Brandon Stewart, pastor of New Hope Fellowship Full Gospel Ministries in Taylorsville, Georgia, was giving a sermon as a guest speaker at Gordon, Alabama’s Mount Zion Church on Thursday, February 15. It was no ordinary speech, however, as not just souls were saved, but a life was as well.
That came when, about two hours and nineteen minutes into the service, one of the church’s older congregants began coughing and choking. Acting quickly, Pastor Stewart jumped into action and saved the congregant, Lois Adams, by performing the Heimlich maneuver.
Video from the church, available because the service was being broadcast live on Facebook, shows Stewart discussing an encounter with a young woman who had been possessed by a demon. As he did so, Ms. Adams began choking and gasping for air. A few of the church’s other congregants saw what was going on and moved to help Ms. Adams.
They were unable to effectively aid her, however, and so they called on Pastor Stewart, bringing the matter to his attention and calling on him to “help her” while she gasped for breath. Doing so, Stewart quickly went into action once her plight was brought to his attention, stepping in and giving her the Heimlich maneuver to help clear her airway. Upon realizing that he had been successful and she was ok, Pastor Stewart said, “You ain’t going nowhere Ms. Lois.”
Watch the incident here:
Later on, Pastor Stewart spoke to WTVY in an interview about the incident and what happened. He said, “In the middle of the message and we were just kind of going, and we were getting ready to close, I heard coughing. I know it’s allergy season and colds were running around so I was like, it could be just that. We were about to lay hands on her and heal her in the name of Jesus in a minute.”
Continuing, he described how the pastors jumped in to help out, and noted that they were able to joke a bit once the choking congregant was ok. He said, “I picked her up off the ground. We jump in and Pastor Derrick comes up because he is back up. He’s like, here we go. He’s a first responder also, and a great pastor of this church. And doing that once she was clear and could talk, we all made a joke.”
Then he went back to his sermon. “We dealt with that demon. That demon came out that night. You may think you’ve gone so deep into darkness that you can’t come back, but you can. Jesus always pulls you back,” he said. He added, “We did the business, now it’s time to get back to business … I’m honored and humbled that He used me in this position to be able to spread His Gospel and save Miss Lois.”
Ms. Adams, for her part, said that it was a piece of mint that she was choking on. She said, “I was praising the Lord like everybody else, but I had a piece of mint in my mouth because I get a dry mouth. I got choked on it.” She added, “I went to coughing and a little piece of it, [I] reckon, went down my throat and I couldn’t breathe. Next thing I know somebody has me in the air.”