A Lancashire vicar will be running the London Marathon this weekend for a medical charity; and after prayer led to the immediate, miracle recovery of his grandson from jaundice, a complication of a heart condition.

The Rev. Ian Enticott, who is Vicar of St James and St Paul’s in Accrington and also Area Dean of Accrington, is running on behalf of Unique, the rare chromosome disorder charity, which is supporting Henry as he continues to face ongoing challenges because of a specific 'chromosome deletion'. 

It was two years ago when young Henry, pictured with Ian, was healed of the jaundice as a newborn.

Henry is the son of Keren Franks, Ian’s daughter, and her husband Ben.

Now Ian has described for the first time, in a recent 'Weekly Sermon' column for the diocesan website, the moments when his grandson Henry began to recover as he prayed over the baby while he was lying seriously ill at home.

Ian said: “Henry was a just a couple of weeks old and severely jaundiced. The doctors already knew he had a leaky heart valve and they were about to discover that he had a large chromosome deletion. They wanted to bring him in for extensive tests to find out why he was jaundiced for so long.

“When my wife Fiona and I visited our grandson in Cheshire and saw how yellow he was, I felt an overwhelming urge to pray for him at that moment saying: ‘Lord Jesus, please take away his jaundice, and give him his colour back’.

“Henry instantly changed colour from toe to head. My wife walked in a couple of minutes later and said that he looked a different colour. I told her that I had just prayed for him.”

A couple of days later Henry went in to hospital, only for his family to be told that he no longer needed the proposed tests as everything appeared normal!

Said Ian: “Even the consultant couldn’t understand what had happened. It wasn’t long before the heart problem was no longer there either. Now Henry is nearly two years old!”

Henry continued his remarkable recovery, although he now faces new challenges as a result of complications from being diagnosed with a specific ‘chromosome deletion’.

Henry’s parents have received tremendous help and advice from Unique, the rare chromosome disorder charity, and on the back of that support they have now persuaded Ian, a keen runner, to run the 2019 London Marathon to raise money for the charity.

Ian has secured one of five charity places given to Unique and is looking forward to the experience.

Speaking recently, he said: “I had to pledge to raise £2000 in order to have a place, but I set my target a bit higher at £3000."

Ian has an online giving page at https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/IanEnticott and now, just a few days before the London Marathon, the amount he has raised has smashed that £3000 target and currently stands at more than £4000!

Ian continued: “I am really thrilled to be one of the people running this weekend for Unique – and in the capital city. I grew up in Harrow Weald in the north-west of Greater London, so it is a bit of a return home for me.”

Meanwhile, Ian is still very much in awe of the whole experience when he prayed for his grandson.

“Sometimes, God can work in amazing ways,” he says. “Never before have I had such an instant answer to prayer. The sceptical will say that it was just coincidence, but I know that when I poured out my heart to God that day and held my hand over my grandson something changed.”

Ian adds: “Maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, Jesus commanded his followers to go and heal people and told them ‘whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours’.

“That doesn’t give us the right to randomly pray for a brand-new Porsche and then ‘believe’ it will come of course; but I do think that if we are following Jesus and seeking to do His will in our world today, then we will know what we should be praying for.”

Ian, meanwhile, will be continuing to pray for his grandson as he battles new medical challenges in the months and years ahead.

Article written by Mark Ashley

Ronnie Semley, April 2019