Bishop Lorenzo L. Kelly The “MIRACLE!”

He has MIRACULOUSLY recovered and is yet recovering from an aneurysm of the thoracic aorta on January 28, 2006.   Dr. Gordon, the Chief Cardiologist Surgeon, said that only one out of ten people survive this type of  surgery and get off the table.  Further, he said “that it was only through God’s miraculous power” that Kelly came through it.  Bishop Kelly “is in the 10%” is what Dr. Gordon would say whenever he would emerge from the operating room to give us an updated report on the condition of his patient.  God can work miracles without the intervening of mankind but mostly He seems  to work through people to accomplish His great will and work in our lives.  This is the place to gratefully acknowledge the skill, genius, knowledge and care of the Operating Room doctors, nurses, technologists, anesthesiologists and all related staff.  Many people played a tremendous role in helping to save the life of this great man of God.  First of all, he really should have never made it to the hospital alive. 

According to Dr. Gordon, when Kelly was stricken, it really could have gone up into both sides of his neck and caused a massive brain stroke.  When the pain first hit Kelly’s chest, he was in the bathroom having just taken his blood pressure medicine.  At about 9:00 AM, he walked into the bedroom with an astonished look on his face, with his hand on his upper chest, and told his wife, Evelyn, “my chest hurts”.  Surely it was the Lord who gave Evelyn the thought to first call Elder Troy Carr, the Assistant Pastor of Faith Temple Church of God in Christ in Rapid City, South Dakota.  Quickly, she let him know the urgency of him coming to the house right away as it appeared that “Bishop is having a heart attack!”  Next, she called “911” and they kept her on the line while asking questions about the condition of Bishop Kelly.  They did not allow her to hang up the phone at all until the ambulance had arrived at their residence which took about fifteen minutes.  Elder Carr arrived shortly after the ambulance and was able to accompany Bishop on the ride to the hospital.

There are so many miracles right from the onset of this whole event and an important one to make note of is the fact that Evelyn was still at home when the aneurysm occurred.  She had meant to leave home before eight-thirty, that morning, in order to make sure everything was in place for the first Women’s Fellowship of 2006 at the church.  Also, being the owner of Everose Productions Recording Studio, Inc., she wanted to make sure everything was in place for the scheduled all-day recording session that day.  Anyway, she’d awaked “sleepy” and had gone back to bed for an extra snooze.  Second of all, she’d decided to shampoo her hair that morning which also caused a delay in her leaving as scheduled.  If you’ve never been a black woman, you don’t know the ordeal of a last minute decision to shampoo her hair (smile) but thank God for the decision “to wash my kinky hair (smile) that was one of the factors in my still being at home when my husband became ill.”  The pain that wracked her husband’s body – severe pain in the upper chest, the abdomen and the middle back – would rock him and almost knock him out of the recliner chair that she had gotten him to sit down in.  That thirty-minute delay, in leaving home, made the difference in life and death for her husband.  The depth of pain that she witnessed, if this man had been alone he would not have had the strength to call for help.  THANK GOD for sleepiness and kinky hair!!!

                Immediately and at the greatest depth of the pain wracking his body, Bishop Kelly began to say to his wife, looking deeply into her eyes, “Honey, I love you!”  Next, he’d say, “LORD, You know I love you!”  Then, he lapsed into the most beautiful and unusual unknown tongues that we’ve ever heard.  It appeared that he Holy Spirit was, speaking through and actively interceding to the Holy Father for this Godly man’s life.  The “911” operator would say to Evelyn, “what did he say?” and “What is he saying, now?”  She replied, “he’s speaking in other tongues”.  The paramedic also was asking her to describe the pain each time an episode would return.  This kept up until the paramedics arrived to transport Bishop Kelly to the Rapid City Regional Hospital.  Bishop Kelly was able to get out of the recliner chair and walk the few feet over to the stretcher by himself.  Wow!

                You must agree that our God is an AWESOME GOD to give this kind of protection and strength!!  Even though he could have died immediately from the aneurysm or from a massive brain stroke, God had kept Bishop Kelly alive and now that he was in the ambulance there was still time for him to die before reaching the hospital.  A doctor was supposed to meet the ambulance at their house but had not arrived so the ambulance, instead of rushing through town with it’s siren wailing, slowly made it’s way to the hospital.  There was more time in which this man’s life could have passed on into Glory but God kept him alive and alert.  After x-rays and initial examinations, before going into surgery, Bishop Kelly was still very alert and able to speak on the telephone with his son, Thomas.

                Within three hours of arriving at the hospital, he was taken emergently to surgery by Dr. Gordon, and underwent replacement of the ascending aorta with resuspension of the aortic valve, replacement of the transverse arch, with reimplantation of the innominate left carotoid and subclavian arteries, as well as replacement of the upper descending aorta.  The first surgery lasted ten hours during which Bishop Kelly died five times on the operating table and was revived over and over again by the surgical team.  Bishop Kelly’s body was purposely frozen, which was necessary for a successful procedure, but during the ten hour operation and the many attempts to revive him, when they needed to warm his body temperature up again they were unable to do so as quickly as needed.  In their attempts, they placed warmers in the room and over and around his body.  In the process of and the haste required to save his life, he was inadvertently accidentally burned on the front of both legs, what later turned out to be fourth degree burns.  His sternum was left open at the time of surgery because of his body’s extreme swelling.   Four hours after the first surgery ended, he was returned to surgery for another six hours, to try to locate and stop the source of bleeding in the chest.

            On Tuesday, January 31^st he was returned to surgery for two procedures -- the first skin-graft/debriding operation to the burn sites on both legs and to close his sternum.   For the next few weeks, he laid helplessly, in the Surgical Intensive Care Ward, on total life-support, and was in and out of many surgical procedures on sometimes a daily basis.  In early February, he sustained the hospital staph infection from being hospitalized so long – we were required to wear gowns, gloves and masks when visiting him.  There was a news report during that time that cited thousands of people across America who had died from the staph infection so we had yet another miracle to rejoice over.

On February 20^th, he was transferred from the Surgical Intensive Care to the Medical Intensive Care Ward for one week where he continued to miraculously improve.  On February 26^th he was transferred to the Pulmonary Care Unit where they completely removed his breathing tube and helped him in the process of learning to breathe again, on his own.  During the time that he was on life support and after he was off of it, all of his bodily functions (seeing, talking, writing, breathing on his own, walking, etc.) were restored but while on the dialysis’ machine, on two different occasions, he came close to death again.  He recalls, very clearly, hearing his wife’s voice calling him back the last time but he still talks about his times of walking with the Lord Jesus Christ.  On March 3^rd he was transferred to the Regional Rehabilitation Institute.  While in the Rehabilitation Institute, he learned to walk, again, without assistance as well as having his thinking and speaking skills returned and he began telling us all about the out of body experiences and what the Lord had been speaking to him during those past few weeks. Bishop Kelly was released from the Regional Rehab Institute on March 15^th, exactly six and one-half weeks since he had entered Rapid City Regional Hospital.  

          He returned to the hospital on March 31^st for more surgery and skin grafts to his legs.  The bone was exposed on the left kneecap and on the shin or tibia of the right leg and the plastic surgeon removed muscle from both legs and used the muscle to cover the exposed bones.  They again removed skin from his thighs (in between the earlier graft sites) and from his hips which left him bloody and sore from the top of his hips, around his thighs and down the front of both legs.  He was wrapped like a mummy from the soles of his feet up to his waist and could not change his lying position for five days.  He returned home on April 9^th and, with the help of outpatient nursing care along with dear daughters and sons of the ministry, continued the healing process.  Later, he contracted the e-coli bacterial infection in his left knee, really due to carelessness of one of the nurses after the last skin graft surgery. On May 16^th he reentered the hospital and underwent surgery to wash and drain out the e-coli infection and was quickly released within a couple of days.  He has made and continues to make tremendous progress in the recovery and healing process for which we are so grateful to the Lord!  Bishop Kelly IS CALLED “A MIRACLE!” BY THE DOCTORS, THE NURSES AND BY ALL WHO’VE COME IN CONTACT WITH HIM.  His testimony is astounding and God is using  him to bring miraculous healing and hope to others as he ministers throughout America.  He was told that because of the breathing tube damage to his vocal cords, that he might not be able to speak above a whisper for at least a year. He’s so happy to have the restoration of his vocal cords until he’s singing God’s praises every chance he gets!  Also, he is preaching powerful messages on Sunday morning and the Sunday evening services as well as on the evangelistic field –  everywhere he goes! Because of the depth of the burns to his legs, at one point the doctor feared that he could not save  Bishop Kelly’s legs – well he is worshiping and praising the Lord, in the dance, every chance he gets. When he learned to walk again, he was using a walker and then a cane but  God has completely restored the strength of his legs. He is such a miracle and we praise the Lord!

Bishop Kelly had hypertension (or, high blood pressure) which was successfully controlled by medication for several years.  Last fall, after we ate in a local restaurant, he  became ill with a virus that would not succumb to any antibiotic or medication.  Subsequently,  he was being treated for an upper respiratory virus infection from September 2005, until the time of the aneurysm on January 28, 2006.  PRAYERS WENT OUT ALL OVER AMERICA and flooded Heaven’s throne from the Hospital’s Davies Family Waiting Room!  Even though visitors could not directly spend time with Bishop, they came and visited with us, prayed with us, brought meals to us, slept overnight with us there in the Davies Room.  Oh, we are so GRATEFUL and there’s just not enough space to say  everything we’d like to say, but “THANK YOU” to all!

One day, hopefully you will be blessed to hear Bishop Kelly’s accounts of his times with the LORD as he was led by Jesus past walls of flames of fire which he recognized to be hell.  He heard voices shouting “It’s not Buddha, it’s not Mohammed, it’s not Allah, IT’S JESUS!”  In Heaven, he visited a place where there seemed to be millions of aborted babies, strewn across a lawn appearing like small bushes, there was so many of those precious babies, there was not enough room and a new building was being built near an older building that housed the children.  Bishop Kelly recounts seeing his mother and Evelyn’s mother and asking Jesus to let him remain there with them to help but was motioned on and heard Jesus’ sweet voice say…“Come with me, you’ve always wanted to help!”