Jhohan Ticona

Not Jhohan but a Jhohan like child.

My co-workers, James and Jenny Wolheter, had to change houses in Cochabamba on short notice. They knew that their house was sold and the new landlady had warned them that they would need to leave but probably not until October or so. But, while they were still in the States for General Conference they received word that the landlady wanted them out "yesterday." So, they made a mad search for a house when they returned, found one, and got moved. When you set up house keeping in a rented house in Bolivia there are generally things that you need to do, especially if "gringos" have not lived in the house before you. So they found themselves in need of a carpenter. They saw a sign on a shop not too far away form their new house so they spoke with the carpenter about coming to work. No problem. But after coming a time or two he didn't come back when he said he would. Now that is not too unusual for Bolivia but it is always a bit frustrating. So they tried calling him and somewhere in the process learned that his two year old son, Jhohan (pronounced Yohan) was in the hospital with a kidney stone (it turned out to be two of them, one about the size of an olive). The big problem was that the equipment needed to do the surgery was broken down. It was decided that Jhohan needed to be sent here to Santa Cruz to be treated. James and Jenny know a good christian surgeon  here in Santa Cruz and he readily agreed to do the surgery for free on this little boy but they would still need to pay for the hospital and medicines. It was decided that Jhohan should be flown down because of his condition.


To make a rather complicated story short the surgery went fine and the kidney stones were removed. But the doctor reported that Jhohan was extremely malnurished, which would (and did) affect his recovery. The doctor and his wife moved Jhohan, along with this mother, from the clinic into their home where they could take immediate care of them. Jhohan, being a normal two year old, did not like having things sticking out of him and at least once pulled his catheter out requiring more surgery.

Now to complicate matters, his mother was over eight months pregnant. During all this time with Jhohan, the time arrived for the new baby to be born. But that too proved to be a complication and she eventually had to have an emergency c-section as the cord was wraped around the baby's neck.

About this time it was learned that the mother's mother, Jhohan's grandmother, is a witch (bruja) and that she had said that Jhohan should die and that the new baby would hang itself. It seemed that more than just physical causes were involved in this case. At any rate, the mother was shaken enough that she left Jhohan in Santa Cruz and took the new baby by bus to Cochabamba to have herself healed and the baby blessed by either the grandmother or a different witch.

Finally, Jhohan was able to travel and was released from the doctor's care and is now back home in Cochabamba with his family.

During all this time, the mother was on the receiving end of love being shown by the doctor and his wife as well as by the different people who helped provide the money needed to pay for both Jhohan`s medical bills and the costs of the new baby's birth. At one point she indicated that she would look up Jenny's church when she gets back home.

Please pray for Jhohan and his parents, Iver and Alejandra that the power of evil will be broken in their lives and that they will come to seek him who by his death broke the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—  and freed those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (See Hebrew 2:14-15). Pray for James and Jenny as they minister to this family.