I have experienced the healing power of divine Love through reading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. I discovered the book when I was attending university in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was sold right there on campus, and its title caught my attention. I found the word health particularly interesting since I had been in poor health since childhood. 

However, influenced by some friends who had warned me against the content of the book, I hesitated for some time before buying a copy, and then it stayed on my bookshelf unread for about eight months. 

In 2001, I became very ill and was taken to a hospital, where the doctors diagnosed me as having a severe and chronic form of rheumatism, which they said was incurable. I could no longer walk, and I was breathing with great difficulty. I went home waiting to die. I remained confined to my room, feeling abandoned. My parents lived in a village far away from Kinshasa, and I felt like everyone had forgotten me. 

This situation lasted for about three weeks. Then one night, I remembered Science and Health. I looked up from my bed, and my eyes fell right on that book in my bookcase. Again the word health gave me hope. Although I had been unable to leave my bed, I found the strength to get up and fetch it. 

I read it all night, especially the testimonies of healing at the end of the book. I discovered many new ideas I had never heard anywhere else, and these ideas spoke to me. I thought that if the people who wrote the testimonies had been healed just by reading the book, I could be healed as well. I was convinced of it. And I was healed that same night.

The next morning, I could walk and breathe freely, so I went out. Everyone saw me healed, and they could not understand what had happened. This healing and the ideas I had read in Science and Health gave me a strong desire to find someone who could explain to me what had happened and tell me more about this book. But I searched for about five years without finding a Christian Scientist. 

Then one day, my father came to visit me. At some point he met with a friend, and I overheard in a conversation that the friend knew about Christian Science. I told him I had been looking for a Christian Scientist for many years. Although he was not a Scientist himself, that same evening he came back with a new copy of Science and Health (mine was falling apart). We talked for a while, and then, noticing that I was motivated and persevering in my quest, he gave me a Christian Science Quarterly so I could study the weekly Bible Lesson, as well as some copies of the French edition of The Herald of Christian Science. 

That’s how I finally found the addresses of the Christian Science practitioners and churches in my area—they are listed in the directory of the Herald. I started attending services at one of the churches here in Kinshasa, and I have been attending ever since.

Reading Science and Health permanently healed me of an incurable disease, and the study of Christian Science opened unexpected doors for me. I work now for a human rights organization. Everyone around me has noticed that I have changed much over the years. I used to be very little appreciated by my family and in society, but now I am a new man, successfully taking care of my responsibilities through prayer and divine support. 

I give thanks to God, who has given me the opportunity to prove this truth in my life: “Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need” (Science and Health, p. 494).

Daniel Balif Munga
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo