July 15, 2003
FSM 383CM/FM
March 2002
The Lord is doing miracles to supply for our Family, in fulfillment of His promises to provide as we follow Him in the newest moves of the Spirit. This mag features stories sent in over the last year or so of the blessings and rewards reaped by following the Activated vision, calling on the power of the keys, using prophecy and following the Lord step by step, striving to obey the Conviction vs. Compromise series by dropping out of System jobs and/or striving for unity, and more. The Lord is so good to us, His children who obey and follow closely.
Activated world shiners tell how they got 420 subscriptions in three months—and many blessings as a result!
By Joshua for the Niteroi Home, Brazil
We would like to share some of the miracles the Lord did in our Home over the last six months, since our Home started activating more.
A little about our Home: We are a medium-size Home of 1 couple, 4 single mothers, 1 adult man, 3 young people, and 13 kids. Some of us have been working together for a few years, trying to establish a work in the city. The Lord has always taken good care of us, but during those years we saw our Home struggling a lot in the arm of the flesh, depending too much on road trips to distribute the tools.
We tried many times to get out of the vicious cycle of hand-to-mouth fundraising, but finances always pushed us back into depending on road trips because it was a sure way of raising funds.
Living like this was getting in the way of establishing the work we so much desired, and we were almost to the point of giving up. But TTL! Since the darkest hour is right before dawn and since the Lord knew our hearts’ desire all along, He helped us to completely change our lifestyle and we started to live by faith and not by sight.
A little more than a year ago, we started to put more emphasis on follow-up. Even though we were tempted to go to work and raise funds on the road when bad times came, by a miracle of God the bleating of the sheep was stronger, and we stuck firm in the city, where we could continue with our follow-up.
The Lord blessed us for taking this stand, and we ended up having our best tool distribution season ever during Christmas 2000, in the city—without taking faith trips. From then on we saw the Lord doing miracle after miracle, but it wasn’t until we started to push the Activated magazines that we saw the big miracles happen.
The more we sell subscriptions, the more blessings the Lord pours upon us and the more miraculously He supports us. And by the grace of the Lord—and I must emphasize by the grace of the Lord—our Home was the South American shiner for the second time in a row. And amazing but true, we were the world shiners in the last trimester.
The blessings were many and we’ll try to summarize the most obvious ones from the last six months, without mentioning protection, health and others—which we always thank Him for!
—For two trimesters we got the local prize given to the Activated subscription winner.
—We’re getting the world shiner prize of US$600.
—We received a donation of a brand-new Volkswagen van from a car-rental company.
—Another company donated a natural gas installation in the van, which reduced our fuel consumption by half.
—We got all the needed parts and the work to rebuild the motors of our two other cars.
—We sold a house we’ve been trying to sell for more than seven years.
—The Lord supplied thousands of dollars worth of hardware material for a building project.
—We provisioned new mattresses for all who needed them in our Home.
—We now have five groups of Bible classes.
—Many of our Bible class attendees are helping us to sell Activated subscriptions. One attendee said that one of his sheep, after buying his first subscription, came to him with tears in his eyes, saying that it was the best investment he had made in the last few years.
—Christmas tool distribution was very good.
—We were able to do more than 10 CTP puppet shows in institutions around the city, winning almost 2,000 souls.
—Last but not least, the Lord gave us another Christmas gift as a result of the hard work of sowing throughout the year: two new disciples—a very sweet sister and her beautiful daughter.
What a wonderful Husband and what a product He has given us! We’re satisfied clients and we’re sold on activating others.
One thing that we believe has been fundamental in our receiving these blessings is the spirit of unity and one wife, which we fight to keep in our Home. We are also trying to faithfully keep one hour of prayer and prophecy time in our Home’s schedule, in addition to our hour of united devotions. Another important factor was that we took time to study the Letters on Activated and obey some of the suggestions given. We constantly pray that the Activated Angel will come to our rescue to help us to keep the vision.
Another boost to our distribution in Brazil was the new Activated package, which consists of four magazines, plus Mottos for Success. It’s a very nice presentation that helps do the selling!
We have an Activated deacon in the Home who pushes the vision, keeps track of the sheep, calls them, and prays for subscriptions to be sold.
Besides that, I think the Lord also blessed the sacrifice we made of investing two of our top witnessers to go from factory to factory for a few weeks, presenting Activated to the employees instead of pushing the tools. We were not very successful in that effort, but we believe the Lord saw it and we received the blessing anyway!
All glory goes to our dear Husband Jesus! More than half of our total subscriptions were sold to just one friend of ours who saw the potential to give a yearly subscription as a Christmas gift to all of his employees.
Please pray that we can now consolidate our fruit and invest more time in following up on the people we are winning to the Lord.
By Carmen (of Juan), Chile
A young, successful dentist friend, who had met a busking team and bought a CD, was flipped when a few months later the same girl (me) who had sold him the CD happened to phone his office to provision dental work. He gladly agreed to only charge the cost price.
Every time I’d see him I’d take him a book or some follow-up material, which he would share with other patients. After a little while, the Lord showed me to purchase an Activated subscription for him as a gift, since he had given so generously of his time and services.
Shortly after this, we moved countries and it wasn’t until about nine months later that I was able to see him again. Usually it takes time for a contact to warm up after you haven’t seen them for a long time. However, to my total surprise, when I saw him again he was warmer than ever, very friendly and helpful. He decided that he wouldn’t charge me his cost price anymore, but would give me the full treatment for free!
He was very turned on and impressed with how faithfully he was getting the magazines. (God bless the brethren at Contato!) He loves them, and told me his mother does too! She gets upset if he forgets to bring her the latest mag after he’s read it!
So not only did the initial investment of buying him a subscription pay off and save us a lot of money, but I was once again reminded that we never know how far the printed Word goes. As Dad said, the ripple effect is much greater than we’ll probably ever realize in this life!
By Jeho and Consuelo, Brazil
We’ve learned that the Lord really, really does bless obedience to His Word no matter what the situation looks like in the natural! The Activated vision has been unfolding in most of the Letters for some time, and though the Lord has undoubtedly been pointing us in that direction, we’d barely gotten our toes wet.
Introducing us to this new method of witnessing, the Lord led us to order a few hundred mags of issues one, two, and three, and put up a shiner chart with a bonus of personal funds for the shiner. Our young people went to a seminar in Brasilia and came back on fire for Activated.
We had gotten four subscriptions and given a few more free mags to people who would pray with us, but we had mainly continued to focus on our tool distribution and the Activated spark had not yet caught fire. Friday through Sunday were our BIG outreach days, and we continued hitting our spots, hoping to get out CDs at the rate we did last year, which made us world shiners! But did you ever hear about yesterday’s battle plans not being good enough for today? And about having to hear from God fresh everyday?
Although we continued to get out more tools than ever on faith trips, for the Home teams, things were drying up. Local tool distribution was now very slow, laborious, and discouraging. As if that wasn’t enough, our provisioning contact (who had been giving enough food for several Homes) stopped giving! Our outreach was not covering our expenses, and no matter how hard we tried, prayed, pushed, held Home councils, and set ourselves weekly goals to be able to survive, it did not avail!
Finally the Lord got through to us that we needed to be obedient to the Activated vision. We decided we were going to make Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday 100% dedicated to getting paid Activated subscriptions.
The results? We got seven subscriptions the first three days dedicated to Activated, and get this—we got out 50 CDs over the weekend! The same week we got a large donation of butter and yogurt. Week two, we put Activated first again for three days and our total number of subscriptions pushed up to 14 and we got out 51 CDs on the weekend! As we write this, we are in our third week of dedicating three days of the week to Activated and it’s pushed our total of paid subscriptions up to 19! It doesn’t sound like a lot, but we are climbing and obeying and we feel a direct correlation between our pushing Activated subscriptions and the Lord’s blessing on our tool distribution.
By Josh and Lilly, India
We had been trying unsuccessfully to buy matching tiles for our kitchen, but no shop seemed to have the right color that would go with the existing tiles. So finally in desperation, we decided to go activating and just trust the Lord that He would work out the details in His time. He sure did!
Right after we spent some time on Activated, He opened our eyes to a tile shop that we had somehow missed earlier on. It turned out that I had done a music program thirteen years ago in the owner’s school when he was only a teen. He was so overwhelmed by the connection (as the school that he had studied in was over 2,500 km away, in the northeastern corner of India) that even though I was only asking for a discount, he wholeheartedly offered to give us anything that we needed for free! He gave us the best tiles that he had, even throwing in extra boxes, so that we could retile the entire kitchen from scratch and didn’t have to match it with the previous existing tiles!
By John W., Africa, on the road in Germany
I hadn’t been out tooling in Germany since the last Christmas push and set myself a goal of getting out at least 250 CD cards in three weeks. My main goal was not to just get out the tools or get the needed support for our next project in Africa, but to win potential supporters whom we can feed by mail and who can support us there as we do His work.
The climate change was big, from hot Africa to cold, wintry Germany, and I felt a bit wobbly tooling to the fast-moving Germans after the slower pace in Africa. They say that when the Lord created the world, He gave Europeans the clock and Africans the time. Ha!
We got off to a good start, and the weather was reasonably mild as we had prayed for, but then the Enemy attacked. My partner got an asthma attack and I got terrible sinus pains, which went all the way down to my teeth.
We had to get desperate and rebuke the Enemy, as every day counted. Thank God we had taken a set of all the Keys GNs and recent Prayer GNs with us on the road. As we read them and practiced and claimed them, they went to work. Every day we claimed the power of the keys—for healing; for good outreach; for no snow, ice or rain; for the other teams out on the road, etc. There were snowstorms in many other parts of the country. Some motorists had to stay on the highway for 12 hours overnight as the rain turned into instant ice. So many accidents blocked the roads, but we had smooth sailing with no accidents nearby or the huge traffic jams they cause, thanks to the keys.
By a miracle we were able to continue long hours of outreach in spite of our weaknesses. And by a miracle, as soon as I would start witnessing to people, my sinus pains and headache would disappear.
Here are a few special miracles among the many, since every soul saved, tool out, donation in, and new supporter to follow up on is a miracle in itself.
When we met a hotel director who liked our work and enjoyed our witness, he got saved and was looking for other ways to help us. We talked about our Christmas CD cards and he immediately ordered 50 of them for next year. He also asked if we needed a place to stay in other cities, since he knew we were on a fundraising trip. He works for a big hotel chain and called to set up reservations for us in nice hotels, for the exact time and in the precise places we wanted to be for our last week out.
When we met the next director, he was already turned on about our work by what the first director had said. After witnessing to him and getting him saved, I told him about the order of his friend for Christmas CD cards. He promptly ordered 300 for himself! Definitely those keys working again!
The Lord was so good to us. He supplied all our food for free, nice warm places to stay, half of the gasoline, good support, and, most of all, more lasting fruit in new contacts to follow up on and put on our mailing list than from any previous Christmas push. I’ve been doing this for seven years now, and every year it literally gets better.
By Ana, Colombia
One of our greatest victories has been learning to use the new weapons that the Lord has been giving us, as well as make use of the keys of the Kingdom. The Lord has been doing greater miracles than ever, healing the sick, answering our friends’ requests, and miraculously supplying all our needs.
We’ve been learning about the importance of praising the Lord together, having daily prayer vigils, hearing from the Lord daily together, depending on Him each step of the way, and watching Him work.
We prayed for the Lord to supply the money we needed to be able to repair our car. It was very expensive, around US$250. We called the main Mazda agency, and they helped us with all the repairs that were needed.
We prayed for the Lord to supply in order to be able to pay some bills. Soon after a friend who is a faithful supporter phoned to ask us to pray for her. She was so touched when she heard about our need. Since she had already helped with our weekly shopping, she called up some of her friends to ask them for a donation for us. The friends gave us just the amount that we needed.
We prayed for the Lord to supply a hotel for us to be able to have a seminar about faith and the Endtime, and He supplied a gorgeous five-star hotel for free! He also supplied the printing of the fliers for the seminar.
By Timothy (of Phoebe), Brazil
After the Conviction vs. Compromise series, I dropped out of teaching English, but there was a lady where I taught who loved to talk about our missionary life, the Lord, and the Word. When I told her that I was re-dropping out and that we would go back to living totally by faith, she was very concerned that we’d have all we needed and phoned me to find out if everything was okay with us.
She had told her husband about us, that we didn’t have a car, and that I didn’t have a driver’s license. He told her to call me right away and tell me to go ahead and get my driver’s license, that he’d pay for it (R$640.00—US$280)! I went to pick up the money at the hospital where she works, and as she was filling out the check, she stopped and told me: Artur [her husband] told me that once you get your license, he wants to talk to you! Wow! Who knows what else the Lord has in store?
We went ahead by faith, obeyed, dropped out, and right away the Lord started doing miracles!
By Gabriela (of David), Croatia
Something that’s really amazing to me is the way the era of action is coming to pass for us. After the 2001 Feast, Nothing Is Impossible and Rise Above,’’ the Lord has given us more faith to do things that before seemed so impossible.
At the beginning of the year, we were desperate. Finances were low and there was so much coming up. We were having personnel changes, David and I would be away for some months to raise funds, and yet we still needed to keep up with monthly expenses, etc.
When we prayed about how to go about all this, the Lord reminded us that with His help, nothing would be impossible for us and that we needed to speak faith and just pray in the answers we needed. Amazingly enough, all that the Lord promised came to pass. Of course, we still had to fight, and it took some effort to keep up the faith and not doubt. However, in those three months, the Lord did miracles for us that were totally unexpected.
Normally, the first three months of the year are generally difficult for fundraising, but we refused to accept that. With the Lord on our side, we were able to raise more funds in those difficult months than in our whole Christmas push! Not that we didn’t do well in our Christmas push, but it went extra well right afterwards.
Something the Lord told us to focus on was to continue to win souls and follow up on the sheep no matter how busy we were. When we do this, the benefits are obvious, and the Lord never fails to bless it.
By Lydia, Gabriel, David, Victory and Gabriela, Chile
The Lord really tested our faith to believe that He will supply. We had so many promises of donations—but they didn’t come in! In fact, the Lord had supplied all our needs, but we lacked the funds to pay our tithe, and make a repayment to the Home Loan Fund.
We got desperate. After being sick in bed for a month with sinusitis, I was finally strong enough to take 700 kg of donated clothing to a small town over 250 km into the north where a Mapuche pastor had been expecting us. The visit was beautiful; we now have another indigenous church to work with.
They were so touched they all got on their knees, thanked the Lord for us, and prayed for our anointing to help them! They explained how they are trying to help over 250 families, some of whom live far away and only speak Mapudungun. With packages of used clothing the brethren in the church will go to spread the Gospel to these families who don’t know the Lord.
As the Lord was testing our faith, one very important prayer request we had was for food, as our income was so low. We prayed for the Lord to have mercy on us. One day I was picking up fruit and vegetables from a supermarket, and the general manager said, I have some canned fish for you! We received over 1,000 cans of yummy canned fish! It was like manna from Heaven!
During this time, we were also able to visit several factories to present the Christmas CDs, do our CTP project, give English classes, and do other provisioning. The results have been fantastic; everyone has been interested, so in our need it turned out that we actually reached more people than before.
We were getting out witnessing and putting Him first, so we were desperate to find out why the Lord was withholding His blessings! We prayed and received that we needed to be more united, that if we were obeying His Word He could answer all our prayers. Then we got the GN on the Dangers of Division (ML #3362, GN 958)! Bingo! So clear!
As we set our hearts to obey the Word, our prayers were answered and we received exactly what we needed. At the last minute two donations came in to pay the tithe and our HLF payment! His Word is sure!
P.S. We also finished our Web site this month and it’s up, if you want to visit: www.mapuchequest.org.
By Seek, Mexico
We were in desperate need of funds for upcoming needs, and our first reaction was that maybe Servant would need to go to the States and do construction for a month or so, as our personal mail ministry income had been very low. But that would have been robbing Peter to pay Paul, as Servant was also needed here.
So on our free day we took the question of going to the States to work for funds to the Lord in prayer. The Lord told us that we could work together going out locally to get our support going. Servant is often very involved in handyman work, which can almost entirely eat up all his extra time. But the Lord said to lay the handyman work aside for awhile and invest in follow-up. So we decided to be a follow-up team more often and put the Lord to the test to raise our support locally.
That was more of a long-range plan, and didn’t help so much with our most urgent financial needs, which were frankly staring us in the face to the point that it was getting to be quite a worry. We didn’t see how we could continue to meet our monthly expenses.
One morning Servant had been up most of the night with allergies, and I got up at 6:30 a.m, having been awake since 4:30. I was so burdened about finances that I knew I had to have some personal time with the Lord. So I went out in the lawn chair under the tree and took with me More on the Keys, Part 2.
I had read this pub twice and was struggling to understand how to activate the power that the Lord said was available to us, as the Lord said that we should start to use it right away. I felt like I just wasn’t getting the point, and although I had this great need, I didn’t know how to connect with the power. I guess I thought it was a big deal and that I needed a big personal revelation. I kept reading the quotes I’d underlined, and the more I read, the more desperate I was to access this power, as it was so needed.
So, I prayed, Lord, I know that I don’t fully understand all this, but I do believe that it’s available, and I need it now, today! I need to see a demonstration of this power today. If I am ever going to have faith for the power that’s needed in the Endtime, then I have to see a manifestation of Your power today. I was quite on the spot, so I did put the Lord and this new revelation of the keys on the spot as well.
I also used the opportunity to pray for another Home that I knew was struggling financially, and asked the Lord to do something right away to help them as well.
I got started with the day and although I had so little sleep, amazingly I had a lot of energy throughout the whole day, which I felt was such a miracle. We had the largest CTP of the month that day, I taught school and made lunch while the kids were working on their own. I don’t think I ever thought of my financial problems again that day, PTL! My burdens really did roll away with that prayer time, even before the answer came.
One reason our finances were lower was that our main supporters for the past 25 years had retired. Instead of their giving a tithe of the business income, because their sons took over the business, these supporters now gave us a tithe of their pension, which was less than a third of what we usually received.
Later that day Servant came up the stairs with a big smile and asked me to follow him to our room. He said he had checked our mail and there were two very encouraging messages. One was from our supporter, who told us that he and his wife went to their accountant and worked it out so that they could once again send us a monthly donation close to what they had sent normally before their retirement. This was an amazing miracle, and one that was very unexpected!
Also we got word that something else we had been praying for looked like it would come through, something that would possibly help us to raise much more funds locally. The Lord said that this was just the beginning, and that we should keep praying and exercising the power of the keys!
As a side note, I have had the wonderful opportunity of working very closely with a SGA as a VS partner for over two years. She was always a wonderful prayer partner and never hesitated to stop whenever needed to take things to the Lord with me in prayer and prophecy. When she left to help out in another area, I felt a huge vacuum in my prayer life.
The day that Servant and I took some of these questions to the Lord in prayer and prophecy, the Lord also told us that we would get answers if we would give the Lord first place in the morning together, which is something we hadn’t done in a very long time.
After we get up, there is a half hour before the Home schedule starts and we now have united prayer together during this time. Each morning there is a temptation to lie down again for a few minutes, as we get up early, but we feel we can’t do without this united prayer time. We can cover so many subjects in that amount of time and it is also a wonderful time to thank the Lord for answered prayers.
By Almond, India
Ah, what a string of miracles big and small! The result was the fulfillment of prophecies that others and I received—that the Lord was ready to give me the desires of my heart! My desires were to become CM and to move to the mission field and see my three children happy and fulfilled serving the Lord.
I had been living in England for many years and had been an FMer for almost as long. I had had a large family and fed my children the Word, but for years had neglected my own feeding. We began receiving more and more GNs in FM mailings and they were having a good effect in my life. I began getting regular Word time, although it wasn’t easy to take the time.
The Lord began working.—I felt like I was being born again in the spirit! I felt younger and even looked younger! The door to return CM looked like it was going to open, but I ended up waiting 1½ more years. I had put myself out on a limb and was now homeless, but the Lord used this to my advantage. My mother released some of my future inheritance so I could rent a house, which I did. I was later able to use this deposit to pay for the airfare and for long-term visas for India.
During the wait for the next CM door to open, someone got a prophecy for me that it was the Lord’s will for me to return to CM, but that the time was not right now. The Lord’s time came, and as soon as I completed my six months course and was voted in, I was ready to apply for clearance.
A test came when I was emotionally knocked off my feet when a good possibility of a stable set-up on the field just disappeared. I found myself with a bunch of promises from the Lord and the funds to just get me to the field, but nothing else—no income, no team! I felt quite lost—newly arrived to CM status and lost!
I knew I had to go to the field, as I couldn’t be happy staying in England and had completely lost any vision for continuing to raise my children in the West. My Home asked me if I wanted to wait a few months until after the Christmas push and go in February. I prayed and the Lord said, Say not ye there are yet four months! There were exactly four months until February!
The next day the Home got together and received a couple of confirming prophecies. It was a big step because the Home was praying about giving notice to vacate that property and move into a smaller place which wouldn’t have room for my kids and me. My Home checked with me again to see if I really wanted to go for it then, as it could take longer for a single mom to find a Home. I said yes because the Lord had said so. We handed in notice for our house.
It was so difficult to write for that clearance! The way I saw things was: Who would want me anyway? A single mom with three children and not much to say for herself. But I tried to keep my mind on the Lord’s promises to me in prophecy.
During that time the Lord did a miracle to encourage me. Up until then I only had support for my first two months on the field, but the Lord changed that. I had to phone my mother about something that evening and she suddenly changed the subject and was now offering to regularly release a good sum from my inheritance each month, beginning in six months’ time. That was wonderful! But it meant there would be about four months with nothing coming in. The Lord encouraged me that He would take care of me.
I was on my way. I’m half Indian, but on the phone the Indian High Commission said that they couldn’t guarantee being able to give my children and me a five-year visa given to people of Indian origin. So I asked a number of brethren to pray, and the Lord gave us the five-year visas.
Then good quality luggage came—some provisioned, some from brethren. Unexpected financial gifts came. The Lord was leading me to go to a certain city in India. My faith was tested when two possibilities for Homes fell through, one after the other.
Going to the Lord on this, He confirmed that He did want to do it, but things weren’t in the right place yet. Then another Home in that city offered to have me!
Now the hitch was plane tickets. They weren’t available. Everyone seemed to be flying to India for the biggest Hindu festival of the year, Diwali, the festival of lights. Finally we got tickets. But even in this delay the Lord had His way. A few days before we were due to fly, we received a message from the Home in India asking us not to come before a certain date. It was the very same date as our flight! The Lord’s perfect timing.
As the Lord had said in prophecy, He has given me a sweet Home to be in—a lovely family with whom to live and work. It’s a pioneer Home with three adults and 10 kids. My children are now practicing singing—something which is completely new for most of them. So far I’ve met a couple that this Home ministers to, who have a school of 1,500 children and they are doing a lot to train their students in the way of the Lord and now want to use the Feed My Lambs.
The Lord has been so good to us in giving us a place on the field, and each day is so inspiring. The Lord has taken care of us wonderfully, and if you want to be a part of that, you can send gifts to Almond at David/Charity’s in Delhi.
By Andy, Maria and Isabel, Colombia
We are involved in remodeling a youth training center here and the builder gave us a deadline to supply the necessary wood to finish the roof. He needed it by Tuesday at the latest, and we had no wood at all! Wood is very expensive here and we needed quite a bit.
When we got together as a Home to pray about the situation that Sunday night, in our carnal minds we were expecting the Lord to tell us to get out a provisioning team as early as possible on Monday. Well, while hearing from Him, He did tell us to send out a provisioning team the next day, but He said for the team not to leave early but to stay in prayer until 11 o’clock! It seemed rather odd, as it’s a terrible hour to go out provisioning. Most businesses here close from 12 p.m. until 2 p.m. and some don’t open again. But the Lord knows better. So we obeyed and stayed home praying that Monday morning till 11 a.m.
We went to a street where most wood warehouses are. We entered the first one and asked for the owner. He was there but was busy. We waited and waited and were already thinking about leaving to go to another shop, when the Lord gave us a check to stay and wait a little longer. It was a test of faith as the owner only received us at 11:45, almost closing time.
We ended up staying with him talking and sharing about our lives for over an hour. He was a very hungry and needy man. He was also more than willing to donate everything we needed!
When we were getting ready to leave he told us: Please do visit me another time, but after 11 a.m., as that’s the time I usually arrive at the office! Wow! Isn’t the Lord wonderful? He wanted us to meet this man who needed the message and would going to donate all the wood we needed! He also knew the best timing, after 11 a.m.! It pays to hear from Him!
By John W., Germany
I wanted to write a testimony about how real the power of prayer is! When we sent our first container of humanitarian aid to Conakry, Guinea, everybody told us that it is impossible to get a container into this country for free, without paying a lot of taxes, customs duty, etc. But because of the power of prayer, the Lord not only brought the container out of the harbor without us having to pay any taxes, etc., but He also did this in the record time of only one week! Although there was one bill of US$400 for unloading and harbor charges which we were not able to get around, He took care of that one, too, without us having to go around to ask for help in paying it. He sent a new friend, who we barely knew, who offered to pay for it, just like that!
The Lord provided the safe shipping of the container entirely for free, which was an answer to the many prayers surrounding this project. When we heard that some containers of other individuals or humanitarian aid organizations were stuck in the harbor from four to six months, we got very desperate. We acquired extra prayer power from our friends, supporters, and shepherds by sending them updates of our situation and specifically asking them to pray for a miracle.
After our container was out, we could only thank God for it and praise Him for this miracle through prayer! Even our Muslim friend who helped us with the large amount of paperwork said in the end that everyone who either heard or saw how quickly our container left the harbor was amazed. As you know, Muslims believe in prayer, and it was a testimony to him of what the Lord can do when we pray.
By Christian, Bowy, Carmella, and Felicia, Dominican Republic
While out singing the other night, the three of us girls were going to return home because things weren’t going as well as we’d expected, but we decided to stop and hear from the Lord about it. He told us to go back to a café where we’d already sung, which was not exactly what we had in mind. Upon returning to the café, we sang Silent Night for a few interested people who gave us a donation.
While we were singing, a man sitting at one of the tables noticed us and asked us to come over. We sat down with him, and he bought us drinks. After we talked, explaining our work, he told us that God had told him that something special was going to happen for him that day. As soon as he saw us, he knew that we were it, and thought, They’re here!
He’s a very spiritual man. He asked us if we could feel the Spirit and if we felt the goose bumps he had also. We agreed that it was a meeting arranged by the Lord. After hearing about what we do with the poor children in the area, he explained that he works with large companies who are obligated to help different organizations. He said he wanted to be our Robin Hood, taking from the rich to give to the poor.
Through him the Lord made it possible for 200 children to be fed a wonderful Christmas dinner, complete with tables, chairs, decorations, and music! We are so thankful for meeting him, as finding supporters has been on the top of our prayer list since opening our Home.
By Praise, Kazakhstan
We had been praying for some time that the Lord would supply a CD ROM for one of our computers, so we could have easier access to the mailings on the MO site. Then our main computer, which was quite old and slow, started to have problems. So we started to pray for an upgrade. We weren’t doing anything about it, because we didn’t have much time or money, but we kept praying.
One day we were in town on business and the Lord gave us a check to stop by a computer company. Even though we were short on time, we decided to give it a try since we’d been praying for our computer.
The director was busy, so we told the Lord that if He wanted us to see him then He needed to do a miracle as we only had 15 minutes. So our wonderful miracle-working Lover did it again. We saw the man, presented our need to him, he gave his man the order to take care of our computer, and we were on our way to our next appointment in 15 minutes! Exactly what we asked for!
The Lord is so wonderful. It didn’t even take much effort from our side—other than praying and obeying His checks. Now we have not only a CD ROM, but also a Pentium 2, 64K of RAM, 4MB video card, and 54x CD ROM. Praise His name!
By Kevin and Jemina, South Africa
We have opened a young people’s Home here in George, South Africa, and what the Lord is doing is just blowing our minds. We can see every day how faithful the Lord is to supply all our needs. We came down here with the bare essentials and now we have a Home, almost!
While out or on outreach I always check that I have tracts on me, and try to spend time with people I meet. The good fruit of this is that we are meeting people who are willing to buy tools from us or support the work. Oftentimes we spend hours talking to people, encouraging, praying, and sharing testimonies with them of what God has done for us in our lives.
After we have met them, I ask them if they would like to receive a weekly devotional feeding that I send out once a week. This helps to feed them, keeps them in touch with what we’re doing, and reminds them of who we are. We always hear from them how inspiring the reading is and how it’s just what they needed at that time. Funny how something that can seem so small on your part means so much to someone else.
By feeding our friends and supporters, the Lord has blessed us with a car, two airline tickets, one month’s rent in a previous Home, and now this month’s budget.
When our Home had only been operating for three weeks, the outreach was going very slow. I was wondering what we were going to do to make our budget that month. After praying and leaving it in the Lord’s hands, we went to visit one of our supporters. We ended up talking and he said he had something for us—which just happened to be 80% of our budget!
Follow-up works and witnessing pays off in every way!
By Christopher, Andre, and Joyful, Brazil
At a time of real financial need, we had no money, no HER, no survival food, and hardly any tools. Then a couple that sends us support talked to one of their clients about us and showed her some of our newsletters. (I’ve kept up a little newsletter for the last 18 years or so.) This woman who met us only by referral sent us a very generous donation which allowed us to set aside an emergency fund, get a complete survival stock for one month, buy tools, and share cash or tools with three other Homes close by! We even sent off some more to different Homes on the mission field.
When this same lady, who’s never met us, learned we were driving around in an ‘85 station wagon, she gave our friends a check for US$10,000—specifically for us to buy ourselves a new car. Wow! Isn’t that amazing?
In prophecy the Lord had told us that if we’d just take time to love Him first and keep feeding the sheep, there would be nothing He wouldn’t do for us. The amazing thing is that we’ve never met this lady in person. And we only met the people who told her about us one time in their church. That was about 18 years ago while raising home support with our then little kids. We’ve kept them on our little mailing list, even though sometimes we wouldn’t hear from them for the longest time.
It makes us want to love more, witness more, and serve more. What the Lord has done for us, our Home of little nobodies, He can do for anyone!
PROMISES THROUGHOUT MAG:
I have told you there are no impossibilities. It is not true that I cannot or will not supply for My children in the interim. Am I not able?!(ML #3363:157c).
It is a gross misunderstanding to think that I cannot supply for My children while they are doing My will!(ML #3363:157a, GN 959).
(Jesus speaking:) The God factor means standing on My promises. It means trusting in Me, believing that nothing is impossible with Me. It means that I am able to supply all your needs. It means that faith in Me overrides all impossibilities.
The God factor means that I have opened to you the riches of the universe, I have put before you a great reservoir of supply, and it’s yours for the asking, yours for the taking. The God factor means that if you will put your trust fully in Me, you will lack nothing. It means that if you preach the Gospel, you will live of the Gospel. It means that all things are possible to you. It means if you are trusting Me and doing what I tell you to do, I will never fail to support you, even if I have to drop the support out of the sky. It means good witnessing always pays. It means if you are obeying Me, I will take care of your needs. It means if I promise bread, I will not give you a stone.
Practically speaking, it means if the Family will put their trust in Me, if they will claim My promises, if they will obey what I tell them to do, I will supply all their needs according to My riches in glory. It means if they will get out and do the ‘wenting,’ I will supply.
The God factor means trusting Me more than trusting in the arm of the flesh, more than trusting in the worldly system of man. The God factor is standing on My Word and My promises (ML #3363:152-155).
To think that pushing Activated is not going to bring in the funds initially is not true. Do you think that I am not able to supply each step of the way for My Family? (ML #3363:157b).
It takes faith, yes. It takes courage; it takes daring to trust Me. It takes the ‘God factor’—putting your trust wholly and completely in Me, claiming My Word, and expecting Me to do miracles, to do what you cannot do. It takes ignoring possible consequences when the doubters say, ‘No, no, no, it can’t be done.’ It takes taking a stand (ML #3363:160).
If you will seek Me for your particular situation, if you will unite and do the things I tell you to do, if you will ask Me everything each step of the way, I will give you the key to every situation, the solution to every problem. Living by faith in Me is the only thing that will keep you in the times to come (ML #3363:68).
Just as I supplied for the children of Israel as they wandered in the desert, so I am able to supply for you in today’s modern world, and in great abundance! (ML #3363:63).
My Word held true yesterday, it holds true today, and it will hold true forever—they that preach the Gospel shall live of the Gospel (ML #3363:62).
By Brian (21), Kenya:
The Action through Prayer GNs have helped us to become more fervent prayer warriors in general and impressed upon us the need to pray more for everyday things. For about a month we had been desperate in our prayers for supply. One of the specific things we’d been praying for for a long time was an oven. Although we’d prayed for it many times, last month we expected it to happen. Sure enough, the Lord supplied a second-hand, but nice electric oven in very good condition. God bless dear Zanny for provisioning it.
By Marie (17) and Ester (16), Brazil
As we rode home we met a man who was very interested in our work and in the Word. He bought a few videos and signed up for Activated on the spot. In the course of our conversation, we mentioned that we were in need of a printing machine for our Home. Within a few days, he asked us to come to his office to pick up a new one! PTL! That was a wonderful answer to our prayers, and it encouraged our faith for the Lord to continue to work on our list of impossibilities.
By Abner, Pat, Jace, Jenny, Zambia
We had been praying for a lit printing miracle, as we were running out of lit! Out witnessing, we had prayed with 25 young men. We pulled out a few pieces of lit for them to share, but had to duck into the shop of a friend to get away from the crowd since we didn’t have enough lit for them all! What a shame! Later, while witnessing to a nice hardware store manager, he told us that his brother-in-law had the best printers in the city and all the NGOs print there. We thanked him profusely, thinking all the while, Hmmmm, this feels like a potential miracle and answer to prayer!
We found his brother-in-law to be a very receptive, broken young Lebanese man, who seemed to have a vacuum for the spirit. He offered to print 40,000 tracts for us for free! We left walking on the clouds!
By Jesse, Marie Jolie, Maria Clara, and Jessica, Brazil:
Jesse asked a taxi driver for a long ride to a faraway fair to promote Activated and the tools. He was explaining to him about our missionary work when the man told him that in a dream the day before God had told him not to ask any money of a certain missionary man that he was going to meet the following day, because he is a man of God. Thank God for His supernatural supply!
By Crysolite, Julian, and Rejoice, the Rainbow Home, Japan
The Lord miraculously provided a large house close to the center of town, after we prayed and searched for more than a year and a half! It originally was being rented for 150,000 yen (US$1,120) a month, and this was too expensive for us at the time, so we kept looking. Then a few months ago the price went down. Everything we asked the Lord to do, He did, and it came through when every other house we looked at and tried to get fell through!
Priscilla with the poor kids at an orphanage where we help out
Maggie giving a Bible class
Davida (of Joshua and Faithy) in the midst of happy kids who just received toys and Jesus for Christmas!
Copyright © 2002 by The Family
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