With over 47 years on the mission field, Lois ‘Sister Jennifer’ Prendergast has learnt to pay close attention to the voice of the Holy Spirit. Passionate about being a worker for God, she has made herself available to carry out His command.
In a one-on-one with Freedom Come Rain, Sister Jennifer shared an experience in which God used her to help a Rastafarian who was in excruciating pain at the University Hospital of the West Indies.
She was sweeping her yard in New Kingston one morning when the Lord impressed on her to go to the hospital and, in particular, Ward 7.
Accustomed to receiving instructions like this, she did not question it but got ready and took a bus. When she got to the ward, there was a man crying loudly.
WOULD GOD SHIFT THE BULLET?
She greeted the nurses and the doctor who were used to her, and made her way to the bed of the crying man to have a conversation with him.
He told her he had been there for three nights, unable to sleep, as the pain was just too much. The doctors could not operate as a bullet was lodged in his neck, and the position made it a challenge to attempt the surgery. If the bullet shifted, the surgery could be done.
“Miss, three days and three nights now, I don’t sleep,” he related, telling her the intense pain prevented that luxury.
“So right where it is; they know they can’t touch him. The bullet has to shift first. So I said to him, ‘Do you believe in God?’
“He says, ‘Mummy, if you notice…’ because his locks reached the ground as he was lying on his back,” she shared. “I reminded him that he was in severe pain and his god could not help him, informing him that if he wanted help, my God could do the job.
“Do you want it? And he said, ‘Yes, Mummy,’ because he was crying so hard. So I said to him, “I am going to pray, but if I pray and my God shifts the bullet, you’re going to serve him,” she challenged him.
He told her he would, but when she asked him if he was only saying yes because he wanted God to heal him or if he really meant it, he assured her he meant it with all his heart.
“I said, ‘Okay, I’m going to pray,’ and halfway through my prayer, he stopped crying.” She asked God to shift the bullet and prove to the Rastafarian that He is the real, true, and living God, and that he is serving a god which is not real.
At this juncture, Sister Jennifer asked him if he thought the bullet had shifted, and he told her he did because all the pain had gone.
“I then said, ‘Well…now the ball is in your court!’”
Exiting the ward, she passed three nurses at their station and a doctor who had all observed her praying. She said they were staring at her, and all she did was just nod and continue on her way.
ALL OTHER GODS ARE IDOLS
Sister Jennifer, who never misses an opportunity to minister, recalls another instance when she was leaving work to head to Bible school, and the Lord directed her instead to go on a bus and preach. She was told she should repeat, “There is only one God, and it’s the God of heaven; all other gods are idols.”
With only the instruction in hand, she had no idea which bus she should board, so she asked God. She realised the answer had arrived when a bus stopped at her feet with the instruction to get in.
She announced that someone on the bus needed to hear what she was going to say and repeated what the Lord had told her. She noticed a man sitting at the back who held a newspaper to his face. She continued repeating the phrase, so much so that she started crying and feeling stupid.
The man got up, folded his paper and walked over to where she was; when she looked up, he was crying. It was clear he was the one the LORD wanted her to speak with that day. She didn’t hesitate in agreeing to disembark with him when he asked her where she was heading.
Alone, the first thing he did was thank her for obeying the Lord as he confessed that he had grown up in church and had backslidden, falling into wrong company, even mocking Christians. He said on that same day they met, he had been ridiculing God with his friends, and he told God that if He was for real, He should allow someone to board the bus that he is on. “And they must not be preaching, they should just be repeating the phrase, ‘There is only one God, the God of heaven; all other gods are idols.’” When he first heard her, he thought it was a coincidence, but when she continued, he knew God had spoken.
He told her he was going to get baptised and return to church. And he would start with his unsaved Rastafarian friends.
Sister Jennifer related that she had left the island for a while, but when she realised that she couldn’t visit hospitals and pray with the sick anymore, or evangelise as freely as she used to in Jamaica, she decided to return straight home.
Words of encouragement flowed freely from this vessel of God for persons who may be experiencing trials.
“It’s a faith walk,” she advised. “We don’t go by feelings. We don’t go by how we feel or what situation is about us, or what is happening around us. No. We walk by faith and not by sight. And the Word of God says, ‘Without faith it is impossible to please Him.’ As a matter of fact, when I just got saved, that was the very word God gave me. He said, ‘Your faith has made you whole,’ and since then, I have been doing just that…walking by faith.”