Hope & Miracles

by Amy Newmark

  When we got home, life returned to the usual stress level. Months and years passed, and we lived through one crisis after another.

  Sometimes I shared my vision, but only with a few people. I prayed often about it, feeling that this vision had come from God. He’d have to be the one to fulfill it because I sure didn’t have the means to pursue such a venture.

  Then life took over, years passed and the kids grew up. I remarried and started a new life learning how to be a wife again. I always wondered what that initial vision and idea for this type of ministry meant. There were times I thought, “Oh, that was just a silly idea you had because of where you were in life. People won’t support it.”

  Even when I put it on the back burner and tried to forget about it, it would resurface. I’d share it with someone, and they’d say what a tremendous need it would fill. One day I even shared it with my pastor, who agreed it was a good idea. But I’d always get wrapped up in my life again and let it go.

  One day when my husband and I came home from out of town, there was a message on our answering machine. A woman’s voice explained she’d gotten my number from our pastor. We went to the same church but had never met.

  She went on to explain the purpose of her call. She and her husband were purchasing some property with a house on it. They were buying the property to specifically be used for ministry, but weren’t sure what yet. She further explained that our pastor had shared with her my vision, and she hoped it was okay that he gave her my number.

  When I returned her call, she wanted me to go see the property and let her know what I thought. She gave me the address adding, “It’s a big yellow house with a full wraparound covered porch.” She had me at “wraparound.” I asked God, “Is this You?”

  I drove to the property full of anticipation. When I pulled into the driveway and caught a glimpse of the house, my heart fluttered and stomach did flip-flops.

  I slowly pulled up, taking it all in. “Wow,” was all I could say. I stepped onto the wide covered porch that wrapped all the way around the house.

  I slowly walked around the porch, gazing at the woods, peeking through large windows, remembering my vision from eighteen years earlier. Through a rush of emotions, I knew it wasn’t a silly dream, but something real and tangible.

  The covered porch was massive, and I thought, “Plenty of room for rockers and patio furniture where single moms can rest while planning the course of their lives as their children safely play on the seven-plus acres.”

  Today, that vision is a 501(c)(3), non-profit ministry to single moms. In early 2015 we hope to take our first four single-mom families into a residential program where they can receive a little help getting back on their feet by going to college, getting better jobs, learning parenting skills, getting counseling, joining support groups and becoming strong family units.

  Now I know my nineteen-year, single-mom journey, with its struggles, triumphs, joys and sorrows will not be wasted. This is God’s vision, His dream, and it continues to unfold day by day. I can’t wait to see what He does next.

  ~Terri Webster

  Mysterious Miracles

  Deep Faith

  You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

  ~John 14:14

  In the summer of 1991 our seven-year-old daughter, Patty, waited in gleeful anticipation for her friend Melissa’s arrival. Melissa’s family planned to spend a day in Nebraska before heading back to their new home in California, and we’d arranged to let the girls enjoy the day together.

  Because of the heat, the excited girls begged for a water outing. “But Melissa doesn’t know how to swim,” I pointed out.

  My husband, Jake, came up with a compromise. “Honey, they only have one day together. We can go to the Platte River. It’s shallow.”

  Looking at the girls’ hopeful faces, I agreed. We loaded the car with fruit snacks and fishing gear, and headed out.

  Nature’s symphony welcomed our arrival. Piping birdcalls, the low drone of insects, and the sound of leaves rustling in the breeze mixed with the soft lap of water against the shore. The girls and I declined Jake’s offer of fishing. He laid a rod over his shoulder, grabbed his beat-up brown tackle box, and hurried upstream, eager to battle the catfish.

  The girls’ joy proved infectious, and I joined their exuberant play, chasing iridescent blue dragonflies and tiny sand-colored toads. We drew in deep breaths of the hot, river-scented air and raced into the shallow water. It flowed lazily past our ankles, and we dragged our feet through the smooth golden sand while darting silver minnows tickled our toes.

  The heat increased as the early afternoon sun blazed across the cloudless blue sky. In spite of the sunblock we’d slathered on, the intense rays baked our backs. We splashed each other to stay cool, and the girls asked, “Is this as deep as it gets?”

  Old timers described the Platte as, “an inch deep and a mile wide,” and they seemed to be right. We waded across the wide expanse of slow moving water until it swirled around the girls’ knees. Better, but it didn’t cool us enough, or satisfy our desire for more river adventure.

  We waded in farther and found a pocket that seemed perfect, waist deep on me, chest level for the girls. We splashed each other, refreshed by the cool water.

  Laughing, I backed downstream about twenty feet to escape the girls’ tag-teamed water barrage, not realizing a deep, swift channel hid in this otherwise sluggish river.

  I took another backward step, and the bottom dropped out from under my feet. The current, much stronger here, dragged me in deeper.

  I called, “Stay back,” but it was too late.

  The girls waded closer to see what had happened to me, and the current captured them. They struggled against its pull, but inch by inch it sucked them closer to the swift running channel.

  And Melissa couldn’t swim.

  I yelled to Jake, but he was fishing about a quarter of a mile upstream. Even if he heard me, he’d never reach us in time. I shouted, “God, help us!”

  Both girls screamed. Horrified, I treaded water and watched the current jerk my daughter off her feet. Patty loved swimming in pools, but here she fought to keep the relentless river from sucking her under.

  I screamed again, “God, help us,” as Melissa succumbed to the river’s unyielding pull.

  My thoughts raced. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to catch both girls and keep them afloat. Just then Jake came around the bend. Thick interwoven brush blocked the riverbank there, so he fought his way through the shallows. But too great a distance separated us. He couldn’t help.

  I struggled to keep my head above water. My arm and leg muscles burned as I fought the channel’s pull, each stroke more difficult than the last. A sick certainty overwhelmed me—these precious girls would drown, and I could do nothing to save them.

  It was hopeless. We needed a miracle.

  A sudden, insistent thought overrode all others. “There is power in the name of Jesus.”

  I’d invited Jesus into my life a few months earlier, and He’d already demonstrated his miraculous power, saving me from a ladder fall that could have killed me.

  I spit foul-tasting water from my mouth and screamed, “Jesus, save us!”

  Immediately a swell of sand grew beneath my feet. It lifted me as if I was standing on top of an elevator. The sand ridge raised me chest high out of the water at the exact moment the girls swept by.

  I reached out and grabbed Patty with my left arm, and Melissa in my right. We clung to each other and inched backwards. Where the drop-off had been moments before, the solid ridge of sand now formed a path for us to escape from the deep channel.

  Jake reached us as we staggered into the shallow water we’d spurned such a short time before. “Are you okay?”

  Patty jumped up and down. “Jesus saved us, Dad!” She hugged him and grabbed Melissa’s hand. They raced through the ankle-depth water to a sandbar, their excited chatter filling the air. They spun in circles, celebrating our mira
culous rescue.

  Jake held me as I slumped trembling against his side and told him of the divine intervention that occurred the instant I called out Jesus’s name.

  We stepped closer to watch the girls scoop huge letters in the sand. Their message of gratitude read, “Thank you, Jesus!”

  ~Jeanie Jacobson

  Money from Heaven

  When your intentions are pure and clear, nature will support you in unimaginable ways.

  ~Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

  An angry rain whipped the exposed skin of my face but did not deter me from my mission of finding the perfect honeymoon outfit. Head down, chin tucked in, I trudged up the narrow steps of the boutique on Newbury Street in Boston. Once inside the brightly lit shop, I lingered, purveying the jewelry, the catchy notecards and of course, the summer dresses. Amidst the new arrivals rack, I found a cute gingham dress that not only looked great but also would be perfect for Hawaii. I gave the teenage clerk my credit card and watched her wrap up the dress with bright fuchsia tissue paper, pack it in a monogrammed box, and slip it in a shopping bag.

  As I left the store, I noticed a woman standing with a girl of about seven to the side of the green and white striped awning. It took me a moment to realize she was talking to me.

  “Can you spare some change?” she asked. “I need to take a train back to Lynne with my niece.”

  I don’t always give to people who ask for money, but this time I paused. The woman’s feet were placed squarely on the ground, wide enough to give heft to her stature. She looked to be over fifty, with gray curls and a brown bucket hat. The little girl holding her hand wore a slicker, but still looked uncomfortable and cold. The wind slapped my shopping bag against my thigh.

  I took in her wide chocolate brown eyes, and held them for a moment. They were filled with such sincerity and hope, that, in that split second, I decided to help.

  She needed to go quite far, and a mere dollar or two probably wouldn’t be enough to cover her train fare, so I made a silent commitment to give her a twenty. But when I opened my wallet I was all out of cash.

  The rain continued to pour, oblivious to our conversation and her plight, soaking us both. I had already said I would help and I didn’t want to go back on my promise.

  “Follow me,” I said. She hesitated and looked at her niece.

  “Come on, there is an ATM machine a few blocks up. We can go there.” I had to shout a bit because of the downpour.

  She assented and the three of us braced ourselves against the storm until we reached the bank several blocks uptown. I used my card to open the glassed-in ATM foyer. As I walked to the machine, a crisp solitary twenty-dollar bill floated in the air directly in front of me. It must have been caught in a draft, forgotten by the last customer. I quickly checked up and down the street, but no one was around. I plucked the twenty-dollar bill from the air, and in awe, handed it to her.

  After she thanked me, I said, “It’s not from me, it’s from God” and I told her what happened. She broke into a slow astonished grin and her eyes brightened in delight. “I was praying all morning to God to help me get home,” she told me, “and then you came right out of that store.” We shook our heads in disbelief, both giddy with our good fortune. We parted ways and I stepped back out into the rain. I looked up at the stormy April sky, tipped my head back, and laughed.

  ~Julia Shepherd Tang

  When the Rocks Cried Out

  However many blessings we expect from God, His infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts.

  ~John Calvin

  The yard of our little fishing cottage was going to disappear if we didn’t do something. This was our home but the lapping water of the beautiful lake we lived on was eating away at our shore. To make matters worse, the creek along the side of our property was doing the same thing. Our options were limited. Cement seawalls were very expensive, even if we built one ourselves, and it would take a lot of stone to go such a long way. We were teachers in a small Christian school and our income allowed for very few “extras.”

  We needed to do something, so we decided to order one truck full of rocks at a time as our budget allowed. It might take a long time, but eventually the job would be complete and we would stop the erosion of our property.

  As we were discussing the details of placing the rocks with John, who we hired to do the job, we learned that he had recently undergone a bitter divorce. As he shared his story with us, we saw a heartbroken, lonely, bewildered young man. My heart went out to him, and I asked him if he had a church family to help him shoulder his burden. He told us that he used to go to church but had no intention of going back. It was clear that he was quite angry with God. We knew that God was exactly Who John needed at this difficult time in his life, and we prayed that He would reveal Himself to him.

  The truckload of rocks arrived, and much to our chagrin, it looked like a very small pile of rocks. The man who delivered a front-end loader to our property looked at the small pile of rocks with John and agreed that it would take many more loads to finish the job. But it was a start, however far it would go.

  The next day was a long one for us at work. We taught all day and had to stay for our big annual concert that evening. John was at our home that day building what he could with the first truckload of rocks. When we got home after dark, my husband went out back with a flashlight to see how far the rocks went. After quite a while, he called for me to come outside. We walked all along the lake bank and all along the creek up to the road. The entire bank was thickly covered with white rocks! What on earth? Had John ordered more loads of rock? How would we pay for this?

  Back in the house the phone was ringing. It was John. “Mrs. Schumann, did you see your rocks?” He proceeded to tell me what had happened.

  He said that every time he went back to the pile to get another scoop of rock, the pile appeared to be as big as it had been in the beginning. After getting halfway across the lake edge, the rented front-end loader broke. The same man delivered the replacement machine and when he saw the pile of rocks he said, “It’s too bad it broke down. Looks like you didn’t get anything done.” John told him how far he had gotten, and neither of them could understand what was going on.

  Load after load, the rock pile stayed the same. John said that our neighbor couldn’t believe it either, as he watched the amazing day unfold. After finishing the entire bank, there were rocks left over! John surrounded the culvert leading from under the road with the remaining rocks.

  “All I could think of was that the Lord is blessing these people for serving Him. It was like the loaves and fishes. Mrs. Schumann, I am going to go back to church!”

  All I could think of was, “The rocks cried out to John, today” (Luke 19:28-40).

  ~Bette Schumann

  A Flash of Faith

  One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

  ~Elbert Hubbard

  Oh no! This couldn’t be happening! In an instant, my routine day took a disastrous turn! I sat down in my home office to work, slipped the little flash drive into my computer and clicked to open it. The light on the front blinked on for a second and went out. I clicked a second, third, and then a fourth time . . . nothing but a blink and then darkness! I pulled out the flash drive and inserted it into a different USB port and clicked . . . then sat up straighter, now fully awake. Why wasn’t the flash drive opening so I could access the data? My whole life was on that flash drive! I took it out and looked at it carefully. The center part that fit into the USB port was loose, and a wire stuck out on the side! I taped around the entire apparatus and inserted it again. The light came on for a couple of seconds and then went out!

  In retrospect I realize it was crazy to put everything on that flash drive. I took it back and forth to work, always in too big of a rush to run back-ups.

  Sometimes we take technology for granted, and I was scrambling to remember exactly what was on that small bit
of metal and plastic —work logs, ideas, and fundraising projects. I had placed all my personal data on that drive including Christmas lists, family photos, and recipes. It held all my personal business documents, writing notes, and speeches. All lost! I felt angry and stupid! Why had I put everything on that small, three-inch drive that wasn’t even as big as my finger! It was just so convenient to always have my life right there in the pocket of my purse! But now what?

  I took the flash drive into three major computer stores to see if they could extract the data. The light would come on for a second or two and then go out just like it had for me. A clerk at the last store gave me a pamphlet for a data recovery company.

  I rushed home to call, and the man who answered was confident. “Just mail it to us. We’ll take the case apart, solder the wires, and recover your data.”

  I felt myself relax at that good news and asked, “About how much will that cost?”

  “Oh,” he replied, “between $1,000 and $2,700.”

  I felt my heart sink. There was no way I could afford that! Life went on but every time I started to type something, I realized what I needed was on that ruined flash drive. I had to re-create each document, slowing down every project I worked on.

  About a month later I was downloading flash drives of photos onto my computer. (Yes, I was faithfully backing up everything by then.) When I finished, I put the drives into the tray on my desk and noticed my useless flash drive there. I started to toss it into the trash to be rid of the daily reminder of my frustrating failure, but something made me pause.

  Realizing that I hadn’t asked God to help me, I knelt down with the flash drive in my hand and prayed. I told God that I knew I had been wrong to place my faith in that piece of technology instead of in Him. I had put my trust in something I thought would always be there and it failed me as the things of this world will.