Jungle Miracle, Part 1: Adult Mission Story for June 21, 2025

By Andrew McChesney

A little girl studying at the jungle mission school told her teacher, Armi, about a mother who couldn’t walk.

Armi hadn’t come to the mountains of Papua, Indonesia, to treat anyone. He wasn’t a doctor, and he didn’t know much about medicine. He was a missionary who had come to the jungle mission school to teach children about Jesus, the Master Physician. But his heart was touched when he heard about the mother who couldn’t walk. He and a fellow missionary decided to hike eight hours up the mountain to visit the woman in her remote village.

Armi and his friend found the mother in a small grass hut. She was crying in pain on a bed. Her right knee had an open wound and it was swollen.

Armi and his friend couldn’t understand much of what she said. She couldn’t understand much of what they said. They spoke different dialects. But, through hand gestures, the mother explained that she had fallen out of a tree seven years earlier and hadn’t been able to walk since. The village was so remote that doctors and hospitals were not an option. After the fall, her husband abandoned her, leaving her to raise four children.

The mother was glad for the visit. She had lost all hope. She made it clear that she was placing her new hope on Armi and his friend.

“Help me to walk again,” she pleaded.

Armi and his friend stepped outside of the hut. They needed to pray to the Master Physician.

“Lord please give us wisdom,” Armi said. “Show us how to help this woman even though we don’t know much about medicine.”

Back inside the hut, Armi and his friend carefully cleaned the wound. Beads of sweat broke out on their faces. They were worried about making the wound worse. Neighbors gathered in the hut to watch, and Armi and his friend really began to sweat. They wondered if their lives might be at risk with the neighbors watching their every move.

Then Armi spoke to the woman about Jesus.

“Only one Person can heal you,” he said, using hand gestures to help her understand. “That one Person is Jesus.”

The mother had never heard of Jesus. None of the neighbors had ever heard about Jesus. They practiced a form of mysticism.

“I don’t know anything about your Jesus,” the mother said. “But I’ll accept whoever can restore my health.”

After cleaning the wound, Armi offered the only natural remedies that he had in his backpack: charcoal and Vitamin C tablets. He then invited the mother and neighbors to pray. Opening his eyes, Armi saw that the mother and neighbors were crying. He panicked, wondering what was wrong. The neighbors, who also didn’t speak his dialect, explained the prayer had moved their hearts.

“It was like someone was interpreting your prayer into our ears,” one said.

“We could feel a presence surrounding us while you were praying,” said another.

Then Armi turned and saw the mother’s face. It had changed completely. Once a picture of pain and suffering, it now was glowing with joy and peace.

Armi promised to return the next week to check on her progress.

Armi and his friend hiked the eight hours back home. As they hiked, they prayed. How could they make a phone call to get medical information to help the mother? Where could they find a cell-phone signal? They were living in the mountains and had not received a cell-phone signal in months.

Pray for the unreached people of Papua, Indonesia. Part of this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering will help construct classrooms, an administrative building, a library, and an auditorium for Papua Adventist Theology College. The college moved to Nabire after its previous campus was destroyed by a flood in another part of Papua in 2019. Currently, students meet in borrowed classrooms at an Adventist academy. Thank you for planning a generous Thirteenth Sabbath Offering to support the college next week. Find out the rest of Armi’s story next week.