just like Christmas!

Hello all! The last week has been filled with so many stories that would all be worth recounting here. Honestly, it is amazing to see what God has done. Since I have the privilege of being the primary blog author for this team, I'm giving you a full account of my experience from the last few days, but please know that there are dozens more where this came from. If you are on one of the missions teams, and you've got something to say, feel free to use the comment space to let everyone know your story as well. As for me, it went something like this...

We were sitting around a kitchen table last Sunday night when the numbers came in; maybe I was the only one, but there was tension in my hands as I unfolded the slip of paper I had been given. A month before, I had seen God pour in the hundreds of dollars needed to cover my airfare in just one week, bringing the grand total of my support to $2,446. Since then, letters had been written, prayers had been prayed—over a thousand dollars would need to come in for me to be in the clear, to know that I’d be boarding that plane to Africa in three short weeks. Hope rose within me and glimmered quietly behind my fear, waiting to see what I knew to be true: God is faithful, and He hears my prayers.

When I let my eyes fall to the number in front of me, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. Everything happened in a moment; I don’t think anyone saw me flinch. Not a single new name had been added to the list—$2,446, printed in bold in the middle of the page, felt impossible in so many ways. The final deadline, I was told later on, was 2PM on Monday—the next day. Less than 24 hours away.

I quietly sank into my thoughts, realizing for the first time what it would mean if $1,000 didn’t land on my doorstep in the next 17 hours. Five months of preparation had been filled with more than I could have expected or known when I asked to be a part of a missionary team to Liberia, Africa. My heart swelled to think about it then, knowing that it could have been for nothing, that all my plans could be so easily changed. I looked around at the faces of my teammates, a steady stream of prayer and petition rising suddenly up out of my heart, and felt peace begin to take root where panic could have been. I knew then that somehow it didn’t matter what happened in the hours that were ahead of me—God’s heart toward me had not changed. I understood suddenly what it meant to have nothing to offer and everything to ask, and yet I was not afraid.

Walking out of the meeting that night marked the start of a whirlwind that consumed us—hundreds of missionaries and praying hearts—for the next 24 hours. I was not the only one in debt; tens of thousands of dollars were needed to fill the financial gap for every person on the four teams that had been assembled, and all under the pressure of the same rapidly approaching deadline. The hour that I drove back to my dorm was filled with the sound of my prayers and urgent phone calls rallying people to intercede.

To our amazement and delight, as we prayed, things began to happen. Empty-pocketed college students were finding the means needed to conquer financial giants, watching with astounded eyes as miracles fell all around them to the distinct sound of victory. I stood by in celebration, wondering when these wonders would land in my lap.

On Monday morning, my heart was filled with something I couldn’t quite explain—the steady glow of hope and anticipation as I waited with my hands open to see what God would do that day. And like a kid before Christmas, the waiting grew tiresome to my spirit. God can, I told myself, refusing to wonder what would happen if He didn’t.

At 1:40 in the afternoon, I stepped outside to walk and pray. My heart was quiet within me as I slowly covered the two-mile sidewalk that wraps around my school. By the time I set foot back on campus, though I didn’t know it yet, my prayers had been answered. With fifteen minutes left until the deadline, nearly a thousand dollars had arrived into the missions office with my name on it. I was told later that it came so quickly and from so many directions that the effect was overwhelming—much like how I felt when I found out that I was, definitely and without a doubt, fully provided for.

In the hours following 2 o’ clock, even the smallest remaining amount had been paid in full, not only for me but for every single person who had come up short only the evening before. In response to this news, celebration reverberated like a hallelujah chorus through the souls of hundreds who had waited and prayed. At church the next day, I found myself leaping or shouting or victory dancing in nearly all of my conversations; the eyes of so many shone with the joy of watching God’s hands move. It is a feeling like no other.

I wrote in my journal this morning, “It’s not knowing that I’m going to Africa that makes me want to dance—although that gets more thrilling by the day—it’s knowing and seeing that God heard me...”

Beth Moore said this of Him: “In the midnight hour or when you least expect it, God can turn it all around.” He can, and He will.

“How can I repay the Lord for all His acts of kindness to me? I will celebrate my deliverance and call on the Name of the Lord.” Psalm 116: 12-13, NLT.