This is the powerful true story of Neithou Simick battling death but she shares how faith wonderfully turned the tide from death to life.
Neithou Simick Early Life: I was born in Kohima, Nagaland, the beautiful hilly capital of Nagaland.
Originally, before the 1800s, the Nagas believed in a higher being – a spirit who created the universe so the seed of perceiving God the Creator was already planted in their hearts.
In 1872, an American missionary couple Dr. E.W. Clark and his wife came to the Naga Hills in the North East of India to share the gospel with the Nagas. Christianity spread all over the North East rapidly. This was only possible because the Holy Spirit was already working in hearts, it was a supernatural awakening and the American couple did not do much to “convert” as people commonly think. They simply proclaimed the Good News as commissioned to all Christians from the Bible.
Nagas do believe that Nagaland is blessed by God because of their rich faith in God. You will not find a single Naga beggar, and even the poorer people live abundantly, in comfortable houses, and never go to sleep hungry. If they plant a vegetable or crop, it grows lusciously and flourishes, spreading everywhere. There is a blessing in the land!
The intense Naga fight for freedom from India wanting to be an independent country started after the British left India, and this fierce battle started in the 1950s. My father, along with many others, fought in the unsuccessful insurgency against the Government of India. The secessionist battle coupled with the aggression of the Indian army on the Naga separatists decreased considerably after the formation of the Naga-majority Nagaland state, and more militants surrendered after the Shillong Accord of 1975.
My father’s name was Neiselie Chielie and my mother’s name is Neipuvi-ii Chielie. My parents were loving, and kind and were a great strength and support to me all my life, strong in their faith in Christ always encouraged me forward in my faith and life.
During the time of the insurgency time in the 1950s, my mother had a very difficult time working in the fields, and also taking care of us children, as we were very small. While my father was out in war, a terrible day came, before I was born when my mother was arrested for my father’s fight, and taken to prison. During Christmas time, my brothers tried hard to get her out of prison and succeeded, my mother was released from prison on the 24th of December, and I was born at home on the 27th of December!
Later, my father suddenly wanted to read the Bible and sing songs of worship and his life changed dramatically.
When I was a baby, one day when my mother was cooking food in a pot over the wood fire, one of the logs fell down and I crawled over near it, the sparks in the log caught my clothes and they started burning. In horror everyone tried to douse out the flames; however, I had major burns on the left side of my face. I managed to make it out alive, but had intense scarring on my face and had to bear the mockery of children who called me the one who got burned. My scars, however, largely faded over time. I was though deeply hurt by these insensitive comments and my mother taught me to ignore them because they did not realize how damaging they were.
Young Adult: Pastor Enos Simick, my future husband, and I met and we got married. We lived in Siliguri. I was probably one of the first of many Nagas who came to Siliguri. Later on, over the years, streams of Nagas came to Siliguri.
One day, I found out to my dismay that medically, it would be impossible for me to bear children for many reasons, one was my fallopian tubes were too narrow, and others were hormonal and anomaly defects. The risk of surgery with no promise of healing but rather more complications was disheartening and I abandoned the idea of undergoing surgery. and tore up the doctor’s prescriptions and I decided to place my truth wholly in Christ and kept praying for a baby with a heart full of faith.
In 1998, Reverend Subodh Sahu from Orissa visited us and stayed with us. One day he asked me what I would like him to pray for me. I immediately told him of my prayers for a child. He replied prophetically, “God has given you a beautiful child.”
I was blessed to hear that, but it took a few more faith-knocking years, and then in 1990, the miracle happened, I got pregnant and had a lovely daughter, Grace on November 8th, and in 1994 had another lovely daughter, Mercy on April 20th. Both these two wonderful babies defied medical science preciously gifted by the Hand of God as trophies of His miraculous power. Both my daughters were born via Cesarean section.
Sickness: When my younger daughter, Mercy was not even one year old, I started feeling very ill suddenly and by the end of 1994, had to visit the doctor. The scans in the North Bengal Nursing Home were normal, but my health kept going down.
I later was directed to go to Mother Care Nursing home and the doctor there, referred me to a doctor in North Bengal Nursing Home, to redo the scan. The doctor redid the scan and discovered that I had cancer with a tumor in my womb. They also discovered I had several gallstones in my gallbladder but the doctor shook his head and said, “We cannot operate, she will be undergoing chemo and she will be too weak to take another surgery. She will have to bear the pain!”
They did an operation, removed the uterus with a tumor but left in half and I had to undergo chemotherapy. The treatment was difficult with all the weakness, nausea., falling hair and dizziness, and change in complexion. As busy as my husband Pastor Enos was, I had to go for chemo with my older daughter, Mercy.
After a few treatments I decided I seemed to be better, but I really stopped because we did not have the money to go through the full course of chemotherapy. I talked to God and told Him “I trust You for my healing.” My faith was flowing through all this.
In 2001, once again, I fell sick and the doctor looked at me and said, “You need to go to Mumbai for your treatment, there is a good hospital there.” But we had no finances to go there so once again, Mother Care Nursing Home referred Dr. Pavan Agarwal to treat me in North Bengal Nursing Home. Dr. Paven Agarwal was an excellent doctor; however, one day, when he was treating a patient who had HIV, an infected needle accidentally pricked him and he became very ill and died. We were very saddened to hear this.
It was a very difficult time for me, as the cancer was weakening me. Once again, people kept saying I needed to go to Mumbai.
Then suddenly, people started helping us out to enable me to go to Mumbai, and Pastor Enos and Mrs. Mahbert (owner of Mahbert High School in Siliguri) accompanied me to Mumbai. We stayed in my husband’s relative’s home.
The doctor in Tata Memorial Hospital said grimly to my family, “She is in the last stages of cancer, her beta hCG is out of control and she has a very abnormal disease, there is nothing we can do, and there is no use spending all that money when she is in the end-stage. Her kidneys are small and other complications are there too. Just take her home.” The doctor was clearly telling them I was going to die.
However, my husband and Mrs. Mahbert insisted, “Do whatever you can do, and we will pray, but we won’t quit.”
My lungs were weak and giving me anesthesia was risky so I had to undergo 2 treatments of chemo without sufficient anesthesia.
Sweet Wonders: On July 13th, I had a chemo session at Lilavati Hospital. Later I went home and had a fall. My husband had gone out and those particular doors had a self-locking mechanism and the door clicked locked by mistake as he went out of the room so I was locked in the room with no mobile phone (none those days) scared and ill.
None wanted to call our relative’s brother who was away at work as none of us wanted to disturb him. All for praying and suddenly, the unexpected happened, the brother-in-law suddenly returned from work early that day. He was shocked to learn that I was locked in the room and quickly arranged for an ambulance. I was transferred to Holy Spirit Hospital. I felt a tremendous peace in the hospital. In the meantime, people joined together to pray for me.
The Battle: However, something else started, I had a stroke in the hospital, the doctors lay in bed, comatose, and could not move or speak. I was dying as all around me said, I could hear them say to my husband, “It would be better she stay in Mumbai and not go back to Siliguri, there is a nice cemetery here in Mumbai!” I cringed hearing that.
Another one I heard was, “It’s time to call her daughters to Mumbai so they can say goodbye to her.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks and my heart tore, thinking of my young daughters, and as I thought of them, I thought silently, “I cannot leave them without a mother in this world, I have to live!”
A holy fight rose up inside of me that no one was aware of. I prayed silently to God and said, “God, all it takes is a little faith, faith of a mustard seed, I take this little faith I have, use it.”
As I lay in my bed, the Bible verse suddenly opened up to me and shone through my soul:
Psalm 117:17-19 17 I shall not die, but live: and shall declare the works of the Lord.18 The Lord chastising hath chastised me: but He hath not delivered me over to death.
19 Open ye to me the gates of justice: I will go into them, and give praise to the Lord.
Deuteronomy 30:
19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
20 That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for He is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.
The Bible became my sword of faith, as Bible verses poured into my heart, building up my faith and filling me with peace.
I remembered a powerful book I had read written by Jodi Austin, the wife of John Austin of how she rose up with faith during her illness with only faith declarations. I started declaring life over myself and not death. Faith built me up spiritually though I was so weak on the bed and no one even knew what was going on in my mind.
Another powerful book I had read previously came to my memory, written by Pastor Yonggi Cho (pastor of South Korea’s largest church in the world) who wrote the book The Fourth Dimension, which shares how healing through Christ who gives us wonderful healing from His throne. As I thought about these verses and books, my faith rose to a glory level and I felt encased in His presence.
I kept telling God, “Lord, you did not demand big faith, only small faith like mustard-seed faith, that is enough..and I bring it to You, heal me.”
As I was paralyzed on one side because of the stroke, and I could not even eat, my husband took me for physiotherapy in a wheelchair.
The Dream: Over time, I had terrible unbearable abdominal pain due to the gallstones. Gallstones’pain can be unbearable, and I would cry through the night, it was so bad that I was discharging blood. I did not want to disturb anyone with my pain because I was already feeling that they too were going through much and I did not want to overburden them, so I would go to the bathroom and lie down on the cool floor crying. One night, I crawled back to bed and fell asleep exhausted, in so much pain.
I then had a dream that I was taken to a big hospital and a doctor came in, treating me. He wore a white coat and seemed to be very powerful in my dream. He gave me something to take, it was cool and sweet and I felt healed as I took it. Then in my dream, I started singing,” In my Father’s House, there is peace…” As I kept singing, I felt myself rising, and then I saw my late father in my dream who had passed away many years back. He seemed to be singing along with me. I kept singing and my husband awoke, asking me what happened. I joyfully answered him, “I was singing in my dream!”
The wonderful miracle happened, after the dream and singing, the pain left and never came back! After that, I started to heal supernaturally, the cancer started to shrink! Soon it was gone. It was clearly a miracle. I Praise God.
With all the prayers of so many people and my own faith, declaring healing and life over my body, I started to heal more rapidly. This happened more than twenty years ago, and I am totally healed.
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