Reaches for my Evangelism Slides

While I was over at the meeting site on our day off, setting up the sanctuary, a darkness was seen suddenly. The children ran to the windows and reported seeing trees bending clear over. I called them away from the windows and began to pray. I had left large boxes full of program slides in the window to prop it open. It had been unbearably hot. I hoped to cool the room off for when we returned. Now I was afraid my whole future program was scattering throughout the city. I asked God to place HIS mighty hand on those slides or I was devastated in the program I had come to do. I depended heavily on those visual aids. I could not work with the translator without them. I had a translator who had a very poor grasp of English. Maybe it was my pronunciation. 

God knew I needed them. I continued on setting up and wondering what God was doing. Little did I know how serious a storm we were in. When things blackened, it did not last long.

Soon the evangelist and his wife arrived as they promised to help set up the sanctuary model which takes 40 man hours. It takes much less time if there are good helpers who speak the same language.

The evangelist was breathless with excitement. Both he and his wife proceeded to tell their experience. They had just shut the hotel door when all became black. Somehow they worried about their clothing drying in the open window. They tried to open the door and go shut the window but the door was suctioned shut. It would not budge. Then they heard shattering glass. When the light returned, they entered and discovered some clothing had gone out the window. The rain was pouring by then. The electricity failed and they had 11 flights of stairs to reach the exit of the hotel and the awaiting car and translator. They reported seeing trees down, power lines broken and hanging dangerously over the street. Also they saw  six inch deep streams of water in the streets. 

I knew God was strong enough to have my slides protected, but I urged the translator to take me to the motel. I had to know what had happened to my program.

Arriving at the hotel, I scurried up the 11 flights of stairs to my room. A maid was near by and she showed how she had quickly seen the storm coming, ran to my room, pulled slides from the large wide window ledge and closed the windows. Not one broken window happened in my room. All was dry. God had heard and answered my prayer. I was on the end room and expected the worst of the damage but was sheltered by His mighty hand.

In addition to all this, we were in the path of the tornado. Yet God spared the meeting house so meetings went on as planned. 

"Nothing can happen in any part of the universe without the knowledge of Him who is omnipresent. Not a single event of human life is unknown to our Maker. While Satan is constantly devising evil, the Lord our God overrules all, so that it will not harm His obedient, trusting children. The same power that controls the boisterous waves of the ocean can hold in check all the power of rebellion and of crime. God says to one as to the other, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." {FLB 61.3} Faith I Live By,  author:  Ellen White

Job 38:11 And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed? 

Isaiah 59:19 So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.