“I just spoke to his body and told it to come to life -- I didn't realize at the time that, that was the first breath he took.”    

Ana Hankins and her husband Anthony had just arrived at a high school gym in Westminster, California for their son Macaiah’s basketball tournament. Moments later, everything came to a halt. “There was a tournament director who came in and he stopped all of the games; he said that there was, there was someone's son or child passed out”, says Anthony. His wife Ana said she immediate knew it was their 12-year-old son, Yoshua.

Yoshua was their 12-year-old son who’d gone back to the car for a snack. A police officer pointed them toward the school’s entrance where they found their son surrounded by a crowd of people, and paramedics administering CPR. Luke Perkowski was one of the paramedics on the scene. They estimated Yoshua had been unconscious for more than 10 minutes. He says, “we found a boy on the ground; He is unconscious. He has no pulse, and he is not breathing, so we considered that a cardiac arrest. So technically you could say he was dead for that amount of time. You don't typically have a high expectation that they're going to make it through.”

When Anthony and Ana Hankins arrived, Anthony kneeled by his son’s side, holding his head as he prayed. “I just spoke to his body and told it to come to life. I commanded Yoshua to live and told him that he would live and not die and declare the works of the Lord. I spoke life to his body and commanded his spirit to come alive. “I didn't realize at the time that, that was the first breath he took.”

Once they got a pulse, they rushed Yoshua to the Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Yoshua was put on life support and into a medically induced coma. They discovered he had Cardiomyopathy, a heart disorder that was restricting blood flow and requiring surgery. Because Yoshua had been without oxygen or a heartbeat for an extended time, doctors were concerned about permanent brain damage...if he lived. The Hankins refused to accept the prognoses. Yoshua was put on life support and into a medically induced coma. They discovered he had Cardiomyopathy, a heart disorder that was restricting blood flow and requiring surgery.

Between the Hankins church, friends, and Ana’s family in Colombia, South America, thousands of people prayed and fasted over the coming days. It had been almost a week since Yoshua’s collapse when doctors performed the surgery. While it corrected the problem, they wouldn’t know if there was brain damage until they brought him out of sedation, which they did soon after surgery.  The prayers continued.  

Thankfully in rehab, Yoshua slowly improved physically, and cognitively. He doesn’t remember much about his ordeal, but there was one thing that stuck with him ---- he says, ““when I look back on my story, I feel like I feel mostly joyful because I'm alive and I, and I began to understand that God wasn't finished, he wasn't finished with the job that he started in me. So I'm gonna pursue it till the day of Christ.”

“She's telling me about events that have happened in my life, like the sexual abuse and things like that, that I never told anybody. And the fact that she knew this, I'm like, 'Oh, this is some legit stuff,'" said Jon Clash.

He left his turbulent home at age 17 and spent years in gangs dealing and using drugs. One night a friend invited him to a party, where a woman who changed into multiple personalities made Jon a promise.

Jon remembers, “She said, 'Hey, I know that you want to...', she didn't say 'I.' She said, 'We know that you want to be this famous rapper. We know you want money. We know you want to be on stages around the world and we're going to give it to you. All you have to do is make an altar, and you got to wear these beads, and say what it says on the back of the candle, and keep it lit, and keep the altar nice, and we'll give you everything.' I'm looking at it as if it works, I get money, and fame, and all of this stuff, then awesome. If it doesn't work, what did I lose? I lit some candles.”

Jon built his altar and for several months continued to attend the fortune telling events. “The deeper I got, I started now asking questions,” says Jon. “I'm like, 'So, what is it that we're actually doing here?' And she said it's called 'Santeria.' All of these different times that she changes into a different person or a different personality, that's her being possessed by one of the Catholic saints. And you know, these are saints. They're from God. So they want what's best for you. Why would something from God ever want to do something evil to you? And since I have no spiritual discernment at all, I'm like, 'Alright, I guess that's a good thing. You know, I went to Catholic churches. They light candles to the saints too.' So it just, there was no red flags going off in my mind.”

Jon invested everything into his music career but was met with disappointment when it failed to take off. He continued to light his candles and was introduced to a group of Christians that helped him find success in home-based business.

“I got invited to church and this was kind of my first experience going to church, but they were also really into personal development and the law of attraction,” said Jon. “And they say, 'Oh, quantum physics shows that the law of attraction is real, that your thoughts create reality and what you say vibrates into the universe and brings whatever you're saying back into your life. So, make sure that you're only saying positive things. Make sure you're only thinking positive thoughts.' And so it trapped me in this, I call it the secret cycle, in where I can't think anything negative, I can't speak anything negative. I didn't realize that this was a spirituality. I thought that it was just "science." Then I got invited to another church, I was down at the front, all emotional, giving my life to Jesus, essentially.”

Jon continues, “So after that, I'm thinking about what just happened and I'm like, 'I'm not a Christian. I don't even know what that means.' I had no idea if there was good reason to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. So, I just went on a journey to research different worldviews. And when I did that, I just came to the conclusion that Jesus Christ did rise from the dead, and then what do you do with that? So I put my faith in Him as my Lord and Savior, but I carried everything that I was doing into my Christian walk.”

He continued to practice the law of attraction and Santeria, yet despite financial success, he still had no peace. “So I'm a spiritual mess. I'm still angry all the time. I'm still like wrestling with depression and being sad and I'm just at the lowest of lows,” says Jon. “I end up moving and I'm staying with my mother and right down the street was a church and it was a Bible believing church. This is my first time going to a church where the people just read the Word of God verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book. I learned more in my time in that church about what a true relationship with Christ actually looks like than I had ever learned before.”

As Jon quickly grew in his relationship with God, he tore down his altar and stopped practicing the law of attraction. True discipleship changed his life. “Just being around them changed me. The Holy Spirit worked through them and through me in my life into where now I understood what a real relationship with God is. It's not this, 'I do these things so I can get something from God.'"

Today, Jon loves to share the gospel both online and in the mission field, enjoying the peace he found only in Christ.

“Jesus to me is my everything. He's all that I need. I have had, as Paul says, 'I know what it's like to have plenty. I know what it's like to lack. And in Jesus I can do all things through Him who strengthens me,'" says Jon. “There's no way that you could look at somebody who's done all the things that I've done and say, 'Yeah, that guy's gonna make it to heaven.' That assurance in putting your faith in Christ when all else is just going wrong in your life and things are in shambles, but you have that assurance that for an eternity you're never gonna have to worry about anything again. I wish I could just give that to people, but all I can do is tell you to put your faith in Christ today. And I pray that you experience the same peace that I have.”

Kayla described, “I was the stay-at-home mom. My husband was the sole provider. I never saw myself being the one to get divorced. Things were really, really, really hitting rock bottom. I couldn't fix it. I couldn't fix it on my own.”

In the wake of her painful divorce, Kayla took on the roles of both caregiver and breadwinner.

“I went into panic mode, and I was stressing because my kids were in school, how am I going to find a job that provides the hours that I need where I can be home for my kids?” Kayla said.

That's when the doors opened for Kayla to take a job cooking at a church daycare center.

Kayla recalled, “It just fell into place. And it was a daycare, so they provided childcare for my youngest as well. It was a reminder that God is providing because who else could give you exactly what you're needing like that with the hours and everything and all the things I was stressing and worrying about.”

The church daycare is next-door to Operation Compassion, a partner of Operation Blessing.

“I said, ‘Yeah, I could probably benefit from that because if they can help me save on groceries, that would help me provide in other areas at home,’” Kayla said.

The food Kayla and her family received provided the relief she needed.

Kayla described, “I feel like I'm accomplishing something knowing that I’m providing for them, that they're getting what they need. As a mother, that's what you want for your kids. You never want to see them do without or struggle or hurt or anything like that. So to see them smile and happy, that made me feel like, okay, this is okay.”

Kayla now works at a community action center, which provides even more support and stability for her family. On the path to becoming a teacher, Kayla is immensely grateful for the help she received along the way.

Kayla said, “In the midst of everything falling apart, the Lord still showed up in His own time and in His own way. I feel hope now.”

Thanks to you, Kayla received the help she needed during one of the most difficult times of her life.

Kayla concluded, “I felt like I wasn’t alone anymore. I had people fighting for me. There was someone that cared. Thank you!”

“Her face started turning blue and the doctors were like, oh my gosh, we got to do something!”
December 3, 2023. Chris and Sofiya Vercelli’s newborn, a girl they named Natalie, had fluid in her lungs. At once she was put on oxygen and taken to the NICU. Sofiya was unable to comfort her baby 

“I was definitely praying, but I was also feeling like I was feeling so hopeless in the situation,” said Sofiya. “I can't help her, and I couldn’t be with Chris and the baby and I really wanted to.” 

That’s because the new mother was too weak to leave her hospital bed. The 28-year-old had lost copious amounts of blood during delivery and her platelet count was critically low. Even then, she and Chris prayed, believing in God’s healing for herself and their daughter. 
Sofiya said, “Just please save my baby”

“But I kept remembering when I was praying and going through this, I kept remembering those things that He told me, that there’s going to be miracles and that His name will be magnified through this. He'll be glorified through this. And so I definitely was remembering those things.” 

This hadn’t been the first time the couple’s faith had been tested during this pregnancy.  During her third trimester, Sofiya was diagnosed with placenta previa. It’s a condition where the placenta blocks the birth canal endangering both mother and child, and forcing a c-section. The natural birth they’d hoped for was out of the question. Faith and prayer was all they had.  

Chris said, “I went into like kind of a mode of desperation and I really didn't know what to expect.”

Then, with no explanation it cleared, giving Sofiya the green light for a natural birth. 

“She told us right away it was 2.1 centimeters away, I can give you the report and you can give it to the midwife and if she has any questions she can call me. And we left there that night celebrating, it was such a victory,” said Chris.  
Sofiya said, “We were like praising God for sure.”

Now they needed another victory. After showing signs of clearing, again Natalie’s lungs were filling with fluid, oxygen support had to be raised to 70%.

“And so that's when the doctor came to me and said, sir, I don't think that that she's going to recover on her own,” said Chris. “I think the only way that she's going to pull through this is if we do something very drastic.”

Which meant putting the baby on a ventilator in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator, something the new parents didn’t want to do. The baby’s doctor said they needed to make a decision and quickly.

“She said, I’ll give you an hour, sir. but that's all. Cause we can't wait any longer than that. 
This situation is too dire, it's too urgent. We have to act fast,” said Chris.

“But like, she’s saying, her life depends on it, right? And so that was when it all just hit me, like, oh man, like, this is a battle.”

Standing beside the incubator that held his daughter, Chris prayed.

“Here I was faced with two different realities. Either, you know, my daughter could die from no treatment, or she could die from the treatment. I had to have a miracle. You know, I had to have a miracle.” 

“So, the hour ends, and the doctor comes back in, says, well, it looks like she's doing a little better. I’m going to try turning her support down from 70% to 66% and we'll see what happens,” said Chris.

“And three hours go by, and it hits me all of a sudden, that that entire time I didn’t hear the machine beep once, and I look at the oxygen support monitor, and it says that it's at 38%.” 
Now breathing on her own, Natalie was taken off oxygen, and x-rays confirmed her lungs had cleared. 

“And I just busted out in celebration,” said Chris.
Sofiya said, “So, praise God. Praise God for our precious baby girl. We call her precious girl.”

They say by then another prayer had been answered - Sofiya’s platelet count had returned to healthy levels, with no medical intervention. 8 days later, the family was home just in time for 
Natalie’s first Christmas.  Today, the Vercelli family continue that tradition, celebrating the birth of Jesus, their miracle baby, and God’s faithfulness to heal.  

“It feels like the biggest miracle in my life,” said Sofiya. “I can tell that He's real, and that I can trust Him.” 

Chris said, “I just know that I can always trust the Lord, no matter what things look like. It definitely gave me a, a different view of, of God's power and His ability and His timing and His sovereignty. It's like, wow, look at God.”