The Year of Miracles

 

Before we’d leave on a mission trip to China, Andy would have our team praying for specific things for that year. This particular year, we prayed for miracles. As it turned out, we had very little “ministry money” to take with us. Andy would always budget some ministry money which would allow us to help the people in whatever way was needed. I just remember everything was more expensive that year—airline tickets, the exchange rate, etc.  so our ministry budget was smaller.  

When we got to the airport, Andy told our team about the situation and we all began praying specifically that God would go before us and expand our ministry and our ministry money. We asked to see a real “loaves and fishes” experience where God would multiply our money or that it would never run out.

Andy was meticulous with our record keeping. Every night, after a hard day of ministry, out would come the money bag with our handmade receipts.  We were in a rural area of China and no one gave receipts. In fact, at that time, even large cities didn’t give receipts. Since our church required receipts, we would write down what we spent as our day progressed. And every night, we still had the same amount of money. 

I wish I could remember what all we did to help people that year. It seems like it was the year one of our young girls was in the hospital. And I use that term loosely. Just imagine what our hospitals were like in 1900. This fifteen-year-old girl shared a room with an old man and everyone who came to visit him was smoking in the room. The IV she had was rubber tubing attached to a glass bottle. Food wasn’t served to the patients.  They would remove their own IV and go across the street to get food and wait for a nurse to reattach the IV when they got back. It was shocking! So we would go and buy her food and take it to her. And when we couldn’t go, we would send a local person with the money to take care of her. We paid for her hospital stay which came to about $100.  

Over and over, every single night…Andy would pour the money on our bed and count it and compare it to the receipts…and it never measured up. We always had more money. We would have a team meeting every night and Andy would tell our team how God was supplying for every need.  We were in awe!

I remember on the way home, we encountered another need which required the remaining ministry money. We went home having spent every single penny we’d taken—but our records showed we’d spent about 7X what we’d taken! It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. 

I want to always remember…God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He still multiplies the loaves and fishes.