[Note: The Southeastern team has returned home but their stories continue to come. mReport]

*Vama wanted to know why her pain had returned. God healed her once before. Now, the pain was back.

“She was still praising God,” Bekah said. “She still loves Him and trusts Him. She just couldn’t understand why the pain had returned.”

Bekah had come with the Southeastern team to teach piano lessons in a Mumbai village. While she was teaching, Vama came in and sat down. She didn’t say a word, Bekah remembered. She just sat and watched for a long time.

After a few minutes, Bekah asked if she had come to study piano. “No,” the woman said. Just to be safe, Bekah repeated her question several more times, phrasing it differently each time to make sure the woman understood. Each time, the woman said, “No.”

Finally, Vama said to Bekah, “I used to have a terrible pain in my arm. I prayed and prayed to God and He took that pain away, and I praised His name.”

“About a month ago the pain came back,” continued Vama, who had recently been hospitalized for the problem. “I still praise God. I still trust Him. I still love Him, and I still have faith in Him. But the pain is back, and I can’t move my arm … I want to know why He let it come back.”

Moved by Vama’s story, Bekah left the keyboard and sat down beside her. With the help of her students, Bekah and Vama talked for some time. The woman asked for prayer. Bekah thought the woman might need to understand that God doesn’t always answer our prayers exactly the way we expect Him to.  She told Vama that God is powerful, that He healed her before and that He had the power and ability to heal her again.

“Maybe, though,” Bekah said, “there is a reason that your pain has returned.”

Bekah talked more about God’s faithfulness and shared Scripture from Deuteronomy 8.

“Maybe,” Bekah said, “this is a time that you can show your faithfulness to God.”

Vama agreed and said that she would continue to praise God.

Then Bekah, her students, and other members of the Southeastern team gathered around Vama to pray. They prayed for God’s will to be done, and they prayed for healing and for peace.

As the prayer ended and the students returned to their lessons, Vama raised her afflicted hand, shouting “Praise the Lord!”

Vama could move her arm again, when moments before she was unable to do so.

“I have the best picture of her giving us all a high-five,” Bekah marveled.

*Names changed