From Death to Life

Pastoral visit in 2006

In 2001, Dr. Rafael Maradiaga had a busy medical practice and was assistant pastor of his church. A recovering alcoholic since 1988, he had accepted Christ 1991.

On Thursday, June 21, he was providing free care at the John F. Kennedy School in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. This was part of a series of medical brigades in schools which he organized in cooperation with Roberto Granados, the superintendent of schools.

Suddenly he began to feel strange. He noticed his hands were shaking, then he started having severe chest pain. He felt dizzy, “foggy in the head.” Roberto noticed that his speech was funny and asked him what was wrong. “I’m tired,” he replied, “Can you take me home?” In his home medical office he had his nurse give him an injection of steroids and vitamin B12, and took an aspirin and said he was going tobed. But when he tried to walk, he fell towards the left.

Roberto took him to a clinic where they found his blood pressure to be sky-high. The next thing he remembers was being at the public hospital with his left side completely paralyzed. A CAT scan that day showed no abnormalities (typical with a stroke; the tissue damage can take up to a day to appear.) Patricia, his wife, paid 8000 lempiras (about $400) in cash for medicine and 9,000 lempiras (about $450) for the CAT scan.

On Friday the doctors recommended a second CAT scan. The Maradiagas had used up all their reserves. Patricia went out to her car (worth about 120,000 lempiras) and there was a man looking at it. “Do you want to buy it?” she asked, “I’ll sell it to you for 25,000 lempiras." The transaction was finalized the same afternoon. The Maradiagas haven’t had a car since.

The second CAT scan showed a half-dollar-sized area of stroke on the right side of the brain, affecting the muscles and the area that controls emotion. His blood pressure was still uncontrolled.

Rafael was sure he was dying, and everyone else agreed that he was done for. Only Patricia’s brother Oscar Manuel scoffed, “You’re not going to die! What you need is to go to the mall!

On Saturday he begged Patricia, “Please get me out of here, I don’t want to die in the hospital.” She was reluctant at first, but it wasn’t even clear that he had gotten the medicines she had paid for, and even if he had they weren’t working. She thought to herself, “They are not doing anything for him here that we can’t do at home,” and as respecting his last wishes, she agreed.

The doctors were aghast. They begged him, “Please, Doctor, don’t leave,” offered to transfer to a private hospital. Dr. Carlos Marenco, who had been Rafael’s senior resident in his internship, sketched horrific scenarios of what would happen if he left. But he remained firm and signed the form to leave against medical advice.

They took Patricia aside and tried to prepare her for the worst. Wheelchairs, hospital beds, he would need all the trappings of illness. When she got him home, she said, “I’m not going to believe the devil,” opened all the curtains to let in the light, started working with the paralyzed limbs, and told the whole family, ¨we don´t need any weeping and wailing here. Dad´s going to be fine.¨

Rafael was scheduled to lead a home group that night, and his sermon was already prepared. To everyone’s surprise, he still wanted to preach. “If I don’t preach the gospel, I will die.” So they put him in a wheelchair, and someone held the mike for him, and he preached the sermon. His speech was so distorted that no one could understand a word; they just wept to see him like that.

Dr. Marenco visited him at home and immediately changed all his medications. The blood pressure oscillated wildly, and it took a lot of time and effort to finally get it under control. What remained of the money from the sale of the car was soon eaten up by this. Dr. Marenco told him, “You will have to die to live,” meaning stop working as a doctor; he had been pretty much a workaholic since he stopped drinking.

He continued preaching the gospel, and twenty days later he was able to walk, even to go down stairs. Dr. Marenco was surprised by his progress and immediately sent him to rehabilitation. His friend, orthopedist Dr. Otoniel Molina, who had visited him in the hospital, called it a miracle.

Rafael had twice heard the call from God to be a pastor , and each time he had said, “No, I don’t want live on tithes and offerings.” Even Oscar Manuel had told him, ¨You´re the real pastor of this church, not him.¨

There’s a saying in Honduras, “What doesn’t get in through here (point to ear) has to get in through here (mime blow to head.)” Rafael now knew in his bones that he had to obey the call. To this day, he says, if he doesn’t preach the gospel he gets twisted up and mute.

His premonition in the hospital, and Dr. Marenco’s words, were absolutely correct. He was dying and did have to die—to himself—so he could live in and for Christ. The stroke (= 'blow') hammered home for him how worthless, how death-dealing, had been everything he had been striving for before. He really did pass from death to life. He says that it was the mercy of God, because if he had had any more worldly successes he would never have accepted the call to be a pastor.

During his recovery, the house was always full of people, and he was continually preaching. Not being able to go out, he thought, ¨Why not take advantage of this? So he formed Ministerio Cristiano Jehová Rafah.

During this time, he received a call on his (disconnected) telephone. His friend Guillermo Giraldo, a messianic Jew, said ¨I´m coming over.¨ When he arrived, he asked for oil, and there being none, he took water from the reservoir and anointed Rafael as pastor. ¨I knew you were the real pastor of that church,¨ he said.

descending the mountain
after the visit

Oscar Manuel did take him to the mall, and even gave him a puppy. Life was not easy in the years after that, but God has been faithful to provide for his servants. He still does volunteer medical brigades as part of his pastoral work, despite almost constant pain in his feet. And I can testify to the fact that he still just can’t keep from preaching.