Experienced personally, or witnessed in the lives of others
We asked members whether they had witnessed or experienced miracles in and through the church. What follows are the stories people were willing to name.
WINSLOW – Image No. 2014 – 21 picture in Deepu’s folder
The Miracle I Live to Share
Ruth Macwana
Member since the late 1970s
My family and I began worshipping at RTMC in the late 1970s, where I was an active member of the Methodist Youth Fellowship and Youth for Christ, under my first spiritual mentor, Miss Gulabi McCarthy.
February 16, 1980, is a day I will never forget.
That evening, a friend and I had gone to Cox Town to sing at a Youth for Christ meeting. We were cycling back along Queen’s Road — only two minutes from home. My friend had his guitar with him.
I saw a van speeding up the gradient toward us. Before I could blink, it hit me. I was thrown to the ground, and the van’s wheel was almost upon me when the Lord intervened.
My hip was shattered into a severe compound fracture. At Bowring Hospital, they shifted me around seven times because no one knew what to do, causing more damage with every move.
My father always called Rev. Vinay Kumar Moses and his wife Clementia ‘angels’ — they arrived first thing the next morning and worked tirelessly to transfer me to St. Martha’s Hospital. The doctors there treated me as a specimen; they hadn’t seen a hip injury of that severity in over twenty years.
I was so naive. I thought I’d be back at college the following Monday once the pain went down. I had no idea I was facing months flat on my back, unable to sit, turn, or move.
When weight traction failed to realign the hip, they drilled a metal rod directly through my bone — skeletal traction. Everything had to be done for me in that bed.
My parents, sisters, and a crowd of friends surrounded me — to the point where the hospital complained I had too many visitors.
Then an infection broke out.
I went home and visited the doctor every two weeks, waiting in suspense to see if the bones had joined. For months they hadn’t.
Then one day they did, and I was cleared for gait training.
Learning to walk again was excruciating. My leg muscles had died from months of inactivity. I remember crying for hours with a dear visitor, Mr. Paulose, weeping because I truly believed my life was over and that I would never walk again.
When I did start walking, my left leg was a couple of inches shorter than my right. I had a severe limp and wore heavy metallic calipers.
We couldn’t afford auto-rickshaws, so my father made me walk. We would take the bus, get off at Bishop Cotton Boys’ School, and he would make me walk all the way up Hayes Road to church, calipers and all.
Then came the Sunday I still remember.
Pastor Augustine David — visiting from the United States — preached a sermon on healing. I sat in the left wing of the church and cried and cried. I had known since the day before that something was going to happen.
After the service, they brought me to the end of the last pew, and he prayed over me.
Right there, I took off my calipers and walked.
I believe my healing continues every single day. I don’t know where those missing inches went, or where the excruciating daily pain vanished, but it was the Lord’s doing.
Since then I have walked freely. I climbed steep mountains — two Himalayan treks, Sar Pass and Chandrakhani Pass, completely pain-free. I also completed an eleven-day trek through the desert.
I still live with some fragments of that night. I am a terrible motorcycle passenger. If a bus gets too close, I panic and need to get off.
I live with neuropraxia — a shooting nerve pain where the surgical rod had damaged a nerve. There is nothing to stop that pain, but I don’t mind it.
I look at that physical ache as a reminder — a quiet monument inside my bone — of the truly great things the Lord has done for me.
May Whittington (Samuel) — A Witness
Member 1972–1982 & 1989–1991
My friend Ruth Macwana, who was injured in an accident and had to walk with calipers on one leg, was miraculously healed at a healing service under Augustine David.
I was there. I saw it.
Anneke & Piet Van der Deen
Holland
Our being in India made a profound change in our lives.
We went from religion to relationship. Our contact with different members of the Methodist Church started this change.
That is, in itself, a miracle.
Saraswathi Priyadarshini
Member, RTMC
The greatest miracle I experienced at RTMC was when my elder son, at just one year old, fell nearly fifty feet from the first floor.
The doctors’ reports were discouraging, but our RTMC family stood with us in prayer. By God’s mercy, he made a complete recovery.
Today he is a twenty-six-year-old man of God.
Another rescue came when I became a single mother without a job. The women of RTMC visited me, prayed with me, encouraged me, and never let me lose hope.
Their prayers became God’s hands lifting me up.
✞ WORDS TO CARRY FORWARD
The stories of miracles and healing naturally lead to another question: what should one generation leave with the next?
The answers are not instructions so much as convictions — words shaped by decades of faith, experience, questions, relationships and life within the church.
Niranjan Noronha
“Investigate before you accept as truth anything you read or hear preached. Be willing to revise a belief if it does not meet the standard of truth. Let the love of Christ constrain you. Love others genuinely, without discrimination or prejudice.”
Benjamin Stephen
“The church is the Father’s gift to His Son, Christ’s inheritance, to be pure and without wrinkle by the efficacious work of the Holy Spirit. This will continue until Christ returns. That is the core message to pass from one generation to another.”
Rachel Hongal
“As wonderful as technology is, nothing can ever replicate the warmth of being physically together. Never give up the simple joy of catching a friend’s eye, sharing a real hug, and just being in the same room together.”
Viji and Priya
“RTMC stands for Real, Timeless, Meaningful, Caring. That is what it has been to us, and these qualities will stand through the ages.”
Usha Sundaresan
“The best of all is, God is with us.”
— quoting John Wesley
These voices were gathered through the Grace & Growth congregation questionnaire, 2025–26. We are grateful to everyone who shared their story. Nothing has been published without the contributor’s permission.
Richmond Town Methodist Church • Bangalore • 1875–2025
