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Advent HOPE Kettering

Tim Riesenberger

A New Heart

Well, actually not 4 walls, but 3 walls, well, maybe 1 wall and 2 thatch things.

I saw patients all day in a village that had no electricity, no running water, out in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

It was 3 hours from the nearest any civilization.

And so what did I do when I saw these patients?

Well, not a whole lot as far as lab tests or x-rays or CTs or things like that, no ultrasound, sorry.

So what I did was I taught them about the 8 natural remedies and water is a big issue in third world countries.

Those of you went to Bangladesh know that everyone's like bone-dry dehydrated, right?

And there's other things that you can always teach people about.

Hygiene is a big issue in the third world.

But there were persons after persons after persons that would come to ask for medical help.

They had never seen a doctor in their whole life.

They had never even seen a nurse in their whole life.

But of all the 8 natural remedies, something I did with every patient is I prayed with them and I pointed them to the God of Heaven.

1 of the things I noticed is that there were so many people who wanted medical care, they were always trying to cut in line and get ahead and stuff like that.

In fact, there was only 1 break that I took throughout the day, and that was just to go to the bathroom.

The bathroom is that thing behind that whitish thatched area.

When I took a break, I noticed that 3 guys kind of followed me into the bathroom.

And I'm thinking, well, you know, they're going to take a bathroom break at the same time.

But as soon as I got in there, they were like, doctor, una pregunta.

And I'm like, dude, I'm going to the bathroom right now.

But that's how desperate people were to cut in line.

And I said, well, I'll answer your question in line, you know, like everyone else.

But there was only 1 person who didn't do that.

It was a young girl who was there with her mother and her sister.

And she never came to the front of the line, she never tried to cut, she never tried to push or anything like that.

And I would catch just little bits and pieces of her conversation as she stood at the outskirts of the crowd.

I would hear stuff like, oh, you know, there's so many people, he's not gonna, you know, be able to take time to see me.

All these people have cancer and diabetes, and they have all these infections and wounds and stuff.

Until finally, kind of close to the end of the day, her mom kind of marched her up to the front and sat her down in front of me.

And she says, this is my daughter, and I would like you to see Helen because I know there's something wrong.

And so I said, well, what seems to be the trouble?

She's like, I'm not sure, but I think it may be something wrong with my heart.

And I thought, well, why do you think it's your heart?

Well, I feel pain sometimes, and sometimes I pass out.

And I feel really tired, and sometimes it's racing really fast.

And I can't play like I used to with my friends.

So I listen with my stethoscope, And I hear the worst murmur I've ever heard in my entire life.

And normally, your heart goes dip, dip, dip, dip.

I had her do all these little things, because obviously, I couldn't ask for an echo, right?

But if you were there, I could have, right?

But I couldn't ask for an echo, so I had to do all these different maneuvers to figure out where the sermon was coming from.

And eventually, I realized that she had a large VSD, ventricular septal defect.

That's a big hole between the large chambers of the heart.

And she was developing something called Eisenmenger's syndrome, which is where instead of the blood passing from the right heart to the lungs to get oxygen, to the left heart, it just goes straight to the left heart.

Now, eventually, when you keep shunting the blood without going through the lungs, you have no oxygen.

And those of you who are residents probably understand a little bit better, and maybe not, I'm not sure.

But the long story short is eventually the pressures become such that none of the blood will go through the pulmonary circulation, and then you die eventually.

So I kind of shared this with her in very simple terms and she said, well do I need to drink more water?

She said well can you put like a poultice on it?

I said you're gonna need surgery on your heart.

I think you may actually need a new heart, a transplant.

I don't think they'll be able to repair this.

You'll have to go to Lima, the capital of your country, and find a cardiothoracic surgeon.

And she said, OK, can you do the surgery?

She's like, will they do the surgery for free?

I'll try to ask some of my friends back in the states to help.

And as I began to think about this, as I looked into the eyes of a 15-year-old girl who needed a new heart, God told me, Tim, you need a new heart.

And in the experience of Helen, you will find the experience of salvation.

Please open your Bibles to Ezekiel 36, verse 26.

Ezekiel 36, verse 26, we read, a new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh.

So God is the 1 who gives us the new heart.

And I learned that from the very beginning of my experience with Helen.

This is actually northern Peru near Chocloyo, if any of you are familiar with the geography of Peru.

What's the chances of a physician meeting this girl who has Eisenmengers in the middle of nowhere in time to save her.

Well, when you understand how God rolls, it's pretty good.

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A New Heart

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