During the Second World War (1939 to 1945), guns were booming and bombs were exploding in many parts of the world. But in India, God quietly brought two little babies to birth, who were to be part of His plan for His church in India and elsewhere. One was Zac Poonen - born on 5 November 1939. And since he would need a helper for his ministry, God brought forth another little baby in India three years later - one perfectly designed for him - Annie, who was born on 25 December 1942.
God works years in advance for the needs that will arise in His church, by preparing His servants in secret, to meet that need when it arises. He did that with Peter and Paul and many others in church history. In ancient times, He raised up Esther who was told that she had been born "for such a time as this" (Esther 4:14). She was born at that time because God's people needed her ministry at that time. Annie also was born at a particular time in history because God's church needed her ministry.
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Little did these two little children - Zac and Annie - know as they grew up that God was preparing them for each other and training them for a ministry that would be vital to His church - around the world. They also grew up, blissfully ignorant of each other.
In 1966, Zac who was an Indian Naval officer in Bombay, resigned his job in order to serve the Lord full-time, In that very same year,one thousand kilometres away from Mumbai, in the small town of Vellore, Annie graduated as a doctor from Christian Medical College, and decided to serve the Lord by ministering to lepers in a leprosy hospital in Central India.
Thus Annie began her lifelong ministry as Zac's helper. As she looks back now, over more than 50 years of life and ministry together in many parts of the world, she sees the fulfilment of that prophecy that was made at their wedding.
God enabled them to raise four sons who today are also bold witnesses of the same truths that their parents have proclaimed for so many years. Thus the testimony of God moves forth in purity and power to another generation. Zac has often said,
"If my sons are following the Lord today, it is first of all because of the grace and mercy of God and secondly because Annie spent so much time with them, instilling spiritual values into them and praying for them constantly."
And she has done that job faithfully for more than 50 years now - not only taking care of him physically, but also being his prayer-partner in his ministry, and serving alongside him in the villages of Tamilnadu. She has given medical aid to hundreds of women and children in those villages for many, many years now - all free of charge.
Annie Poonen is one doctor in India who has never earned even one rupee from her work in more than 50 years of medical ministry to others - either directly or through any organization. By the grace of God, and with God-given wisdom, she has also never made a wrong diagnosis in all these more than 50 years. Her medical ministry has saved many from premature death and brought healing from sickness to hundreds of others.
God gave me the grace to grow up in a good Christian home. I was the oldest of nine children. My parents taught me to receive Jesus as Saviour very early in my life. I asked the Lord to come into my heart many times. But I was never sure whether He had come. I used to pray and ask Him - and then I would forget about it. But finally a day came when I knew for certain that Jesus had come into my heart and taken me out of the kingdom of darkness and brought me into His kingdom of light. This is how it happened.
I was 14 years old and my mother was expecting my youngest brother then. We had hired a man to cook for us, since my mother could not do all the work at home herself. This man put some poison into the food one day, without our knowledge. I think he wanted to put us all into a coma so that he could steal things from our home. Since I was the eldest daughter, I was doing the serving of food to everyone. But everyone refused to eat the food that day, saying that it tasted bad. However I ate a little bit of it. I remember I felt very thirsty that night. But I have no remembrance of anything that happened after that. My family told me that I went to school the next day but had behaved in a crazy manner at school. I had always been a quiet student, but that day, I was very troublesome. When school was over, my brothers and sister and I walked back home together. They told me later that I was hitting them and behaving badly all the way home. When I reached home, I continued creating trouble there. My parents thought I had developed a mental problem. So they called a doctor. He said that this was caused by food poisoning due to some poisonous seeds (called Datura) that I must have eaten. My parents then examined all the food in the house to see what it was that had poisoned me and they found some of the seeds in a pickle. By this time, our cook had left without any warning.
Following this, I slept for many, many hours - I don't remember for how long. The doctor gave me a stomach-wash, and did everything he could for me. But I was still in a coma. By the grace and mercy of God, I recovered after a week. My family then told me about all that had happened. It was then that I started thinking seriously about death.
The doctor had said that if I had taken just a little more of that poison I would have died. I knew that if I had died then, I would have gone straight to Hell. I did not deserve to go to Heaven, because I had disobeyed my parents many times. So I decided to make sure that I was ready to meet the Lord. I prayed again that Jesus would come into my heart and forgive my sins. Again nothing happened - even after I had prayed for some time. I thought I might never be sure of being a child of God.
But that night, I felt the Lord urging me in my spirit not to stop praying. I was desperate. I wanted to know for sure that I had become a child of God, and not live in doubt any longer. So I continued praying. The big clock in our house struck midnight - and then one o'clock. Everyone else at home was asleep, but I was awake and praying. I started singing some songs quietly in my heart and quoting some Bible verses to myself. At about 3 o'clock in the morning, I felt a surge of joy within me - and peace filled my heart. God assured me then that He had cleansed away my sins, that I was now his child, that He loved me intensely and that He had a plan for my life. This assurance has never left me since that day.
I learned two things clearly that night: First, that whenever I pray for something, I must not stop praying until I get an answer from God. Whenever I have faced problems thereafter, God would always remind me - "DON'T GIVE UP PRAYING UNTIL YOU GET AN ANSWER". Secondly, the Lord assured me that He had indeed delivered me from the kingdom of darkness and had brought me into His kingdom of LIGHT. Since then I have never doubted that I am His child.
I am so thankful to God that He spared my life and that I did not die as a child. God has been good to me and has given me so many years to live for Him. The next step the Lord showed me was to be baptized in water. Since then, the Lord has sent many godly people across my path who have helped me to grow in my spiritual life. One of them was a very godly Sunday-school teacher.
When I finished school, I asked the Lord what He wanted me to do in my life. I had read in 2 Corinthians 5:15 that Christ had died so that we might never again live for ourselves but for Him alone. I had been saved from death and Hell. I decided then that I would live henceforth only for Christ.
Soon after I left school, I met some American missionaries who were working in a leprosy hospital in Kothara - a small village in Maharashtra. One of them was a very beautiful lady in her early forties. She had come to India as a 27-year-old nurse and had been working as a nurse for 15 years, caring for leprosy patients in that hospital. I was amazed that a young lady like her would come all the way from America just to help our people in India and to lead them to Christ. Her dedication challenged me and I felt that I should help her. (I remembered my father reading a book to us as children, about a Belgian priest, Father Damien, who out of love for Christ, had gone to Hawaii in the 19th century, to care for people afflicted with leprosy. My father's voice used to choke when he told us that Damien finally contracted leprosy himself and died in Hawaii.)
The first morning I attended a prayer-meeting at the hospital. Some leprosy-patients who had accepted Jesus as their Saviour had gathered together for prayer. When I saw their faces, I felt a revulsion within me and also a fear that I might contract leprosy. Then I heard them singing in the Marathi language (which I could not understand). As they sang to the Lord with voices affected by their disease, the Lord began to speak to me. I thought of how Jesus had come into the world for a sinner like me; and my sins were much worse than leprosy. Jesus had also allowed others to hit his face so much that it was disfigured - for my sake. God broke me then and poured such love into my heart for those poor women that I felt like hugging every one of them. I no longer felt that they were ugly and repulsive. I said, "Lord here I am. Use me to help these people." Only God could have done such a work of transformation in me. I decided then to be a doctor.
The Lord helped me to get admission into the Christian Medical College at Vellore. Every year, during the Christmas vacation, I visited this leprosy hospital and got used to helping the patients there. My parents however were not happy that I was going there instead of going home for my vacation. They were happy that I was going to be a doctor, but they did not want me to work with leprosy patients all my life. They knew that there was no cure for leprosy (then) and that many who worked with such people contracted leprosy. My parents also told me that no-one would marry me if I worked with people who had leprosy. 152ee80cbc
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