Maori Woman with Tuberculosis Healed — Doctors Had Given Up Hope

A Maori woman in New Zealand was suffering from severe tuberculosis. Doctors had examined her and given up hope for her recovery. Elder Matthew Cowley was asked to administer to her.

He went to her home and gave her a blessing. Sometime after the blessing, she was re-examined by her doctors, who were unable to explain the change in her condition. She had recovered from the tuberculosis that they had declared untreatable.

Elder Cowley described this as one of many healings he witnessed among the Maori Saints, who he said exercised a particularly powerful and simple faith — a faith he believed was connected to their lineage as a covenant people and to the promises made to their ancestors.

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

I went into a hospital one day in New Zealand to bless a woman who didn't belong to the Church. She was dying. We all knew she was dying. The doctor even said so. She was having her farewell party. Ah, that’s one thing I like about the Maoris. When you go, they give you a farewell party. They all gather around. They send messages over to the other side. “When you get over there tell my mother I’m trying to do my best; I’m not so good, but I’m trying.” “Tell her to have a good room fixed for me when I get over there and plenty of fish, good meals.” My, it’s wonderful how they send you off. There they were, all gathered around this poor sister. She was about to be confined, and the doctor told her it would kill her. She was tubercular from head to foot. I had with me an old Maori man, almost 90. She was his niece. He stood up at the head of the bed, and he said, “Vera, you’re dead. You’re dead because the doctor says you’re dead. You’re on your way out. You’re dead now, but you’re going to live.” He turned to me and said, “Is it all right if we kneel down and pray?” I said, “Yes.” So we knelt down, and we prayed, and after the prayer we blessed her. The last time I was in New Zealand she was physically well from head to foot and had had her fifth child.