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Friday, June 10, 2011

Founder of ASSIST Ministries BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA (ANS) -- Dr. Fidel Cholo Fernandez, a 57-year-old pathologist from the city of Zamboanga in the Philippines, spends his days studying diseases under the microscope, but he also is a believer in divine healing.

Dr. Fidel Cholo Fernandez with his wife Leticia

Fernandez is one of more than 220 doctors, scientists and medical professionals from 30 countries who are gathered in Brisbane, a city that earlier this year was devastated by floods, to participate in the 8th World Christian Doctors Network “Spirituality and Medicine” conference Held on June 11-12, 2010, the medics -- many of whom pray for their patients as well as giving them more usual treatment -- to explore whether miracles still happen today and, if they do, to provide medical data to prove them.

The doctor’s believe that all “miracles” should be provable by data, and so they are giving case studios that are presented with the data flashed on large screens in the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The Philippines-born doctor told me about a particular healing -- the story of a Korea Christian called Deacon Han who had been diagnosed with early gastric cancer following an endoscopic study on September, 2002.

“Deacon Han received an endoscopy test once again on December, 2002, but a biopsy was not performed at that time because the lesion had not improved,” said Dr. Fernandez. “He was told that he should undergo an operation for gastric cancer, he didn’t because he had a belief in God.”

The patholgist said that Deacon Han had traveled from his home town to the Manmin Central Church in Seoul where he received prayer for his sickness from Dr. Jaerock Lee, the senior pastor.

Australian worship group at the opening session in Brisbane

“From that moment, he gained weight and was sure that he was healed,” said Fernandez. “Finally, he confirmed his healing two months later by another endoscopic test at the local internal medicine clinic, when no vestige of the gastric cancer was found. After a year, an endoscopy and biopsy test was done to him by the doctor who diagnosed his original case and finally the doctor gave his report that the patient didn’t have the symptom of gastric cancer.” "It was a miracle," pronounced Dr. Fernandez.

I then asked this charming doctor if he had ever experienced a personal miracle in his own life.

“Well,” he said, “the best example would be my son who was born with a congenital disease. Before he was born, the doctors told me that he could only live possibly for one year. We were pushed against the wall and my wife Leticia, who is a nurse, and myself, just relied on prayer and he's now in his mid-twenties so that's a great miracle for me.”

I then asked Leticia, 53, why she had come to the “Spirituality and Medicine” gathering.
“I have worked with the World Christian Doctors Network (WCDN) since 2005 and I've become active in the organization and have even invited doctors and other medical workers to attend the conference,” she said. “I am finding that there are a lot of doctors who believe in miracles, but some others are still skeptics.”

Dr. Gilbert Chae

On the first morning, delegates were given a message by Dr. Gilbert Chae, President of WCDN, who said, “I give thanks to God that He enabled us to hold the 8th WCDN conference in this beautiful country of Australia. “In the trend of the world that loves money and pleasure and puts focus just on freedom, we are living in a world where the Darwinian evolutionism is widely spread along with the development of science.

“Many souls are going to the world without having knowledge of God. It is a world when it is difficult to discern between the good and evil for there are just so many things that are against the word of God, including the proliferation of the acceptance of homosexuality and abortion.

“In this kind of trend, this WCDN conference will try to provide moral guidelines to the Christian doctors in an attempt for us to become a beam of light in that world that keeps on darkening.”

Dr. Mieke Kuiper during a worship session

Dr. Mieke Kuiper, a Dutch-born family physician who has worked in and around Brisbane for 30 years, and is Chairman of the organizing committee of the WCDN Conference in Brisbane, said, “We now are living in the most exciting days of all times – the closing of the end of the ages (Matthew 18). The earth’s birth pangs have begun, the natural disasters now occurring in increasing magnitude. “News of new earthquakes is almost weekly (Mathew 24.8). Australia has seen some of its worst flooding and cyclones this year, coming after crippling draught.”

Dr. Kuiper went on to say, “The earth is waiting for the sons and daughters of God to arise and bring freedom and restoration.”

She also said, “Australia, wake up, wake up!”

The conference continues tomorrow (Sunday).

For more information, go to: http://www.wcdnaustralia.org/

Next year’s conference will take place in Nairobi, Kenya.

 A Pathologist Puts Divine Healing Under the Microscope
He joins hundreds of doctors and medical professionals in Brisbane, Australia for a unique ’Spirituality and Medicine’ Conference and shares about a family miracle he experiencedBy Dan Wooding