By Aaron Tiernan
and Tom Tiernan
Nothing is impossible for God...not even raising someone from the dead.
Just ask Ralton Joseph Naraine, who, in January 1980, was raised from the dead after a head-on collision with an army truck on a highway in Guyana, South America.
The Guyana native, who has lived in the United States the last 25 years -- most of them in St. Louis, Mo., where he is the elder of a large local church -- shared his testimony at a Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship International dinner meeting May 14 at Centralia.
Besides being the elder of a church, Naraine is a national director of FGBFI and the president of the St. Louis chapter.
The near tragic day -- which turned out to be a miracle that had an entire nation talking -- started like any normal day for a father and husband.
He planned to work just a half day so he could join his wife at a pastor’s convention that was going on in Georgetown, Guyana. He had just dropped the children off at school and had pulled onto the interstate.
And that’s when it happened. A U.S. Army truck had just passed another vehicle when it ran head-on into Naraine’s car. Neither Naraine nor his vehicle could withstand the 80-mile-per-hour impact with a much bigger Army truck and the young pastor was instantly killed.
He was pronounced dead at the scene by a Guyana police officer. Naraine sustained injuries to almost his entire body. His right ear was severed. His skull was fractured with a half-inch gap. His collarbone was broken. His pelvis was broken in two places. And there were other injuries.
The fractured skull was more than enough to kill him.
“But our God is a good God,” he told those in attendance, and He had other plans for the young minister.
The police officer had just dispatched the ambulance service to take Naraine’s body to the morgue and had left to file his report.
But, before the ambulance service could get there, “God spoke to a (born again) butcher who was driving past the scene to pull over and take my body out of the vehicle to the hospital at Georgetown.”
At first the butcher thought it was his imagination because he was told not once, but twice the man was dead.
But then came that voice a second and stronger time: “’Get the man out of the vehicle and to the hospital.’”
This time, with the help of four others, the butcher did just that.
“At the hospital, when they laid me on the table, I woke up,” he said.
“Now people have asked me if I went to heaven. I don’t remember that. The last thing I knew was that Army truck coming at me.”
“But I do know that I was pronounced dead at the scene by a police officer. I also know I had no pulse for 45 minutes.”
At the hospital, doctors found that Naraine’s right ear had been severed, but, because he was covered in blood, they did not know about the fractured skull with the half-inch gap until an X-ray was done after surgery to restore the ear.
After finding that out, doctors said there was nothing more they could do and wheeled him into a room to let him die.
“I even heard one of the doctors tell a nurse to keep an eye on me and let him know when I died so he could finish his report.”
But the next morning, four young men from his church went on a fast and prayed day and night for God to spare their pastor.
“I give these young men credit for standing in the gap for me. Folks never give up. Keep thanking God for the victory because the next time you pray God just may answer your prayer and send that miracle.”
Three days passed and Naraine wasn’t dead. On the contrary, he looked like a man recovering.
“It was at this point that crowds of people began standing outside of my room to see the ‘miracle.’ The car I was riding in was even put on display at one of the Assembly of God churches so people could see how God had miraculous spared me.”
His doctors also began to ask questions.
“This man who was suppose to die wasn’t,” he said. “They ordered additional X-rays.”
And to the surprise of the doctors, the second set of X-rays showed that the skull had completely come back together (a miracle) and only a slight scare was left.
“The police officer on the scene who had pronounced me dead was afraid to come into my room,” Naraine said. “He eventually came in and said: ‘I didn’t believe in this God, but now I want to know more about this God.’”
To make a long story short, following the miracle of his skull, his collarbone was instantly healed when an evangelist laid hands on him and prayed. His pelvis was restored through surgery. And, though, he was suppose to be bedridden for six months after the cast came off his lower body, he walked within six weeks.
“The miracle of walking came, when I heard the Lord’s voice speak to me in my room. He said: ‘Young man I’m raising you up for two reasons -- to let the unGodly know that I am God and to let My people know I am the Lord thy God who healeth thee.”
And then, Naraine said, Jesus spoke to him “to get up and walk.”
“And instantly the pain was gone and I got up and walked.”
The first place he walked to was down the hallway into another patient’s room, where he found a Moslem with a fractured leg.
“He got scared because I was the man that was suppose to die,” he said. “I shared my testimony and he accepted Jesus as his savior.”
At that point, a nurse came into the room, saw Naraine and asked how he got to this room.
“I told her I walked. She wanted to know who authorized that because I shouldn’t be walking. I told her Dr. Jesus.”
The nurse dropped her medicine tray, ran down the hallway and returned with just about every nurse and doctor in the hospital to see the miracle.
In closing, Naraine said God is still a miracle God today.
“If he raised me from the dead, you can be healed completely. When God does a work, He does a complete work.”
“Jesus came to set us free, to deliver us from sin and to teach us to call God, Abba Father. Don’t give up because He lives, you can face tomorrow.”
He was pronounced dead at the scene by a Guyana police officer. Naraine sustained injuries to almost his entire body. His right ear was severed. His skull was fractured with a half-inch gap. His collarbone was broken. His pelvis was broken in two places. And there were other injuries.
