The following is from a talk Randy Medina gave to a group of friends four years after being diagnosed with late-stage cirrhosis of the liver--the result of having contracted Hepatitis C about 30 years earlier--and about two and a half years after receiving a liver transplant.

I sort of live in a bubble now. Over the past four years, I've spent a total of one year and three months in hospitals. My immune system is shot, so I can't be around anybody that's sick. If I come down with even a slight fever, I have to go back to the hospital. I tire easily and need a lot of care. Every morning I pray, "Lord, keep me another day." But I'm happy to be alive! Even if the Lord never heals me completely, I'm happy.

That hasn't always been the case, though. There have been times since I've been sick when I told Jesus I couldn't take the pain any longer, times when I prayed, "Lord, please take me home to Heaven." But here I am! I don't know what the Lord has in store for me, but He must have more for me to do because I'm still here. I also know I'm still here because of the prayers of others.

I can't have many visitors, but I do get a lot of phone calls and email, mostly from people who are praying for me. At one point I started receiving phone calls and email from people all over the country--people I didn't even know. Someone would phone and say, "I'm calling for the prayer chain in Pomona, California. We just want to let you know that we're praying for you," or I'd get an email saying, "Our prayer chain here in Chicago is praying for you." Who are these people, I wondered. And how do they know about me?

Knowing that friends and even strangers are praying for me has kept me alive...

I found out later that my brother had started asking everyone he could think of to pray for me, and it spread from there. Every time he knew my condition had taken a turn for the worse, he would first phone the nearest community of The Family and ask that they put an updated prayer request for me on The Family's worldwide prayer list. Then he would phone a church or two, asking them to also pray for me. Before long, the whole country was praying for me, as well as members from The Family all around the world.

My brother has organized another prayer chain himself. Every time he meets people who say they believe in prayer, he asks if they want to be part of a prayer chain for me. If they say yes, he gets their phone number or email address and adds them to his list. Whenever I'm especially in need of prayer, he calls all these people or sends them an email note, and they pray for me.

Knowing that friends and even strangers are praying for me has not only kept me alive these last four years, but their love in doing that for me helps me feel the Lord's love in a very special way.

Randy Medina went to his heavenly reward in March 2004, after personally winning many hundreds to Jesus and serving Him faithfully in The Family International for over 30 years.