- VICTORIA -- A Chinese exchange
student who went into a coma after nearly drowning has amazed doctors by
apparently making a full recovery after a group of people prayed for him.
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- Li Peng, 19, was not expected to survive after being
pulled out of a swimming pool last January. He had been underwater for
at least four minutes and did not regain consciousness.
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- As he clung to life in hospital, a group of Pentecostal
Christians prayed at his bedside and, against medical expectations, he
slowly began to recover.
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- "And in his case, I probably would have said this
is a non-survivable situation," said Dr. Alan Meakes, chief of intensive-care
medicine with the Vancouver Island Health Authority.
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- Although not directly involved in Li Peng's care, Meakes
is familiar with the case and recalls that the medical prognosis was bleak.
"I think it is fair to say that nursing and medical expectations for
Li Peng were death or vegetative state."
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- Shortly after the accident, Li Peng's father, Li Shao
Zeng, arrived in Canada from China to be with his son. He was met at the
airport by Lily Chow, a program co-ordinator at the English Language Centre
at the University of Victoria, where Li Peng had been studying English
since September.
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- Unable to speak Mandarin, Chow contacted Laurence Wan,
a pastor at the Chinese Pentecostal Church who spoke the father's dialect.
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- Shortly afterward, Wan and his wife arrived at the hospital.
But when Wan entered Li Peng's room and saw the young man's sweaty, swollen
face, his heart sank.
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- Wan prayed silently that God would give him faith and
the right words to comfort the father. Then, he leaned down to touch Li
Peng's hand and whisper in his ear.
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- "Li Peng, I'm a pastor," he said. "And
if you can hear something, don't be scared. Your father's here."
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- He asked Li Peng for a sign that he was listening and
told him, if he could, to ask for God's help.
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- But Wan, who has a 21-year-old son of his own, neither
saw nor felt anything, and he left the hospital that night feeling dejected.
He remembers it was cold outside and, as he walked across the parking lot,
his wife mentioned that Li Peng had tapped her hand lightly during the
prayer.
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- His faith strengthened, he spoke of Li Peng's plight
the next morning to a group of Mandarin-speakin people studying Christianity
at the University of Victoria. One of them, Kai Rempel, asked if she could
bring an evangelist friend to the hospital to pray.
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- Rempel had met Joyce Lohrer through the Glad Tidings
Pentecostal Church, and the two women joined Wan for a prayer session at
Li Peng's bedside.
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- This time, Wan anointed the young man's head, hands and
feet with oil and everyone prayed silently for him to get well.
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- Nothing happened immediately. But Lohrer says that it
was after the session, as they were getting ready to leave, that she witnessed
the first of what would be many "miracles" involving Li Peng.
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- "We had stepped away," she says. "And
his father called him by name, and he turned with his eyes still closed
toward his dad. Then I went to say something, that we were leaving, and
he turned toward me as well."
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- That night, Li Peng opened his eyes for the first time
since the drowning. And, over the following days and weeks, he appeared
to defy medicine by regaining consciousness, then recovering the ability
to sit up, write, speak and walk.
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- Recently, Li Peng was back under the water again, this
time getting baptized. He has no memory of the drowning incident or the
early days in hospital, and he smiled after Wan dunked his entire body
into an aquamarine tub before the church congregation.
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- Li Peng now lives with Wan's family in Victoria and plans
to return to university this fall. Eventually, he hopes to become a gardener.
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- "I believe in God," he says, "I believe
that Jesus saved my life."
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