Dr. Joonha Hwang, a top South Korean doctor who graduated from medical school in in his homeland, has a medical license as well as a PhD in Neurophysiology, has revealed why he believes in spiritual healing.
 |
Dr. Joonha Hwang |
Dr. Hwang, who is vice-president of the World Christian Doctors Network (WCDN), based in Seoul, South Korea, the group who organized the gathering that attracted some 220 doctors and medical professionals from 30 countries, said that it is important that medical data be examined about claimed miracles as quite often medical people are skeptical about whether they are real or not.
“We have uncovered many testimonies of how the power of God has healed patients and when doctors hear this kind of news, they become curious,” he said. “They want to know if it true or just a story that someone has made up.
“So that is why we put on these ‘Spirituality and Medicine’ conferences each year and then present medical data before and after the patient got prayed for. As far as I know, we at WCDN are the only Christian medical organization that invites doctors to come and hear from other doctors and are then able to openly discuss the evidence of divine healing.”
Dr. Hwang is now fulltime in the WCDN ministry and so I asked him about how it began.
“WCDN held its first conference in in Korea in 2004 and since then we have gathered each year in various countries around the world which have included India, the Philippines, the United States, Norway, Ukraine and last year in Italy,” he said.
Why was Australia chosen for the latest conference?
“Australia,” he replied, “is a very westernized and secular country with what we first thought were just a few doctors who were interested in divine healing.
 |
Two doctors from Brisbane, Australia -- Dr. Mieke Kuiper and Dr. Irene Jacovou – who helped organize this year's conference |
Like with all of the WCDN conferences, the Brisbane event featured doctors who presented case studies on what they claimed were “miracles” and showed on a big screen the medical date to prove how desperately ill the patient had been and then told the story of that patient who had been healed in a way that could not be explained other than God had done the curing.
“The doctors present the cases and then allow the other doctors to ask any questions about that particular case and the presenter answers them,” he stated. “Of course, the doctors who ask the questions have great knowledge about medicine and so they are able to judge the validity of the presentation.”
 |
Back from the Dead. Dr. George sharing his story |
“I was dead for 1 hour and 25 minutes, but came back to life after my wife prayed a simple prayer,” said Dr. George, who provided all kinds of medical data that put on a large screen for the other doctors to check out.
He said that it on October 24, 2008, he returned from the dead to amaze colleagues who had battled for almost 55 minutes to revive his lifeless heart.
He said that the story began when, five days after running a medical clinic in Vanuatu, Dr. George was returning from a clinic session on the south coast of Australia with his intern when he felt minor chest pains and was “unusually hot.”
He went on, “I decided to stop the car and, as I got out and still feeling the discomfort, I called my wife, also a doctor, to let her know what was happening. She suggested that I drove straight home to Kalgoorlie.”
Dr. George said that as he did, he felt “divinely directed” to enter a clinic in Kambalda, 50 kilometers (31.6 miles) short of Kalgoorlie, where he used an electro-cardiogram (ECG) to diagnose a heart attack and receive the few drugs they had there.
“The pain,” he said, “was getting worse and 11 minutes after the ECG my heart completely stopped beating. Not only did I have a heart attack but I went into cardiac arrest.”
For the next 60 minutes, a team of doctors and nurses used over 4,000 chest compressions and gave him 13 electrical shocks but neither his heart nor lungs responded. After one hour and 10 minutes, the doctor was pronounced dead.
Ten minutes later, his wife arrived from Kalgoorlie and was told she go in and say goodbye.
Dr. George continued by saying, “Being a doctor herself, Sherry knew that medical science had proved that if the blood supply to the brain was cut off for over three minutes the brain would begin to die, and in 20 minutes the brain would be completely dead. But as she and I had trusted Jesus Christ as Almighty God and Savior, she decided to humbly ask Him to intervene.
“Holding my hand, she prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, he is only 39, I am only 38 and we have a ten year boy. I need a miracle.’
“As soon as she said this it was as though someone had breathed life into me again and my heartbeat came back.”
Four hours later, Dr. George was flown to Royal Perth Hospital where doctors carried out an emergency procedure to clear a severely blocked artery on the right side of heart.
“The doctor thought I would not survive, and even if I did, I would be completely brain dead on a ventilator. In Perth ICU, I had kidney and liver failure and was still in a deep coma.”
Three days later, on Sunday, after all the odds, the doctor opened his eyes. The next day, he was moving his hands and legs.
On Wednesday, he was fully conscious and off the ventilator, and his memory and brain were fully functional. Then two weeks later, he was discharged and returned to full-time work after three months of steady recovery.”
As he reflected before his medical colleagues on these miraculous events, Dr. George says that he believes God wanted to teach him some important truths.
“It has proved to me that Jesus really is Creator God and Sustainer of life and that He hears and responds to the humble prayers of His servants,” he said. “I now also understand that eternity is only a breath away.
“The experience has definitely grown my relationship with God. I am now more conscious that are only that we are pilgrims on this earth, and that this life is only for a short time. So we need to focus on what lies ahead in eternity.”
Now back to Dr. Hwang. I then asked him what he would say to doctor who do not believe in divine healing and does not believe that God can heal.
“I want to say that please come to one of our WCDN conferences and you can see for yourself, the evidence of divine healing backed up with clear medical data and then you can ask any questions about your doubts or curiosity, and you will become convicted that God is working now just as he worked in the past in the Bible period.”
 |
Some of the Kenyan doctors inviting delegates to next year's conference in Nairobi |
“We have had a wonderful group of Kenyan doctors who have traveled to Brisbane from Kenya and we are hoping that doctors will attend from all over Africa, as well as many other countries of the world,” said Dr. Hwang.
For more information about the World Christian Doctors Network, please go to www.wcdn.org .
Note: I would like to thank Robin Frost for transcribing this interview.
| Dan Wooding, 70, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 47 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. He now hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on KWVE in Southern California which is also carried on the Calvary Radio Network throughout the United States. The program is also aired in Great Britain on Calvary Chapel Radio UK. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 200 countries. You can follow Dan on Facebook under his name there or at ASSIST News Service. He is the author of some 44 books. Two of the latest include his autobiography, “From Tabloid to Truth”, which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, press this link. Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, has also recently released his first novel “Red Dagger” which is available this link. |  |
** You may republish this story with proper attribution.
No comments:
Post a Comment