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RIGOR MORTIS CORPSE LEAVES HIS COFFIN! |
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| - The Story of Daniel Ekechukwu - | ||
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"Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?" (Acts 26:8) "BONNKE RAISES MAN FROM THE DEAD IN ONITSHA". This banner headline appeared in the Nigerian newspaper... Was it true, a Divine miracle, or sensationalist press exaggeration? Jesus did say, "Though one rose from the dead they would not believe." Judge for yourself. The evidence and facts are here without embroidery but on the very spot they stunned critical journalists and left them speechless. |
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Daniel drove his 20-year-old Mercedes 230. On the way back home, travelling down a steep road, the Mercedes' brakes failed. Daniel could do nothing. Gathering speed the vehicle hurtled downhill - unstoppable!
Its career, and Daniel's, ended as it smashed into a stone pillar. Without a seat belt Daniel was violently catapulted |
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forward. His head hit the wind-screen and the steering wheel and knob punched into his body. Daniel’s friend, Kingsley Iruka, shocked though not badly hurt, turned to Daniel, hoping all was well. But the sight appalled him. Blood was pouring from Daniel’s nose from a head injury, and then he began vomiting blood from heavy internal haemorrhage.
Fortunately help arrived soon. Marvellously Daniel held on until he was placed in the local hospital’s intensive care (or the Nigerian best equivalent |
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of it). His wife, Nneka was sent for. She found Daniel still alive - but only just! He hung on to life to ask her to have him taken to his family doctor’s hospital in Owerri - a very serious mistake. It meant anything but a smooth ride for one and a half hours. Within minutes of being lifted into the ambulance Daniel felt himself dying. He tried to whisper his last words and instructions to Nneka. He especially begged her to see the work of their church continue. He also tried to inform her about one or two church situations she ought to be aware of, but his speech slurred, became incoherent and stopped as he drifted into unconsciousness. |
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The ambulance driver pushed on however, at full speed, warning sirens blaring. Reaching the Owerri Regional Hospital they ran in shouting: "Emergency! Emergency!" Daniel’s doctor, however, was not on duty. Instead, a member of the medical staff took charge and checked Daniel’s now limp form. He turned to them with a sad face. He could only certify that Daniel was already dead! His wife Nneka naturally was shocked. But a Bible verse had been ringing in her mind from Hebrews 11:35 "Women received their dead raised to life again." An irrational conviction seized her. These words meant her. She would see Daniel alive and well again! In what follows Nneka was the key figure. |
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The text in Nneka's head made it impossible for her to accept the plain evidence that Daniel had died and had to be buried. Her urgency dictated that something had to be done. They hurried to see Daniel's uncle, Okoronkwo Emmanuel, living near the hospital and asked if he knew where their own family doctor was. He did not know, but led them to see his own doctor, Dr. Jossy Anuebunisa at the St. Eunice Clinic. |
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Daniel was taken there and seeing Nneka’s determination, the doctor checked Daniel’s condition again. He could only confirm that Daniel was dead! The time registered was 11:30 on the day of the car accident.
The doctor then wrote out his report and asked if they wished to have Daniel laid in the clinic’s mortuary. They declined. Instead they again moved the body to Daniel’s father in the village near Owerri and from there to the Ikeduru General Hospital Mortuary, not far away. The residing mortician, Mr. Barlington R. Manu, also carried out the normal proce-dures and by then it was after midnight, one o’clock Saturday morning.
Because the mortuary had no cold storage facilities, the mortician administered the usual chemical injection and prepared the body for embal-ming the following morning. With a staff member he laid the body out on a mortuary slab between two other dead people. Everyone then retired for the night. Meanwhile Daniel's wife, convinced that her husband would live again, wanted his body to be taken to the church in Onitsha where Reinhard Bonnke was to speak at a dedication ceremony of the "Grace of God Ministries". Daniel's father, however, was a Mormon and declared he would decide if they should go there. He said he would go and "hit him with the Bible seven times", and if Daniel did not rise, then Nneka had to accept the fact that he was not going to rise from the dead, and that the matter would then be settled. He struck the corpse seven times, but with no result whatsoever. Nneka, being a Christian, maintained that a Mormon would not understand. She would not give up. She pestered her father-in-law. Daniel had to be taken to the Bonnke meeting! Realizing that if he refused her this favour, she would remember that he had denied her this request on behalf of her husband all her life. Eventually he relented. On the next day, Sunday, December 2, they went to fetch the body from the mortuary. But the mortician was worried about their intentions. To hide the fact that a body was being taken, with still a one and half hours drive to Onitsha, he dressed the body as for a funeral as a pretext, placed it in a coffin and shut the lid. They took Daniel in his coffin and set off. Arriving at the Onitsha Church Complex, the State security officer and the ushers saw them entering with a coffin and ordered them to leave immediately. However, Nneka was determined! She pleaded and persisted not only for the coffin to be allowed in the church complex, but it had to be brought into the church building itself. Seeing her determination, the State security office checked that the coffin did contain a body and was not a terrorist trick to plant a bomb. Finding only a pallid corpse he allowed them to proceed. However the idea of bringing a coffin or a dead body into a crowded church brought consternation and upheaval. Finally the Head Bishop's son, Pastor Paul Junior, sought his father’s permission to get the body into the building, but it had to be taken into the children's department. The children were ushered into the lower hall, and the corpse brought into the upper room and laid out on a table. The Bishop’s son, Paul, and another pastor on the church staff, Bathcomery Nkwando, attended to this and found rigor mortis had stiffened the limbs. Then the corpse began breathing! Encouraged, the pastors threw themselves into powerful petitionary prayer, stripped the body of the mortuary gloves, socks and shirt and began massaging from head to foot, Daniel being 'as stiff as an iron rod'. They asked for fans to be brought in to give Daniel more air to breathe. As this news broke out in the sanctuary above, it created hysterical pandemonium. Then, said Pastor Lawrence, at 17:15 on the Sunday afternoon, two days after Daniel had died, he opened his eyes, sat up and leaned on Pastor Lawrence. People began crowding into the hall to see this 'resurrection man'. Pastor Lawrence was worried Daniel would not have enough oxygen, so he lifted and carried him into the church sanctuary. Daniel spoke for the first time: "Water. Water." They gave him sips of water and then warm tea. To give him a clear space they seated him on a chair on the platform, where hundreds of people saw him slowly recovering. He had not yet collected his thoughts and for a while could not recognize anyone, not even his own son who came up to see his dad. However, he progressed, and within only hours, during the evening, he had full consciousness and coherence. His return from death was a miracle, and crowds besieged his home. So he was taken away to a secret location for two days for physical restrengthening. The once dead man not only rose from his coffin but the serious injuries which had brought about his death, were also healed without the slightest trace to be seen! This is no unsupported claim of bringing someone to life privately, as in a house. Here was a public event, an open demonstration of resurrection from death! If anyone has to be mentioned, it is Nneka. Her unquenchable faith alone prevented Daniel’s burial - simply to take him to where she was convinced God could bring him back to life. She regarded Reinhard Bonnke as a man of God and that in the atmosphere of faith where he ministered, this miracle was possible. The faith of Nneka dictated the whole event and God honoured her faith! [Report by Robert Murphree and George Canty www.cfan.org] Senior pastor Pat Nwachkuw told the CfAN (Christ for All Nations) documentary makers that when members of the church learned about Ekechukwu's resurrection, a woman who had been on crutches threw them away and started running, and her husband ran to the church altar to ask God to forgive him his sins. Interviewed by CfAN, Ekechukwu said that when he had been taken to the hospital in the ambulance, he was visited by two angels and taken to heaven. There he saw a "multitude" of people dressed in white who were singing and praising God. Then he was taken to hell, he said. The angel told him that he had "another chance" to go back, and that the rich man's request to Lazarus - to warn those still alive about hell - had been "granted to this generation." Ekechukwu said that he had been told he could return to the living to give "a last warning to this generation." In commentary on the video, Bonnke said that the testimony - which had been reported in Nigerian newspapers - spoke of "stubborn faith and the miraculous power of Jesus." Ekechukwu's story is a "sign from heaven," he said. [Andy Butcher - Charisma News Service (www.charismanews.com) For further information, also visit: www.cbn.org/700club/features/bonnke_raisedpastor.asp www.impact.surfcity.org.au/key_speaker.html www.fullflame.de/en/index.htm www.pechurchnet.co.za/news/news/n220318.htm www.laymanstraining.com/news.html www.g12harvest.org/harvest02/speakers.php www.home.worldonline.nl/~tdruiter/testRMb5.htm www.evangelischevideotheek.nl/videobesprekings/Getuienis Daniel.html |
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