TRONDEHIM, NORWAY (ANS) -- A Honduran born Christian doctor told a packed news conference in Norway on Wednesday, May 14, 2008, "Miracles are far more contagious than any disease."

Dr. Armando Pineda being interviewed by Dan Wooding

He was Dr. Armando Pineda, who is now based in Florida and is Director of the World Christian Doctors Network USA, who spoke passionately about the need for doctors to pray for their patients, citing the example of many Cubans he had been ministering to being set free from witchcraft.

He added: "Doctors are the most credible people to testify to God's healing powers. We need to realize that miracles are far more contagious than any disease."

Dr. Pineda was one of more than 200 Christian doctors and medical professionals from 38 countries who believe in praying for their sick patients, who were attending the two-day 5th International Christian Medical Conference with the theme of "Spirituality and Medicine" were today (May 15, 2008) in Trondheim, Norway, in which they are examining documented miracles

At a press conference to launch the gathering organized by the World Christian Doctors Network (WCDN), an international Christian medical organization that addresses not only urgent questions facing the Christian medical community today, but is also the first of its kind that objectively confirms and examines instances of healing by the power of God, some of the doctors spoke.

Dr. Jenis av Rana, Director of WCDN Scandinavia said, in hosting this year's conference; "We don't just want this conference to have an impact on the doctors attending but also on the people of Trondheim, which is why we have invited a healing evangelist Pastor Svein Magne Pedersen to hold an evangelistic healing meeting during the conference."

He also said, "As believing doctors we have a privilege like few others. In addition to the help that medical science has to offer we have the complete help, which only that Savior brings. The help, He won on the cross, when He, for our sake, won the complete and eternally valid freedom from everything our adversary tries to put on us.

"As believers it is our responsibility, in addition to providing medical or surgical aid, to bring them the complete help, which only the Savior can bring. Be bold in this."

Dr. Yoon-Seok Chae, President of WCDN said, "Although most advanced medical science such as successful researches on cloning of animals with stem cell has emerged, it is true that numerous incurable diseases and deadly emerging diseases have been increasing continually in spite of that development. The truth health can be described as a state of being peace physically and mentally. God is the only One who knows all about people and most of all, is able to cure our various diseases."

Dr. Chauncey Crandall prays for a delegate at the WCDN conference

Dr. Chauncey W. Crandall IV, who serves at the Palm Beach Cardiovascular Clinic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, who is a speaker and case presenter on "Praying for the patients," told the reporters present: "Get the news out there for people to come to our evangelistic healing meeting. Tell people to bring the most difficult and challenging cases. I believe a great revival will break out in Norway as a result of this conference."

During the press conference, the media and other doctors who were attending, sat in stunned silence as a renowned heart doctor recounted how, after he had prayed for a patient who had died and was being prepared for the morgue, was brought back to life after prayer.

Dr. Crandall told ANS in a previous story about the dramatic incident that took place almost two years ago in West Palm Beach, Florida.

"We had a fifty-three year old man who came to the emergency room with a massive heart attack and actually his heart had stopped," he said. "The medical people had worked on him for over forty minutes in the emergency room and then declared him dead.

"They called me in to evaluate the patient towards the end of his treatment where they had unsuccessfully tried to revive him. The nurse was preparing his body to be taken down to the morgue when the Holy Spirit told me to 'turn around and pray for that man.' When the Holy Spirit talks to you, you have to respond. It's sometimes a quiet voice and this was a quiet voice and to honor the Lord I did turn around and I went to the side of that stretcher where his body was being prepared.

Black with death

"There was no life in the man. His face and feet and arms were completely black with death and I sat next to his body and I prayed, 'Lord, Father; how am I going to pray for this man? He's dead. What can I do?' All of a sudden, these words came out of my mouth, 'Father, God, I cry out for the soul of this man if he does not know You as his Lord and Savior, please raise him from the dead right now in Jesus name."

Dr. Crandall suggested that although the medical team had for 40 minutes been trying revive the dead man, he asked the team to try and "shock" him one more time, even if it had failed before.

"It was amazing as a couple minutes later, we were looking at the monitor and all of a sudden a heart beat showed up. It was a perfect beat; a normal beat; and then after a couple more minutes, he started moving and then his fingers were moving and then his toes began moving and then he started mumbling words.

"There was a nurse in the room -- she wasn't a believer -- and she screamed out and said 'Doctor Crandall, what have you done to this patient?' And I said, 'All I've done is cry out for his soul in Jesus name.'

"We quickly rushed the gentleman down to the intensive care unit, and the hospital was by now buzzing about the fact that a dead man had been brought back to life. After a couple of days he woke up. He had an amazing story to tell after I had asked him, 'Where have you been and where were you on that day that you had that massive heart attack? You were gone and we prayed you back to life in Jesus name.'

Thrown in the trash

"He said, 'Doctor Crandall, it's the most amazing thing. I was in a dark room and there was no light. It was complete darkness and I felt I was in a casket and I kept repeating that I was so disappointed.' He said the disappointment came from the fact that none of his family, friends or colleagues, had come to visit him. Then he told me, 'All of a sudden, these men came in and they wrapped me up and they threw me in the trash.'

"Dan, he was in hell that day and as he told me that story, I cried out, 'Lord, this gentleman needs to accept You as Lord and Savior.' I then explained the salvation message to this man as he sat in that bed and I held his hand and I cried out, 'Father God, in the name of Jesus, I pray that this man accepts you as his Lord and Savior right here in the intensive care unit.' He held out his hand and accepted Christ as his Savior with tears rolling down from his eyes and now he's a child of God.

"I told him, 'You never have to be thrown in the trash into total darkness now. The life of Christ is in you and the light of the kingdom of Heaven is on you now."

I asked Dr. Crandall if there had been any brain damage to the patient. "No there was no brain damage at all; his brain was completely normal," he said. "I was most concerned about his hands because his fingers were completely black and he had some numbness in his fingers and his feet, but now that is totally resolved."

He said that the man was a 53 year old car mechanic.

"He had a family that were believers, but he left them twenty years ago because he didn't believe in the Lord. His family continued to pray for twenty years for his salvation, and his ex-wife was on her hands and knees praying for the salvation of her ex-husband, who came to know the Lord that day."

I then asked the doctor if he had seen other similar miracles in his practice.

"I've been witness to three cases of people being raised from the dead," he said. "One other case was when another patient came to the hospital with a massive heart attack. It was on the very day that I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and I'd been praying for weeks that I would receive this mighty baptism that the Lord can give us. We were working on this patient that came in again with a massive heart attack and who didn't survive in the operating room.

"All of a sudden, that Baptism of the Holy Spirit hit me and I started speaking in a spiritual language and crying over this patient in the operating room theater who had passed away. And then, within five or ten minutes, the heartbeat came back and life came back to this patient. Once again, the nurses who are not believers looked at me as if to say, 'There goes Doctor Crandall on another case."

Miracle, the string quartet, perform at the doctors conference

What would Dr. Crandall like to say to doctor's who do not believe in supernatural healing.

"I would just like to say to my colleagues and physicians out there, that the Lord is real. We've seen many miracles and we pray for our patients daily. There is not one week that goes by that we don't see a mighty miracle in our office. The people need this; they need the power of Christ in their life and they need the power of Christ for healing.

"I would just encourage my fellow doctors to get involved in a church, meet with a minister, and attend a healing service run by people that believe in the power of Jesus Christ. We love our colleagues in medicine; we pray for them."

In between sessions the Miracle string quartet presented praise music as did the Manmin praise team from Seoul.

As the conference began, a cold spell hit Trondheim, which is not far from the Arctic Circle, but there were warm hearts at the start of this conference.



By Dan and Peter Wooding
Special to ASSIST News Service