A Miracle: Provision Part 1

   From New Zealand to Uganda, the miraculous provision of Jesus Christ himself became expected. On my school countless testimonies of provision started before we even left on our different outreaches. Many of the students came to the school on faith not finance and before they could go on outreach tens of thousands of dollars had to be paid. Jesus came through for each one. It was astonishing to watch! The story of blessings didn’t stop there, however.

     You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds,

     It wasn’t more than a couple weeks before my team and I left New Zealand for Uganda that I stumbled upon this beautiful promise in the Psalms. I had been meeting with a few of my brothers and sisters on the team early in the mornings to talk to God about our upcoming trip and this psalm became a theme. A terrible drought had hit the land of Uganda and thousands, most likely millions, were starving and suffering. We grieved and we talked to God. Somehow we believed he would send rain. In fact, we were so excited to be apart of this miracle that we talked about taking rain ponchos and marching around until the skies poured out their precious water! For weeks we kept praying for the land and then the day came when we were able to see the answer of God: 30+ hours of travel and finally we stepped from the aluminum cage onto Uganda soil. We grabbed our many suitcases and quickly piled into the waiting van; we couldn’t wait to get to our guest house. I wasn’t thinking very much about prophecies and miracles to be honest but before our baggage was successfully strapped on top of the ancient little van, we ran into a beautiful predicament! Oh yeah. Guess what was rolling down the horizon? Nothing but thick gray rain clouds! It was an incredible sight. So we  squeezed the most valuable luggage pieces inside the van and off we went. Over the next couple weeks it rained pretty much every single day. Not only that but when we asked the locals when the first rains of the season had come they told us it was almost exactly when we had! But that was just beginning.

     About two weeks later an incredible event took place. We were about to leave our first location in the sprawling city of Kampala for the remote and relaxed village of Kotolo in the east. A few days prior most of the team had ventured into the market on some free time just for fun and we had met a gang of kids that begged us to come back. So me and one of the teams leaders, Rachel, decided to go for a few hours the day before we had to leave. On the way to the market we decided to run into a gas station and grab some snacks to go with the single jar of Nutella we had with us. We grabbed four boxes of twenty grahm-cracker-like biscuits called digestives. We were now ready for the mob of kiddos! Off we went. It didn’t take long for us to find our rag-tag gang and we began to disperse the goods. Soon we had a system set up: one of us would grab a biscuit and the other would slap the Nutella on and place another biscuit on top. There must have been ten or so kids at the first stop and we handed out multiple “sandwiches” to each. It’s likely we handed out a box and a half there! After each one had gotten multiple sandwiches, we decided to trek on in search of more friends. But our interpreter–one of the older kids who spoke a fair amount of English–didn’t like that idea too much. She said her friends weren’t here and asked if could we please leave one box at the house we were at. We capitulated. So now we are down to about a box and a half or so. From there we walked down the street and began handing out our little treats to any who wanted it. Around this time we lost track of the number of biscuits we had handed out and the amount we had left. All we could do was to keep dispersing the now-single slice sandwiches and pray we had enough for all! We walked all the way down the street and turned the corner. Our interpreter told us to sit down. As we did a mob of kids came running from seemingly every direction! There had to be more then thirty! To the best of my knowledge every single one got a treat that day.

      Our eighty digestive biscuits had to have multiplied into well over a hundred. The blessing didn’t stop there, however. Only a few days later God miraculously provided food for an entire family! Make sure you stay tuned for episode two.

      Whether it be a bunch of kids getting a midday snack and feeling the love of Jesus or it be a downpour of rain upon an entire country, God is able to provide. Just ask him. Believe him. And test his faithfulness by declaring it out and stepping upon the water.