Wednesday, July 18, 2007

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

MIAMI, FL (ANS) --Dr. Vitaliy Fishberg, a doctor from the Republic of Moldova, a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south, now practices medicine in New York and has explained why he prays for his sick patients and believes in miracle healings.
But first of all, a little background on Dr. Fishberg (MD, PhD, ND, MCAN, Integrative Medicine), whose patients are nearly all drawn from some of 1.5 million Russians living in New York.

He says, "I was born in Kishinev, Moldova in a traditional Jewish atheistic home. My Jewish parents did not believe nor in God, nor in the devil. My grandparents were former communists, but in the end of life started to attend synagogue but without a deep understanding of what it meant."

Accepting Jesus Christ by the 'great Grace of God'

Dr. Fishberg enters into the worship at the recent World Christian Doctors Network conference in Miami, Florida

Dr. Fishberg says can still clearly remember the day that his life changed. "A few brothers from Gideon's International Institute visited our medical school," he said. "They were distributing beautiful leather Bibles in Russian. I had always loved beautiful books, so when I saw these striking leather Bibles, I started to run towards them and almost scared them when I took several copies from their hands.

"When I came home that evening, I opened that desired book and started to read. Amazingly for me, I could not understand even one word! Pride started to rise in me."

He said to himself, "You are the best student, a future professor… and yet you not able to read even a little book!"

Dr. Fishberg continued, "I started to push harder, but still was not able to understand anything. This fight lasted for me for about two hours. Finally, I cried with loud voice in my heart: 'God, if You exist, help me understand Your book!'

"Immediately, the air in the room started to vibrate and a 'Power from Above' fell upon me. I was filled with amazing peace and love. I got really scared from that condition because I understood that it had 'connections' with the book. I immediately put it on the farthest bookshelf, but it was already too late. I could not sleep; I did not eat anything and almost did not speak for two and half a days.

"After this, 'God's Presence' was lifted from me. I did not tell to anybody about this encounter, but seven days later my best friend Alex (who had secretly prayed for me for many months) invited me to his church. In this church I was amazed that I found the 'Presence' which was similar of that which fell upon me. So I liked it and decided to stay there.

Move to the United States

"When I moved to USA, I decided to continue my medical education. So I did doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine, a PhD in Clinical Nutrition and Integrative Medicine, a Doctorate in Alternative medicine, as well as a Doctorate in Orthomolecular Medicine and finally an honorary Doctorate in Natural Health Science. Integrative Medicine is one of the most famous fields in today's American medicine, but the most important for me was that it does not bring any harm to the patients. When I came to new York after my education very soon I became really well-known in the Russian community and many newspapers published my articles every week."

I spoke with Dr. Fishberg recently at the World Christian Doctors Network 4th Annual Conference held July 13-14 in Miami, Florida, where many cases studies on miracle healings were presented by many other Christian doctors.

He said that his interest in miracles was sparked when he attended meetings led by Dr. Jaerock Lee, senior pastor of the 100,000-member Manmin Joong-Ang Church in Seoul, South Korea and his team, who conducted a "New York Crusade 2006 / Miracles, Salvation, Revival" in "The World's Most Famous Arena" Madison Square Garden on July 27, 28 and 29, 2006.

"I saw amazing signs of God's power which with so many miracles healing," he said. "So and I came to this conference to see the evidences of many different signs of God's power which were well documented by my brothers in Christ -- medical doctors from all around the world."

I put it to Dr. Fishberg that many medical doctors do not believe in healing.

"First of all," he said, "I want to tell you that now it's changed and most medical schools have courses of 'spirituality and healing' and more and more American doctors are starting to believe that God can really heal. Secondly, I want to tell you that I have personally witnessed many healings in my life and my practice. I have documented them and maybe at the next conference, I'll present my cases of healing to my colleagues."

I asked him what his patients say when he tells them that he would like to pray for them.

He replied, "Some people are really open, especially people who are in New Age, or Kabala [which is what some believe is about tapping into the energy of the Universe.] Another category of people are born-again Christians, and many of them are open for me to pray for them.

"If any of these people ask why I want to pray for them, I tell them that very often the power of God is 'released' through the 'healing prayer' and they then ask what 'kind of power' operates in my life and they also ask who my 'teacher' is. I say, 'My teacher is Jesus Christ and the power which operates in my life is the Holy Spirit."

For more information on the World Christian Doctors Network, go to www.wcdn.org.