLe...

We are still in awe and thankful to God for the amazing miracle S/He made a few days ago...Marie-Luise, the one (on the right) who is travelling with her cousin Gloria (on the left), have been staying with us since Christmas, and got her life spared on wednesday by a miracle...

How often do we perceive God's miracles?
How often are we spared without noticing? How often do we simply say "Wow, that was lucky !!!"?
How often "luck" takes the honour which belongs to God?!!

I cannot stop thanking God after seeing this deliverance and healing right in front of my eyes...
Marie-Luise took a reasonable amount of "Water Hemlock" ("Cicuta" in portuguese) nicely grated into some rice in the morning...
she found the roots the day before and she thought they looked nice to eat, it looked like a wild carrot (it's actually from the same family) and smelled nice... a lot of us told her not to try anything without knowing what it was, but still she decided to try it next morning...

you can have a slight idea of this plant´s effects with a simple research on the internet, but I'll try to describe what happened...
Less than one hour after she ate the roots, she started to feel bad and went to rest in the van she was staying in... After a while Gloria came to pick some milk and said Marie-Luise was not feeling good... she didn't sound so alarming, so I just told her if she would get worse we should go to the hospital...
After a while I heard Miri screaming for help...I ran down the hill as fast as I could, I knew we needed to go to the hospital...

When I got to the van where they were sleeping, under the eucalyptus before our entry, our car was already there and the girls couldn't take her out of the van... she was vomiting everything, even blood, they said... her body was not functioning and her muscles would get paralyzed and her eyes were like she was having hallucinations ... she was also having violent reactions and one time in the car while I was driving like crazy to the hospital, Miri and Gloria told me they couldn't sense her pulse...
We ran to the nearest hospital in Fundão as fast as possible...
After more than one hour waiting for news while Miri would go in and out to translate to Marie what was going on... Miri said she was hallucinating and it needed at least 3 or 4 people to hold her in bed...she was really violent and thought people wanted to hurt her... she was afraid and kept bleeding everywhere... They couldn't do much more there, so she was taken by an ambulance to a bigger hospital in Covilhã...

At that stage we didn't know exactly what plant it was, and how bad it was, and how much she really needed a miracle...
Of course we didn't stop praying since the moment we stepped in the car...
while the Ambulance took her to another hospital we went back to the land to get a sample of the plant so that we could help the doctors... when we got there with the plant, they immediately identified it ... it was "Cicuta" ("Water Hemlock") ... when I heard it I could only think that Socrates was poisoned with it... it was my only association...

After checking more information on the internet at night, I found out how bad it really was... one of the most deadly plants in Europe.3.3mg of it can kill a cow in less than 2 hours...

I shared with all my mail list and asked for prayer... In the land we spent the night praying in shifts of 2 hours, but I guess none of us really slept... my spirit couldn't sleep... and all the others said the same...
We went back to the hospital the next day to visit her and get some more news (even though a nurse on the phone already said she was much better)...

As soon as we came into her room,  she smiled and she was totally peaceful ... even the doctors were surprised and amazed...
"She was very lucky!" they said...
I would say God just made a miracle ! No luck could have saved her, I´m sure God did intervene on this one...
I´m simply in awe, in wonder, in praise and gratitude to our amazing God...
I'm also grateful for all those who immediately responded to the e.mail I sent... I got more than 60 replies, and many were forwarding the message to different prayer groups...

This time it was obvious that God put a hand on the situation... Even Nuno, Lukas and Joel couldn't help but recognise that this was a miracle...
But how many other times God spares our lives without us even noticing ?
How many times we may think "wow, that was lucky!!!" , when in fact we should say, "Wow, that was God !!! "

Our God is great beyond what we can ever grasp or imagine...
God is the giver of Life, the source of all blessings or "lucks", as we may call it...

In all this euphoric experience PEACE was always there... we didn't panic... and I even think it was a blessing that we didn't know how bad it was until she was in the hospital...
Jesus was always there, we knew it ... we felt it !!!
Only songs of praise were coming out of my mouth while driving her to the hospital...
I thank God, not only for the miracle, but also for the faith and trust God put in our hearts this day...