We are preparing to conduct a 30 hour famine with our youth and the youth of two other local churches. for those of you who are not familiar with the 30 hour famine you can learn more here.
During the course of preparing for this, we have many actions that need to take place to make it all work. On Sunday morning I was talking with one of the other members of the planning team and was reassuring them that they needn’t worry so much, no matter what we plan or don’t plan God will work with the time and provide everything we need, it will be God’s time despite out best efforts… Looking back I realized I needed reminding of that same message (There I go being Simon again rather than Peter :-)) I no sooner reassure this person it is going to be okay and not to worry I turned right around and started worrying about boxes. I better explain that, for this year’s famine we are focusing on hunger and homelessness in America, and in doing so we are going to have the youth build and live in cardboard houses, we had a plan A for getting the cardboard and it seemed that plan A was not going to work out. So I convinced Brandon that what we needed to do was to go and find boxes.
After Lunch Brandon and I set out to do just that, but everywhere we turned we hit a brick wall, all the stores claimed they needed to recycle the boxes and had to account for the weight and therefore could not give us any boxes but they would be happy to sell prepackaged moving boxes from their sales floor. Well this went on for about 2 hours, mean while I was on the internet via my cell phone, looking for pricing on buying boxes from various places which also appeared to be a brick wall (cost prohibitive).
About the time we are getting frustrated and attempting to make light of the situation, Brandon starts noticing cardboard boxes laying on the side of the road and jokingly beings to count them… Randall “this is crazy 2.70 a box” Brandon “Yeah, hey there’s 3 maybe we should be picking those up” both laugh. you get the picture… well we finally come to the conclusion that God is saying “WAIT!” did I not tell you “if you ask I will provide?” (Matthew 7:7-8
or Luke 11:9-10) we decide to let go and let God. “hey there’s 5!”
Brandon drops me off and decides he wants to pick up a book for Crystal, and besides don’t books come in boxes may be barnes and noble will have boxes :-) so he heads over to the local BnN which is located in a larger shopping area with 2 entrances, 1 directly in front of the store and one on the other side of the area, normally Brandon would go to the entrance directly in front of the store however to get there you have to make a right at a stop light which happened to be red and happened to have a line (coincidence?) so Brandon turned into the other entrance and right there in the middle of the parking lot was a construction dumpster overflowing with cardboard. Brandon checked one of the local shops and they stated it was from one of the other shops and they were sure no one would complain since the dumpster was usually full and the workers would stack stuff next to it which then blew all over the parking lot. Brandon calls me and my son and I went up and met him and proceeded to fill the back of his truck with cardboard. We started driving back to the church and Brandon decided to go an unusual way to miss traffic lights so i would be able to follow. As we are driving my sons says “Dad, check that out” I look where he is pointing and sure enough there is ANOTHER dumpster also overflowing with cardboard, we didn’t stop but if needed we know where to look. That was Sunday, on Monday I told this story to two people who were able to provide two other possibilities of places to find more cardboard. coincidence?
the other thing that happened also began on Sunday and the formed into an answer prayer. On Sunday, one of the other organizers of the 30 hour famine asked (at the announcement time) if I would make a reminder announcement about food etc for the famine (sounds funny right… we end the 30 hours of fasting with a feast provided by the church). so I made the announcement and explained we would be focusing on homelessness in America. At the same time one of the other tasks Brandon and I have is to write a compline for Friday night and I have been praying about what verses to use for the service. Today I received and email from a member of our church who just happens to have a brother who lives a life of homelessness by choice (a great story in its self), his brother spends his time witnessing and speaking about his life and his faith. Occasionally, the brother will stop into a public library and check his email. So on Sunday this church member sent an email to his brother to tell him about our 30 hour famine and the fact we would be focusing on homelessness and asked if he had any suggestions. As it turns out his brother checked his email on Monday and he did have some advice which included a scripture reference (I will tell you about it later :-)) which was one I wouldn’t have thought of but which is perfect for the service. Coincidence?
These stories have one thing in common, it would be easy enough to write them off as coincidence, but the truth of the matter is they are answered prayers. God provides what we need, when we need it, it only takes a mustard seed worth of faith. (Matthew 17:20)
Peace
Randall
