Category Archives: Miracles

Miracles

Whose Job?

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Hullo, this is God, I will be handling all of your problems and concerns today.  That’s My job!

Your job is to give them to Me and then trust Me to deal with them. Have a great day!!

       We were staying with a friend for a couple of days, and this note was on the inside  of the door of their toilet room. It reminded me of the little ditty based on Philippians 4:6 in the Bible which says…                If ever you are in a fix, remember Philippians four and six! This says (depending which translation of the Bible you are using)…. Don’t worry about ANYTHING. Instead, pray about EVERYTHING! And whatever happens, don’t forget to give thanks for the answer!

    We saw this put into practice one weekend, when we were in charge of a girl’s camp. The visiting speaker was from down country, and he had chosen this verse as the weekend’s lesson. So at the evening meal on the first day, we all learned to say it the way he instructed…with great emphasis on the “Anything” and the “Everything”. He gave a short talk about what it was saying and later on we all went to our dormitories. He and his wife were sleeping in an outside cottage with their car parked beside it.

    When he got up in the morning and looked outside, horrors! His car was gone!! That was bad enough, but in the front up under the driver’s seat, was a packet with a couple of month’s rent that one of his friends had asked him to pick up for them, amounting to several hundred dollars. After breakfast, he got up and told the girls what had happened.

“Now,” he said,  “ We are going to put our memory verse  into practice. What did it say?”

The girls remembered it and recited it all together.

“Yes,” he said, “And what do we have to remember after telling God all about it?”

One bright young thing put up her hand and said, “We have to say thankyou for the answer no matter what happens!”

    That day probably would have been one of the hardest days that that man ever had to go through. Thoughts running through his head would have been, “How are we going to get home?”  and, “Will the police be able to find the car? I hope that rent money is still safe there!”

   However, he got through the day with the rest of his talks and the girls’ programmes, and once more took the girls through the memory verse that night.

    He got up early the next morning, still anxious, and looked around not feeling particularly thankful. But then he could hardly believe his eyes. Down at the entry gate he could see a car parked under the trees. And what’s more, it looked like his car! So he ran down the driveway, and sure enough it WAS his car. He opened the door and saw the keys there, and then put his hand under the seat, and sure enough the rent money hadn’t been touched!!

    How pleased he was to find all this! We can imagine how much he would have given thanks to God for having brought everything back to him safely ! At breakfast that morning, he could hardly wait to tell the girls how God had answered his prayers with a YES! What an example it was to each of them, and something that we leaders never forgot.

Town and Around

Is it Really Dirty?

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    We had come back from a trip in the motor home where some of the way was down a dusty, rough gravel road. You might wonder why we put up with the jiggles and rattles of that road, but the end result was well worth it….a beautiful, mostly deserted sandy beach, where the fishing was remarkably good!

   We stayed there for several days before rattling our way back to the tarsealed main highway. As usual after several days away, and having unpacked all the perishables, the next job was to wash the bus down. As hubby went around with the long handled broom, I asked if the front had been washed to which he replied yes. So I then asked if the back had needed doing, as it look alright from a distance.

“You’d be surprised how dirty it was,”  he said. “When I put the hose on it, the dust just poured off it!”

“Oh,” I said, “It didn’t look too bad to me!”

“Well, it was, “ he replied, “It certainly needed doing!”

       This just reminded me of how we view ourselves, We look at others and think that we are doing quite a good job of things, that we aren’t as bad as So and So down the street or our neighbours next door. But if we put ourselves under the spotlight of God’s Word, it is surprising how much dirt we find is lurking in the hidden corners or above the window ledges of our minds. It is no use measuring ourselves against others, thinking that you are better than they are. The only measuring stick that is valid for us to see ourselves as we really are, is the measuring stick of Jesus Christ. He is the only perfect human being to ever walk this planet….the rest of us have all been born with the taint of sin on us. This is what has to be dealt with and cleansed out of our lives.

Even if we didn’t do anything really very “wrong”, there is still the fact that we were born with that stigma on us! That is what has to be got rid of, and there is only one way to do that, through humbling ourselves to call out to God, “Be merciful to me, a sinner!”

Miracles

The Young Backpacker.

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The young man got off the plane in Auckland with his back-pack, not knowing which way to turn. He only had five days in New Zealand and all he knew was that he would like to see the Bay of Islands and have a day or so on a farm.

    So he turned to the north, and caught a bus to Kerikeri. Whether he made his travels a matter of prayer or not, I don’t know, and some would call this a mere coincidence, but we prefer to call it a miracle, or perhaps even more so, a matter of the Lord honouring those who honour Him.  After all,  how many young back packers carry a large Bible around with them and take the time out of a tight schedule to go to church in a strange country?

    It was the summer holidays at this time and as we usually did, we were spending the time on our yacht (sail boat)  in the Bay of Islands. We always made a point of attending a small church fellowship in Kerikeri while on holiday and this particular Sunday morning we went there as usual. We saw this tall young man sitting at the back of the church carrying a large Bible with him…by the look of his clothes we guessed he was an American, and when we heard him speak all doubt was removed!

    Our friends invited him as well as ourselves home for lunch, and we had a lively discussion over the meal. When he told us about the two things he wanted to see while in New Zealand, we looked at each other and then told him that we could probably point him in the direction of both of them at no cost if he liked.

    He did like, and so he came back with us to the yacht and stayed a couple of days with us. We were able to take him to all the popular tourist spots, and my, how we did talk. We talked well into the night about Christians things. There were many things he wanted to know that we were able to tell him and we all had a thoroughly enjoyable time. 

     When he left us, we got in touch with our brother on his dairy farm and sent him there for another day or so. So this was a case of the Lord granting him his desire in a way that could not have been engineered in any other way! He came as a stranger and left as a  brother.

     We kept in touch for many years and the spin-off was that we were able to pay a visit to the town in Oregon where he eventually had a tourist business, and he gave us a wonderful and memorable trip on one of the lakes in his area.

Miracles

Heaven is a Beautiful Place!

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     My husband grew up as the eldest child in a family of three. The family had very little when they started off, and their father was planting tung-oil trees at a new plantation in the northern part of New Zealand at the time that he was born. There were three children in quick succession…..two boys and a girl. It seemed that the family was now complete with the three children.

The family then moved to a small cottage on a two acre property in a small settlement on the shores of one of the northern harbours.

When the little girl (Audrey) had got to the stage of crawling around the floor, they were living in this cottage. One evening as their mother was doing the vegetables for tea, a pumpkin seed fell on the floor. Audrey crawled along and picked it up and as babies do, put it into her mouth. But instead of it going down smoothly, she choked on it, and it went down the wrong way. Her mother picked her up and slapped her on the back to no avail, it just seemed stuck half way.

So they called  a friend from further around the road  who had a vehicle, and rushed her off to the local hospital. The oldest boy could just remember the kerfuffle of that evening, but not any real details.

The doctor looked at the child and said she had better be left in hospital overnight. Meantime, the next day the doctor went down the harbour on a fishing trip he had already arranged. That night however, both mother and father woke up with a start as they heard the most beautiful, unearthly music in their house.

Remember,  they had no means of playing music whatsoever. They  wondered  where this music came from, it had such a sweet haunting sound, and they discussed it together. How could it be?

But the next day  they had a message from the hospital saying that their  little girl had  died  the night before with  the pumpkin seed going  into   her  lungs. They  now had the explanation for that beautiful music they had heard at that time. They both felt that it must  have  been  sent from God as He heralded their little girl into His presence.

It was many years  before their mother could forgive herself for her carelessness in dropping that seed on the floor and she was always most particular when the grandchildren came along to never let  anything fall on the floor where they were crawling.

Many years later little Audrey’s namesake (another Audrey) suffered  from copious menstrual periods while a teenager. One day,  she  had  lost so  much  blood that she fainted while in the toilet. There was  no   way   the  bleeding   could   be stopped  and  they  rushed   her  into the nearest hospital. She was so far gone, that  she could hear the music of  heaven  as  she was  going  in she said….. it  was  the most beautiful  music she had ever heard. The doctors   were   horrified to find how little blood she had left when they  gave her the transfusion that brought her back to life.

These two small glimpses into the portals of heaven show us what a place of beauty and peace it must be

 

 

 

Miracles

Was this an Angel in Disguise?

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Arriving in London!

For two middle aged people who had only been overseas a couple of  times to  Australia,  this  trip  to  England was indeed the adventure of a life time. We knew no-one there and were landing cold  turkey  as  it  were, having to find our way around from scratch. But we were well armed with maps, pre-paid tickets and a wealth  of advice from those in the know.

From leaving New Zealand in autumn, it was a sudden jolt to be catapulted  into  spring  with  no winter! The blossoms were all out on the trees, and spring bulbs flowering in the gardens.

We arrived  at Victoria Street  station after flying all night from Singapore and then catching this bus into central London. We got  out,  collecting  our luggage  around  us, looking  and feeling  totally  bewildered and confused, to  say  nothing of tired and jet lagged! The map we had didn’t seem to make sense…there were so many  streets  going  off at  all  angles, and  we didn’t  know  which  side of  the station  we  were standing  at!

Just then a bespectacled, top hatted, long black-coated and obviously very English looking   gentleman came up and asked if he could help us. We showed him the map and asked in which direction the street we  were  looking for was. We must have shown every appearance of abject bewilderment because  he  took  pity on  us and  said  he would take us there in his car! Well! We were more confused than ever….people  just   didn’t  do that to perfect strangers….was he really being helpful or was he going to hi-jack and rob us?

Before we knew it, we were being bundled into an old fashioned black car (the description of automobile suited it better!) and driven down one of the streets which went out like spokes from the station. It wasn’t very far before he pulled up at a wrought iron fence and gate outside one of the tall buildings. These buildings were  all  joined  together to all the  others  in  the  street, and very different to what we were used to. He unloaded our bags, refused  to  take anything  for his trouble and left us standing there. We looked at each other….was he an angel in disguise,  we wondered out loud!

We found ourselves  in  a  very  narrow  lobby  of  the   boarding  house,   and  checked  ourselves in.  We  were  given the key  and instructions  to get up to  our  room. It was quite difficult to navigate the narrow and windy stairs, but  after a  struggle  we  finally made it, and threw ourselves down on the bed to relax at last! We couldn’t help  wondering  if we had  indeed been entertained by an angel unawares!

After a good rest and a short sleep, we ventured out and made our way back to Victoria station to look around, making sure this time that we had our bearings correct. Was this REALLY London? Were we really here at last? It all seemed so much like a dream, we could hardly believe that our big adventure of discovering England was about to begin! Little did we know that there were more miracles and angels unawares to come in the days ahead!

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Miracles, Town and Around

Girls versus Boys.

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         It was Girls’ Camp at Cooper’s Beach Youth Camp  time again, and as usual, I was one of the leaders along with Carole. For most of the Girls’ Camps we had no problem with boys pestering the girls at all, but the occasional one  with a group of stroppy older girls could cause a problem or two if they tried to get down to the beach on their own.

This particular camp was like this. Where the problem lay was in the fact that there was a group of boys from the Motor Camp opposite who either knew some of them or else just thought they would be fair game for a bit of fun. The girls played up to them and we began to wonder just what we were going to do.

The boys would stand on the bridge and jeer and make cat calls to them and then the girls would go all silly  and squeal and laugh in reply. Anyone would think that none of them had ever seen a boy before!!!

At our morning prayer time, one of the younger leaders prayed that the problem would cease. With my usual lack of faith, I couldn’t see how it would.  But we prayed, and then rang our husbands and asked them to make it a matter of prayer at the Assembly prayer meeting that night.

The day passed reasonably quietly and then the girls began to pester for a walk along the beach after tea. I felt we were asking for trouble but Carole agreed as long as they stayed in a group together. The boys saw us head down the track under the bridge, and made their plans accordingly. When we came back, there they were all lined up on the bridge, waving sticks and making rude remarks  as we passed underneath. (This was probably at the very time the Prayer meeting was going on).

But those girls just carried on quite oblivious to their presence above them, chattering and laughing among themselves and totally ignoring those cheeky boys.  It was amazing! The boys’ fun went completely flat!

We couldn’t help agreeing that those boys were completely invisible to the girls…. the Lord had shut their eyes and they didn’t even see them! In fact, we asked one of them later about the incident and they said, ”What boys?”

    Another incident that happened at a Girls’ Camp  was that some  boys were snooping around outside  the dormitories as the girls were going to bed. The leaders would  check the grounds but never actually caught them. One night, the lights had gone out and the girls were settled down for the night, when there was  the crash of breaking glass. Someone had thrown a rock through one of the windows!

Normally it didn’t take much to make the girls all react to a noise  after dark like a mob of frightened cattle, but this time no-one woke up but Carole’s daughter.  Carole was able to shush her up while we were cleaning the bits of glass up.

We felt that this too was a miracle. What stories would have gone home to the parents if the girls had woken up!! We felt that we should report the matter to the Police so it didn’t seem that we were being negligent of the girls’ welfare, so we did this. They came and took statements from us, but as far as the girls were concerned, they weren’t  aware of a thing.

 

Miracles

The Runaway Car.

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VW Van - Copy      We were still on our trip around England and had got as far as Scotland. We had wanted to go to the Isle of Skye the previous trip we went to UK, but circumstances had prevented us from getting there. So we safely made the trip to the island this time, taking the vehicle ferry across the narrow passage of water from the seaside village of Mallaig.

We found the Isle of Sky a fascinating place and felt that we had gone back a hundred years until we met other vehicles on the narrow one way roads. Small stone crofts dotted the landscape, with the rugged hills making the backdrop. There were no fences to keep the animals off the road, and one had to be careful of not collecting a sheep or two as one went around a corner. The main town of Portree was a fascinating collection of stone houses all jumbled around the small harbour that was ringed with hills. There was no flat land….it was all sloping at different degrees.

We found the public campground a little further along the road and pulled in there, trying to find the most level bit of ground we could find. There was usual collection of tents, vans and caravans that one finds in such places and it soon began to fill up even more for the night.

The camp ground was on the sloping side of a hill, and right at the top against the fence, we noticed a tent with a car parked just below it. We didn’t see the occupants as they zipped themselves up fairly early in the evening. Other people went off down to the village below, while yet  others were preparing their evening meals.

Being summer time as it was, and so far north, it was still quite daylight at ten pm in the evening , and we were preparing for the night.  I looked up from the table where I was writing up the day’s events, and could hardly believe what I was seeing.

“Look out”, I cried, “That car at the top of the hill is running down among the tents and there is no-one in it!”

Keith looked up in disbelief, and watched the car run over one of the small domed tents, then veer towards our camper van. There was nothing we could do. The car turned slightly more, and ran between us and neighbouring caravan, just clipping its back side as it went past. It was slowing down by this time, and ended up its mad career by sitting on top of another tent beside the bottom fence.

People were scurrying around watching in horror, and checking that no-one was badly hurt. The girl in the first tent that was run over had been hurt, but she was still alive. It was only a matter of minutes and we heard the wail of the ambulance and police sirens coming. There was no-one in the second tent that still had the car sitting on top of it…..they were out on an evening walk.

As for the occupants of the zipped up tent at the top of the hill, they didn’t know anything until the police woke them up to ask why their car had run away! They were a couple of French lads and must have felt totally bewildered by the turn of the evening’s events!

How thankful we were that our van had been untouched by the runaway car that zipped so close by, and as far as we were concerned it was truly a miracle from the Lord to keep us on track for our trip. What could have happened, gave us the shivers just to think about it all!

Miracles

Truth is Stranger than Fiction!

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We had finished our tour of England and were about to leave for home via America. We had made our bookings to stay in New   York for three days before carrying on by the ordinary Greyhound bus line (this was in 1988) across the States.  We had a month’s open ticket from the time it was first used, and we could get on and off as many times as we liked during that month.

We enjoyed our few days in New York, staying in a budget hostel near the centre of the city, and our time there warrants a story of its own!

We soon found that things travelling by bus were very different to what we had expected. The first thing we noticed was that the buses (which were not tour buses) didn’t have wide panorama windows with a good view, but were fairly high with very little view to be seen from them. The second thing we found out was that no bookings needed to be made ahead, one just arrived at the bus depot and stood in line. It was a case of first come, first served! The third thing was that the main Greyhound bus depots were always in the centre of the down-town areas, and there was very little information to be had….no information help desk or kiosk to help ignorant tourists travelling alone in this big country for the first time. Not only that, but the bus depots were the haven for many beggars who looked as though they lived there, with their few belongings clustered around them. Then there were the taxi drivers all jostling you to take your bags to goodness knows where, so if you weren’t quick keeping them with you, you had to helplessly follow them and hope for the best.

Many of our fellow-travellers were young back-packers, while others were a collection of all different types of people. We felt quite vulnerable with all our worldly possessions for the trip in a couple of suitcases, and our money, passports and other documents about our persons. When one is travelling like that, it makes one realise that all the paraphernalia that one accumulates in life is really quite unnecessary for the moment! Another thing that we felt quite strongly was that even though we weren’t sure what we were going to find at the end of the day, yet we could confidently commit our day’s travel to the Lord each morning. Then just trust that He would direct us to find a bed somewhere to lay our heads on that night!

We managed to get the front seat for the first day of our journey, and this gave a good view of the road ahead. This inspired us to be bold enough to pray that night that we might be able  to have the front seat for the whole trip as we had come to America to see the country. Were we being cheeky to ask such a thing?  We didn’t know, but we remembered the verse that says, “You don’t have, because you don’t ask” and so we asked and then did our part by always being early in line at the bus depot each morning.

Where is the miracle in all this?  What we couldn’t do, God did for us. Each day, we managed to have the front seat. Sometimes we would travel during the night on the bus, and views didn’t count then. The bus would pull in to various depots on the way, and people would get on and off. Sometimes as people were travelling long distances, we found our seat had been warmed by someone who had just left the bus. Other times if people had just got off for a comfort stop, they would board the bus back to their previous seat, completely bypassing the empty front seat which was waiting for us. Twice when boarding the bus late in the day, we had to start off by sitting further back. People were getting off at various stops along the way during the night and each time if  we could edge our way further forward, we would. By the time daylight had come, we were back into the front seat again!

Another time, we found a real crowd waiting for the bus when we arrived at the depot, and we were fairly well down the line.

I gave my mate a poke in the back and said, “I don’t think we’ll get the front seat this time!” The bus pulled in with a hiss of its brakes, and people started to climb aboard. I could see the front seat was filled fairly early on this time. The bus was full by the time the last person in front of us got on board. A barrier was put across the line, and another bus pulled in as the first one left. We were the first ones to board this bus, and were able to sink thankfully into the front seat again! Truly, God was marvellously good to us!

We had a wonderful month, seeing much of the countryside and meeting some wonderful people who we have since kept in touch with for nearly thirty years!