Cancer survivor on mission to spread word of God

Vidya Thurab

In Christianity and Catholicism one of the most important ceremonies the faithful can undergo is the ritual of Baptism. It can be done as a child upon birth - christening - or as an adult.

As an adult, the ritual involves learning and understanding a religion before the faithful can be baptised.

This is not the case with Pastor Nathalia Lee and her team of disciples, Chereise Patton, Neil Phillips, Joseph Miller and Deborah Atwell, who are on a mission to spread God's word and baptise as many of the faithful as possible.

On April 28, Lee and her team held their first baptism drive in Tobago at Pigeon Point beach, Crown Point.

Team members come from different churches - Faith Assembly, Beauty For Ashes Healing Ministry, Church Without Walls and Agape Bible Ministries, and pride themselves on not teaching religion.

"We don't advertise religion, we advertise Jesus Christ because we all belong to different churches. However, we are the body of Christ and we are disciples of God and we are just going out there in obedience and winning souls for the kingdom of Jesus Christ," said Lee.

The group has been baptising people for the past four years and have hosted eight baptisms in all, seven in Trinidad and last Saturday first event in Tobago.

Only two persons showed up at Pigeon Point, but Lee was not fazed.

"This is the smallest baptism we've had but I don't look at the numbers because the angels and God rejoices for one soul being saved, so although it's the smallest baptism that we've had, the angels still rejoice for one soul.

“I've seen where we have baptised over 30 people in one day (in Trinidad)," Lee said.

The event started with hymns, and then an opening prayer and an explanation of the baptismal ritual from Miller.

It was the testimonial of Pastor Lee that was the most inspirational part of the day. Lee spoke of her experience of almost dying and how her faithfulness to God saved her life.

She was diagnosed with stage four cancer in 2004 but told the two baptismal candidates that being baptised does not mean that everything in their lives would be made right automatically.

"I call them storms because we go through these storms, one, to make us stronger, and two, because God will be glorified at the end of it" she told the gathering.

She shared her story of discovering that she had cancer, that in having surgery to remove fibroids from the lining of my womb, testing related to that surgery showed that she had cancer.

“…and surgery after surgery after surgery, I always say 'but God' for everything because every time I got bad news, I always said but God is able (to fix it)."

"In the midst of my storm which was cancer at the time, I was sent to a hospice when the doctor realised okay you have stage four cancer and absolutely nothing can be done anymore for you, you are beyond surgery or any treatment because the cancer has metastasized to every organ.

“At the hospice, it is a place where they send you to get terminal care until you die, nobody comes out alive, you go in and come out in a body bag, that's the reality of it but I held on to faith even though sometimes it's hard to have faith when we are going through bad things.

“It's been seven years since I've been miraculously healed by the Lord Jesus Christ and seven years ago I was in a hospice bed, I'm still the only living person (I know of) in Trinidad or Tobago to ever came out of a hospice, who wasn't working there or visiting.

“Sixty-nine pounds on a death bed, every organ failed that could fail, was in pampers and God showed up, I will give my everything to God," she said.

In preparing the baptism candidates, Miller talked about honouring God.

"What can we do to make God smile? Could we give him money? No. Could we give him land? No. What could we possibly do? gi

“Give our hearts and souls to him because the bible says what does it profits a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul. What that says to me is that our soul is worth more than the entire world."

Pastor Lee promised that she and the team will be revisiting Tobago.

“We will definitely be back on the island to do lots of stuff and I am looking forward to it. I see it as a step in the right direction…we have made good links with a lot of different churches, so I know once we come up at another time we can partner with different churches and get the word out there."