19. STORY OF DANIEL EKECHUKWU PART ONE On November 30, 2001

 Pastor Daniel Ekechukwu's brakes failed and his car slammed into a concrete pillar. He was rushed to a Nigerian hospital. His condition was serious.  For some reason, Daniel wanted doctors to transfer him to another hospital. The doctors warned that the trip would kill him. They were right. Daniel's wife remembers her husband's dying words."My husband called to me and told me that I should take care of the children and the ministry. He said he had built a house for me, and that I should not worry. I should take care of everybody. He said that there are some people who are called to go quick (to die early) and that he was among them," Ekechukwu said.

Daniel died on the way to the second hospital. He was rushed to a Nigerian clinic where Dr. Josse Annebunwa was working. "I was told he was involved in a motor accident in Onitsha, Nigeria. When I examined him, I looked at the chest and there were no respiratory movements. I listened with the stethoscope and there were no breath sounds. I searched the heart and cardiovascular system, but there were no sounds. The patient had no pulse. I looked at the eyes - the pupils were fixed and dilated. I came to the conclusion right away that the patient was dead and that he should be removed to the mortuary," Annebunwa said.

Mortician Barlington R. Mann remembers when Daniel's father and wife brought his body into the mortuary."There was no life in him, no heartbeat, and no signs of breathing," said mortician Barlington R. Mann. "I accepted him as a corpse. After checking these things, I checked all around the body and everything was stiff. That is what gave us the conviction to start our embalming procedure. I sent him into the second room and put him on the last slab."For three days, Daniel's body lay there, in the open-air embalming room. During that time the body was prepared for burial-including embalming! 

While they waited for the funeral, Daniel's wife began to argue with her Maker."I began to call on the name of the Lord. I wanted to remind God of His promises," Daniel's wife said. "One verse that inspired me was Hebrew 11:35: 'Women received their dead bodies to life.' The moment I read this verse it strengthened me to hold God firm and act."Three days after Daniel's death, his wife decided what she would do. She had heard about a meeting near by-where miracles were happening. It was a Reinhard Bonnke prayer service. She went to collect her husband's body."Before I could come they had the casket ready," she said. "The moment they put him in I ran inside the ambulance with my son and his brother, and we started coming down to this place. And I asked somebody if Bonnke had come." Within a short time they arrived at the Reinhard Bonnke service, and asked if they could bring Daniel's body in for prayer."I felt that the anointing would be so strong there and that the anointing would resurrect my husband," Daniel's wife said .

"They came up to me and I told them that it would be an embarrassment to bring a corpse inside a church," said one of the workers at the Bonnke service. "We realized that whatever we do and wherever we are God is present. If God wants to perform a miracle for the man, the place where the man is does not really matter."They carried Daniel's dead body into the basement where the service was being held. They laid his body across two tables, and several pastors began praying for him."As we were praying," said one of the pastors, "suddenly we saw the eyes started to move and life started coming in. I said to my friend, Pastor Luke, 'You know, they say that he was three days in the mortuary. Let us massage him.' So he was there, massaging the right hand. And I was massaging the left hand. We were squeezing it, making sure that life returned. We found out that as we were praying the heart started to become hot. He was breathing, and we started massaging the hands. As we massaged the hands suddenly it seemed that life came into the hands, and we put his hands on his chest. I massaged the neck and life came into it. I was able to turn it."The pastors around him continued to massage his body because after three days in the mortuary, rigor mortis had set in. As they were doing this, suddenly Daniel jumped to his feet to the amazement of everyone who looked on! The pastors were unsure what to do next."I said let's take him upstairs, and we followed the stairway upstairs. At the end of the step he said, 'water, water.' He was asking for water. I shouted, 'Bring water, bring water, lets get him water!' People thronged and suddenly we saw people coming from the outside. It seemed that the news went out and people came in. People came in and they saw the dead man sitting down.........................STORY CONTINUES