IT TOOK A MIRACLE

The snow was beautiful on day one, not so bad on day two, disgusting on day three and almost gone today. I’ve had my snow fix for the year. Bring on spring.

I got a very nice email from a friend yesterday. He was talking about miracles and had reviewed a number he had personally experienced. Many he listed were miracles of healing. I think that is wonderful and I am thrilled for him and those blessed with God’s healing touch.

I have also experienced a number of miracles, but most have been of the “things” kind. Many amazingly cool.

I did not grow up seeing the hand of God in everyday life, but I have been encouraged to do that very thing.

There may have been things while I was in Bible College, but the first I really remember was attending the first summer camp of my ministry. I had been thrown into the directorship only a week earlier. The camp was in Northern Saskatchewan. I believe the area is best known for exporting mosquitoes to every other part of Northern America. The sky was black. Since those pesky little things seemed to love me, I did not want to get out of my car. A counselor came and said Harrison Weaver wanted all the leaders to gather in the dining hall. We did and he said we need to pray that God will remove those bugs or nothing good will come of this camp. I have my doubts, but we did and when we walked out of the hall, the sky was clear and it stayed that way for the week.

I had never seen anything like that in my life. Admittedly my faith was low, but was strengthened immediately.

For the next years camp we moved it to southern Saskatchewan to get away from the mosquitoes, but there was a new problem. Our side of the lake was full of algae. The swimming hole was green. Harrison asked us to gather on the dock and pray. While praying we watched the algae slowly move to the north side of the lake and stay there for the week. This was one of a string of five lakes and the algae remained on the south shore of all of the other four lakes. Right then and there I decided I would never do another camp without Harrison.

While planning a northern Saskatchewan zone rally that was to take place in our church, we had in hand a 16 mm film and were expecting a movie projector to arrive at any time. My secretary came to tell me she had just got a call from Mr. Lane and the projector he was bringing from work had been taken earlier by another employee. The zone rally was to begin that night. I gathered the group on the stage to pray and about thirty minutes into praying my secretary came to get me again and said, “You will want to take this call.” Mr. Ford call to ask if we needed a projector (all pre-DVD days). Did we ever.

When we were about to move from Saskatchewan to BC we had already begun paper work to adopt our second child, but that was only four months earlier. Our case worker doubted if everything would come together before our move but assure us she would forward everything to BC. We knew we would be starting from scratch and it would take at least two years.

There was nothing we felt we could do but accept the decision. But we did pray and asked God to intervene. He did and a week before we were to move we were called to Regina to pick up our beautiful and exceptionally happy new daughter. She came with love notes, a full diaper bag and gifts fro the foster family who cared for here from birth. We had her in five months and were walking on air. The following Sunday was her dedication and our farewell.

Vancouver was the largest challenge to our faith we had the most challenging experiences I had hoped we ever would. The parents of one of our youth asked if I believed in Demons. Well yes (at least theoretically). We studied it in college, but this was about to become real.

I listened to their story and agreed that I would pray. I don’t know what I expected. But I got a demonstration at a youth Bible study in North Vancouver. The girl arrived when the study was in progress. She moved in near the front of the group sitting on the floor. While getting settled she bumped into a boy to the right of her, got make at him and grabbed him by the front of his shirt and lifted him off the floor and pushed him away. Everyone gasped that this little 95# girl could do that. As the group scrambled to the four walls, I saw something in her eyes that frightened me. It was scary. I took her to another room with a handful of leaders and we began to pray.

Thus began a seven to eight month ordeal of seeing this little girl delivered. I hit a hige block and finally got help from an experienced missionary from Indonesia who brought it all to the end. A funny sidelight was that the youth group Bible study grew after that experience. If something exciting was going to happen, everyone wanted to be there.

After only a year in Vancouver, we moved to Southern California for me to attend seminary. We did it with no money and no idea how we would survive. A friend encouraged us to start a little book to keep track of everything ever given to us or done for us that we did not ask for or deserve. We did. The first was a job working for Kinney Shoes. That was not going to work so I took the offer to work for a church in Long Beach. Still not enough, but we could survive.

Early in our time there we met another student who worked at a grocery store and was selling Banana boxes full of food cans and boxes damaged in the opening process. They were three dollars a box and usually valued at eight to tweelve dollars. Pretty cool. Friends often took us out to eat. They loaded our kids up with Christmas gifts. Canadians visited and left their unused Disney tickets with us (didn’t know we had so many Canadian friends that wanted to come for a visit). Church members had company parties at Disneyland and took us a guests or gave us their tickets. Out next-door neighbors were employees of Knott’s Berry Farm and gave us their tickets for a free company party. Friends gave us a years pass to Deer Park a cool little place (now gone) with lots of activities for kids, animal shows and deer to pet. Della took the kids there often.

We lived three blocks from Knott’s Berry Farm and the free cake decorating and candy making windows. Once a week they rode the 10¢ merry-go-round and every week after church we bought nickel ice cream cones at Long’s Drugstore.

At the end of our two years in Buena Park, we had been given nearly $8000.00 in cash and prizes. Unbelievable.

There is more, but this “little” note is too long already. It is just a sample of the graciousness of our God and a reminder to me that He loves us.