Child's Amazing Testimony of Jesus

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Boy Says Jesus Held Him in a Pool Drowning Accident,

Asks Why Jesus Has ‘Scratches on His Hands?’

'We had never spoken to him about God's hands, ever, 

and the way he described Jesus was just chilling,' the mom says.

BY LOUISE CHAMBERS TIME

JUNE 13, 2023

Max McKee in the arms of Jesus

A Louisiana toddler who nearly drowned in his grandmother’s pool awoke the following day in the hospital with a miraculous memory: being held in the arms of Jesus after falling in the water. He later asked his parents why Jesus has “scratches on his hands?”

The grateful parents credit the power of prayer for their son’s recovery.

Registered nurse Courtney McKee lives in Louisiana with her husband, Brandon, and sons Brody and Max. Max, now 6, was just 2 years and 10 months old when he suffered a near-fatal drowning accident on July 11, 2019.

“It happened here in Louisiana at my mother’s house,” Courtney told The Epoch Times. “It was a beautiful sunny day. [Max] was with my mother and my sister-in-law, with Brody, his older brother, and then another cousin that was playing. I was at work at the hospital. He got out of the pool and wanted to play, so my mom was letting him play a few feet away from her. Then they realized he wasn’t playing anymore.”

Courtney McKee with her husband, Brandon, and sons, Brody and Max. (Courtesy of Courtney McKee)

The Drowning

Max had been wearing floats in the pool as he did not know how to swim at the time. Leaving the pool, his grandma had helped him remove the floats.

“I think he returned to the pool to get some water and a small bucket to play with, they’re not really sure. When he leaned over to get the water, that’s when he might have fell in,” Courtney said.

Courtney’s sister-in-law found Max at the bottom of the pool, unconscious. No one knows exactly how long he was under. Courtney received a panicked call at work and quickly knew something was wrong when she heard sirens in the background.

“I started crying and I remember my coworkers, fellow nurses and doctors alike, surrounded me,” she said. “One of them took my phone and started talking for me. … I was so numb, I couldn’t even speak.”

Max was admitted to Rapides Regional Medical Center in Louisiana with his lungs swollen and full of fluid.

Epoch Times Photo

(Courtesy of Courtney McKee)

“He was in severe respiratory distress,” Courtney said. “I was standing in the ER when they brought him in, and they surrounded him and began to work on him. I just remember, being a nurse myself, it was terrifying to watch it happen to my own child.”

Max was resuscitated and taken to the hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit on high-flow oxygen. His parents and care team waited with bated breath to see if their efforts had been quick enough to prevent brain damage.

The ‘Ultimate Physician’

As Courtney wept with her still-sleeping toddler in her arms, her community caught wind of the accident and prayed for Max’s recovery. Loved ones came to Max’s hospital bedside to pray in person.

Courtney and Brandon have always taken their sons to church. They pray together and read Bible stories every night. When Max drowned, the first thing that big brother Brody did was kneel by the pool and pray. The day before Max’s accident, Courtney felt an urgent need to pray for their children, pleading with Jesus to save her babies.

In the hospital, Courtney had to separate herself from her nurse’s knowledge and place her faith in “the ultimate physician,” Jesus. She felt blessed for the “God-ordained” care team that watched over her son. The next morning, Max came to and showed signs that he was his usual self despite his massive ordeal.

“He was a little agitated because he wanted the cords and wires off of him. But he was talking and communicating with us, and we knew at that point he was going to be okay. He was aware of what happened,” Courtney said. “He was in the ICU for a few days. … We had to see the pediatrician regularly after that: no deficits, nothing wrong with him after the drowning.”

‘Jesus Held Me’

Days after returning home from hospital, Max had another massive shock for his parents.

Courtney said: “He just looked at his father and I and he said, ‘When I was in the pool, I wasn’t scared.’ I told him, ‘That’s really good, buddy, I’m proud you weren’t scared,’ and he said, ‘When I was in the pool, Jesus held me.’

“Then he asked us, ‘Why does He have bobos and scratches on His hands?’ I was completely stunned. I just asked him to repeat himself to make sure I was hearing it right. We had never spoken to him about God’s hands, ever, and the way he described Jesus was just chilling.”

Courtney knew that her baby had been held that day and was joyful; she has since heard from several parents who have lost a child that Max’s testimony has given them comfort. “I think it’s something I want people to take away, miracles still happen today. God is real,” Courtney said.

In 2021, a little over a year after his accident, Max went to an art camp with his brother and asked to draw a special picture in collaboration with artist Anna Dieter Rachal. He wanted to draw himself in Jesus’s arms, in the water. Max later told his mom as she hung the drawing on the fridge, “Mommy, he holds ALL the kids that fall in the water.”

The Power of Prayer

Drowning is among the leading causes of death in children aged 5 and under in the United States, and it can take as little as 30 seconds for a child to drown. Courtney, who has counseled her eldest, Brody, after he witnessed Max’s ordeal, knows that the siblings of children who drown are also affected.

It took around a year for Max to regain the courage to go near water. He has since had swimming lessons and knows how to rescue himself if he falls in. “It was a lengthy process because he was scared, so the instructor was very sensitive to what he had went through,” Courtney said, describing now-6-year-old Max as “full of energy, happy, joyful, and curious.”

The family has shared Max’s testimony with their church and the world through international media, and Max is willing to talk about it with anybody who asks questions.

“More than anything, I think I want people to know that there’s power in prayer,” Courtney said. “Also something I want people to take away from this is that drownings in children are common, and even in a small lapse in supervision, a child can return to the pool. Never take your eyes off the water and never think it can’t happen to you.”

But if it does, remember, Jesus is there.

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Russian Ex-economy Minister Ulyukayev Sentenced to 8 Years in Prison in $2mn Bribery Case

Corruption is Everywhere - Certainly in Russia

Former Russian economy minister Aleksey Ulyukayev has been found guilty on charges of taking a $2 million bribe and sentenced to eight years in prison. He is now the highest-ranking Russian official to have been convicted on corruption charges.

Ulyukayev was detained in November 2016 on charges of allegedly receiving a $2 million bribe, in return for his ministry’s support of a positive assessment that would allow state oil company Rosneft to complete a deal to purchase the government's stake in another Russian oil major, Bashneft.

The charges were based on the testimony of Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, as well as a on the evidence of a sting operation, in which Sechin personally handed a bag containing $2 million in cash to Ulyukayev, the then-economy minister.

The proceeding caused controversy in Russia, as Sechin delivered his testimony in written form, rather than in person. He refused four times to testify in court, citing scheduling differences due to the taxing nature of his job.

The defense argued that he was dodging a personal appearance and violating due process, while critics accused him of being arrogant and considering his position to be above the law. The issue was raised at this week’s Q&A session with President Vladimir Putin, who refrained from criticizing Sechin for his conduct.

According to the court ruling, Ulyukayev extorted the bribe from Sechin, and in so-doing abused his position as member of the Russian cabinet. The felony carries a potential punishment of a heavy fine, a ban from offices of power for up to 15 years and a prison term between eight and 15 years.

In his remarks, the presiding judge said “Ulyukayev acted under a preconceived plan, motivated by personal gain and with full understanding that the process of the privatization of Bashneft depended on his decisions.”

The court later sentenced him to an eight-year prison term and a fine of over $2.2 million. He was arrested in the courtroom before the sentence hearing proceeded. Prosecutors asked for a sentence of ten years in a penal colony for Ulyukayev.

Ulyukayev pleaded not guilty at the start of the trial and continued to maintain his innocence up until the verdict announcement on Friday. In his last address, he said a ‘not guilty’ verdict would be the only just outcome for his case.

After hearing the sentence, Ulyukayev said he considered it unjust. His defense team confirmed that they would appeal the ruling.

Ulyukayev‘s defense argued that the money did change hands between Sechin and Ulyukayev, but that it was an entrapment on the part of the Rosneft head. The then-economy minister was not aware of the cash being inside the bag, his lawyers told the court.

In his final plea, the ex-minister reiterated his position. “The case contains no proof of my complicity in bribe-taking whatsoever. Moreover, it testifies that I am a victim of a monstrous provocation,” Ulyukayev said in court earlier this month.

“I am guilty of a different thing. I have served Russian citizens for many years, and I have managed to achieve something, but not enough. Only when I myself got into trouble I started to understand how hard people’s lives are. People, forgive me for this. I am guilty before you,” he added.

After his arrest in mid-November last year, Ulyukayev spent around two days in a pre-trial detention facility before being placed under house arrest at his apartment, located in an elite housing complex in Moscow.

Ulyukayev is the first government minister in Russia’s modern history to be found guilty of corruption by a court.

Miracle for a Muslim

Nasir Siddiki - Left to Die

By age 34, Nasir Siddiki, a successful businessman, had made his first million, but money meant nothing to him on his deathbed. Diagnosed with the worst case of shingles ever admitted to Toronto General Hospital, his immune system shut down and doctors left him to die.

The next morning I woke in a sterile room on the eighth floor of the hospital, my skin burning as though someone had doused me in gasoline and lit a match. I felt on fire from the inside out.

My doctor arrived and looked at me in wonder. “The blisters are multiplying so fast I can literally watch them grow,” he said. ‘”Your body isn’t fighting back.”

The next morning, in addition to shingles, I had chicken pox from head to toe. I was put in strict isolation. That evening my temperature soared to 107.6 degrees — hot enough to leave my brain permanently scrambled.

For days I continued to deteriorate. My nerve endings became so inflamed that a hair drifting across my skin sent shock waves of fire rippling through my body. By week’s end, I was listed in critical condition.

My Last Hope

In life, I’d been bold, self confident, a risk taker. But facing death, I was terrified. I had no idea what might await me on the other side. I’d been raised as a Moslem in London , England , and I understood Allah was not a god who heals.

My only hope was in medicine.

I eventually slipped so close to death that the doctors didn’t know I could hear them when they examined me. “His immune system has simply shut down,” one of them said.

“He’s dying,” the other confirmed. “His immune system must be compromised by AIDS.”

I don’t have AIDS! I wanted to shout, but I couldn’t form the words. Then it hit me. He said I’m dying!

The doctors spoke quietly to my co-worker, Anita. “In a few hours he’ll be dead,” they said. “If by some miracle he lives, he’ll probably be blind in his right eye, deaf in his right ear, paralyzed on his right side and he may be severely brain damaged from the high fever.”

Then they left.

They left me here to die! I felt like a drowning man going down for the third time. Gathering my strength I whispered a prayer. “God, if you’re real, don’t let me die!”

In His Presence

During the darkest hour of the night, I woke and saw a man at the foot of my bed. Rays of light emanated from him, allowing me to see his outline. I couldn’t see his face, it was too bright. No one had to tell me, I knew it was Jesus.

The Koran mentions Jesus; Moslems believe He existed, not as the son of God, but as a good man and a prophet. I knew this wasn’t Mohammed. I knew it wasn’t Allah. Jesus was in my room. There was no fear, only peace.

“Why would You come to a Moslem when everyone else has left me to die?” I wondered.
Without words, he spoke to me. “I Am the God of the Christians. I Am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

That’s all He said. He didn’t mention my illness. He didn’t mention my impending death. As suddenly as He appeared, He was gone.

The next morning, the same two doctors arrived to examine me. “The blisters have stopped growing!”

“We don’t know what happened, but the shingles virus has gone into remission!”

The following day, still in pain and covered with blisters, I was discharged from the hospital with a suitcase full of drugs. “Don’t leave home,” the doctor cautioned. “It will be months before the blisters go away, and when they do you’ll be left with white patches of skin and scars. The pain could last for years.”

Stepping outside into the morning sun, I looked like a cross between a leper and the Elephant Man. When people saw me, they crossed to the other side of the street. However, my mind was not on my looks; my thoughts were on Jesus. There was no doubt in my mind that Jesus’ presence in my room had stopped the shingles virus. Whatever else Jesus may be, I realized that in His presence miracles happened.

That fact left me with one consuming question: Is Jesus the Son of God as the Christians claim, or is He just a prophet as I was taught?

At home that evening, in spite of the drugs, the pain and itching was so severe I almost had to tie my hands. Even so, I fell into a restless sleep wondering about Jesus.

Learning to Live

The next morning, I woke early and turned on the television. Flipping through the channels, I froze when I saw the following words across the screen: Is Jesus the Son of God?

I listened intently as two men spent the entire program discussing this topic — answering all of my questions. Before the show went off the air, one of the men led the television audience in a prayer. My body was aflame with pain but I knelt on my living room floor anyway. Tears streaming down my face, I repeated the prayer and invited Jesus into my heart.

Immediately a voracious spiritual hunger sprang up within me. I had to know more about Jesus. In spite of my doctor’s orders to stay inside, the next day I went out and bought a Bible. First I read the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Still ravenous, I started in Genesis and read through the Bible during my sleepless nights.

Meanwhile, Anita brought me books and teaching tapes explaining the Gospel. I devoured them while continuing to study the Word of God. As my understanding of faith began to grow, I dug out a picture of how I looked before shingles. I prayed and asked God to make me look that way again.

Nasir and Anita Siddiki - Jesus, My Healer

One week after my discharge from the hospital, I woke and found my pillow covered in blisters. I must have clawed them in my sleep, I thought. I crawled out of bed and stepped into the shower. What had started on my pillow was finished in the shower: Every blister fell off my body!

Instead of being covered with patches of white and scar tissue, my skin was simply red and raw. It slowly healed, returning to its pre-shingles condition. When it did, I not only looked human, I looked like I did before I got sick, except for the scars that I still carry on my chest.

None of the doctor’s dire predictions came true. My eyesight was 20/20. My hearing was normal. My speech was unimpaired. I suffered no brain damage.

My healing was miraculous, swift and complete. I never suffered from lingering pain or any other complication. Not only did I have the worst case of shingles ever admitted to Toronto General Hospital, I also had the most miraculous recovery.

Jesus, the God of the Christians, showed up in the hospital room of a dying Moslem and healed me. But that wasn’t the greatest miracle He performed. The transformation that occurred in my heart was even more dramatic than the one that occurred in my body.

An international teacher and evangelist, Dr. Nasir Siddiki is the founder of Wisdom Ministries (WisdomMinistries.org). He lives in Tulsa, OK with his wife Anita and their two sons.
http://www.onlinechristiansongs.com/

More Fascinating Answers to Prayer

Last week, I shared a summary of the following story to a friend who was distressed about having to buy a car. Her wonderful response came by email a couple days ago, and follows the story, which is an excerpt from my still 'yet to be published' book. Hope you enjoy and share these testimonies.

See below for today's hero.

Vancouver's West End from across False Creek

How to Find a Used Car

Indeed, forty years You provided for them in the wilderness and they were not in want; Their clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell. Nehemiah 9:21.

God provided water, meat, manna, whatever the Israelites needed while in the desert. Miraculously, their clothes did not wear out in 40 years, and none of them ever sprained an ankle, and He delivered them from their enemies.

When my career moved me to Vancouver again in 1995, we bought a house, in a very nice neighborhood, in Abbotsford, about 50 miles out into the Fraser Valley. You may remember hearing in the news, about the Abbotsford killer in the mid nineteen-nineties. He raped two young girls, killed one of them, then taunted the police for weeks until a family member recognized his voice and turned him in. He was the son of a policeman. 

It was an anxious time for all of Abbotsford, and we warned our children, who were in their early teens, and any visitors, that they could not go walking any further than the corner store and had to be back before dark. As it turned out, in walking to the corner store, they had to walk right past the killer’s house. He lived around the corner; about two blocks from us.

Remember the woman I visited with Pastor Mark, in the hospital, in Port Hardy? She and her husband were the previous residents of that same house. Weird, eh?

Vancouver, British Columbia, and the lower mainland

“Ye have not, because ye ask not.” James 4:2b

When I got to Vancouver, I went to see my brother at the transmission shop where he worked. I told him I was looking for a commuter car, and he suggested his co-worker’s VW Jetta. It had a recently rebuilt motor and was in great shape. I bought it. It served my commuting very well for about three years. 

It withstood being hit from behind three times, including once when I was about to park in front of my office, and the driver of the half ton behind me was half asleep. I watched him in the rear view mirror, knowing he was going to hit me hard. He hit me without even slowing down. I got the back-end fixed for the third time and then gave the car to my son. 

Needing a new car, I searched all over the B.C. lower mainland for something economical, sporty, and in my meager price range. I looked from Chilliwack to North Vancouver and could not find the right car, even though I had no real idea what the right car was. I just knew that I would know it when I saw it.

After weeks of frustration, and my wife asking me if I had prayed about it (which I hadn’t), I finally started talking to the Lord about it.

“Lord,” I said, one morning on the way to work, “I know that you already know what car I’m going to buy next, so instead of me chasing around all over British Columbia looking for it, why don’t you just bring it to me?” I can be awfully blunt sometimes, even to God. Honesty and sincerity are essentials in prayer, I think.

Immediately after I got to the office, and after the customary, "Good morning, Houston", from my staff, the phone rang, and it’s a young lady on whose answering machine I had left a message the night before inquiring about the car she had for sale. She described the Nissan Pulsar, and the price, and told me that she had to buy a new car to keep within a new vehicle reimbursement policy at the newspaper she worked for.

It sounded perfect. I asked when and where I could see it. She asked, “Where do you work?”

“Airport Square,” I replied, “Do you know where that is?”

Airport Square, Vancouver. My office door
was just above the car on the right, in the
mezzanine

“Oh yes,” she answered, “I’ll be driving past it in a couple minutes. Do you have time to look at it now?”

“Yes, of course,” I replied, stunned at the remarkable answer to prayer that was about to take place. Sometimes I am certain that the Lord thinks it's very funny to answer my most absurd prayers.

A couple of minutes later, I walked outside my office door, and she pulled up right in front of me. We went for a short test drive, and I bought the car; how could I not?

It was a beautiful, little, white sports-car with a hard roof that could be removed in about a minute. It worked great, was easy on gas, very comfortable, a lot of fun, and a remarkable answer to prayer.

As mentioned above, I related this story to a friend and a few days later got this wonderful response:

Hi Gary,

I want to thank you for your timely encouragement. I really hate car shopping but with all of my daughter's, and now my appointments, it is difficult not to have one. 

Jeannie's daughter suffers from a debilitating and dangerous illness, and now, Jeannie, herself has been physically injured in the car accident that totaled her car, which has served to dramatically increase an existing anxiety disorder.

I had been looking on line for vehicles that were in my price range, low mileage.  I wanted a car like the one that got wrecked because it would have the features I wanted and could afford. 

I wasn’t up to getting my rental car until Monday and was really pleased when they gave me a car similar to my old one to use, however, right away I noticed that they changed the body style which created a lot of blind spots and I was really afraid to use it. So I started looking on-line for older models but after much searching I became very discouraged. 

ICBC paid me out and my rental was up on Thursday when I returned the car and thought I would just try to figure out taxi’s for a few weeks until I felt up to it more and wished, like you did, that God would just bring me a car.

Then on Friday a car looking very much like my old one pulled into my parking spot and my sister got out and told me this story. 

My sister is a very caring person who loves the Lord. She lives in Chilliwack and had been praying God would provide the right car for me. She was driving around that day when she felt there was a voice telling her to turn down a road, it was very strong and persistent so she did and there she saw a car dealership. She went in and told them that I was looking for a used car and they directed her to another dealer just down the street. 

When she drove up there were a number of salesmen standing in front but she saw this one woman and felt that is who she had to speak to. She told her my story, that I needed something low mileage, what ICBC had given me and that I could only afford to spend a couple thousand more. She said this woman was really touched and wanted to help so she spent about a half an hour on the phone trying to find something but came back and said she couldn’t find anything.

Then she suddenly remembered that a car had just come in that morning on a trade in. She thought it would be perfect and so did my sister but there was a lot of other interest in it and it was for a lot more money. She went and talked to the owner of the dealership and was gone for a long time. When she came back she had gotten several thousand dollars knocked off the price and told my sister she could hold it for me if she put a deposit on it. My sister agreed and as they were writing up the deposit someone else came in with a check for the full price so they told him it was sold. She also told my sister to drive it to me to try out but if I didn’t want it she would get her deposit back.

I was still very skeptical as it was a car I had never even looked at or knew anything about. When I saw the car my first thought was “Oh no, what have you done” and when she told me the story I worried about how I was going to tell her this is not the right car. 

I told her I was afraid to drive so she said that she would drive it for me, but I said no, I could not possibly buy a car that I hadn’t test driven. We checked over the features and it had almost everything I had been looking for and much better visibility than my old car. I asked my daughter to pray and we took it for a drive. 

I thought I would only go around the block but the more I drove it the more comfortable and safe I felt and I even took it out on the highway. I was still skeptical though, and am not an impulse buyer, but your story kept going through my head, so I called my mechanic and asked about the car he said they were great but recommended I bring it in to be checked. I said that sounded good but I was sure he couldn’t fit me in today. To my surprise he said that he could in about an hour, which meant we could still get it back to the dealer before the 6pm deadline. 

The mechanic's report came back saying it was in excellent condition. So we drove back to Chilliwack, I bought it and drove it home. Now I own a lovely car, 6 years newer than my old one, with low mileage and I got it for less than I thought I would ever find something for. 

God is really amazing, and I am so thankful for your timely words of encouragement because they stopped me from immediately saying no and not even trying the car out.

Blessings,

Jeannie

God is amazing! When He answered my prayer, I suspect it was partly just to show me that nothing was too trivial to pray about. When He answered Jeannie's prayer, He not only provided her with an excellent car at a very reasonable price, but he saved her some considerable stress and anxiety which was the last thing she needed. He also showed her that He is with her an all her struggles.

God, bless Jeannie's sister for listening to Your voice and having the courage to do what she did. She's my hero for today!

More 'Answered Prayer' stories can be found here. Or, you can wait for me to finish my book, but I wouldn't hold my breath while waiting.