For those who may not know, a BENCHMARK champion collapsed from a heart attack on February 15 while on training run for his first United States Marathon.

First of all, for those on BENCHMARK’s Prayer Team who have been praying..thank you. Really, thank you.

I’ve been slow to send this update becasue, 1. I’ve been trying to catch up on my immediate work, 2. I’ve been trying to let my head and heart catch up to where my body is.

Kinley Winchester has been my friend for 20 years. He is a healthy, strong man, Christ honoring man. He and his family served in Erbil, Iraq for 4.5 years teaching in a Kurdish school and sharing their lives with the Muslim community. They returned to the states about a year and a half ago.After his heart attack, he had a stent implanted and was placed in a medically induced coma while cooling his body to below 90 degrees for his brain to rest. Though there were promising initial signals (eye flutter, gag reflex, he was breathing on his own when brought in), there was no assurance of his outcome and we would have to wait as the professionals worked their medical protocols.

About 165 hours after he collapsed, just a few hours shy of a week, Kinley returned home. He walked on his own, in his right mind with only very, very minor short-term memory loss. Within two days, he took a 2 mile walk around a lake.

Oh, I could go on and on about ways God has showed off. Yes, there was a great doctor who did an emergency procedure and a wonderful, attentive nursing staff. But what has happen with my friend cannot be explained medically. The nurses have said “amazing”, “wonderful”, “night and day difference”, “miracle. His sister calls him ‘Lazarus’. The cardiologist doesn’t have a category for Kinley’s inexplicable recovery. Perhaps his patient will be part of God drawing a cardiologist to Himself.

I sat in Kinley’s room after my friend came out of coma and listened to his wife talking with Muslim friends in Kurdistan who were concerned about their friend as well. God has and is making Himself know through the friendships they developed internationally and their testimony through this heart attack. I was glad I could hang out and watch.

Again, thank you for praying. God is about making Himself known and making His own name great.