The Wet Diaper Miracle
“O Give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people… talk ye of all his wondrous works. Remember his marvelous works that he hath done…” (Ps. 105)
I hope I will never forget the time in California when we first landed from Europe (1981) and were in dire need of a financial miracle.
We had only been back in the U.S. for a few months and after nearly ten years abroad without a furlough we were having to re-adjust to American society. It was a slow process and had caused us to be camping with our newly acquired LTD Ford Wagon and use of a friends tent trailer.
At the time my wife and I were sleeping in the back of our big ford station wagon where she had made it as “homey” as possible with nice pull curtains all the way around. Our missionary friends from Europe, Maryanne and Arens were using the little pop-up tent trailer from their temporary home. They had two children with one on the way. My wife Adria was pregnant with our 5th child Faith. In all we were two little flock of kids (6 children and two young couples) learning the ropes of the 1980’s America with no perm.
We had lived in Europe and North Africa for the past decade on our singing and witnessing for Jesus and had hopes we could do the same here… however… In Europe you could sing outdoors in Restaurants and Café’s and have response just about everywhere; in America, well it was a different story. It can be a feast or famine for a budding musician or artist. At this moment we were experiencing the latter!
Our rent at the campsite was $5/day as I recall, the price for a tent site, and we were about to fall behind. Our son Aaron (now 25 years old) was in diapers and he had just wet his last one! We had no money for diapers, rent or food. Yet somehow we were not worried as we had seen miracles come at the last minute before… Not worried? --- Well, lets say we were concerned! We prayed! Lord what shall we do now? Where do we turn? To whom shall we go? We had no close friends nearby and the one friend we had was visiting us just now reminding us we owed him $15 from some cassette duplication of the Bible we had done at this house some weeks earlier.
Just then we noticed about 40-50 young people setting up camp a little ways from us. After inquiring we found it was a school for mentally handicapped children that had come to the park for the day. We asked if we could sing and do a puppet show for them as it was a great opportunity to minister the gospel. They were pleased to have us come and in a matter of minutes we had our portable puppet house up and Paul and Regina were singing, “I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop.” I remember what the great story telling evangelist Gypsy Smith had said to his children when in a similar situation, “I don’t know what we’re going to have for dinner tonight, but I know one thing we’ll do. We shall sing!” As they sang a knock come on their door and as they answered lo and behold someone had left two large bags of groceries on the steps!
So sing we did! We had never witnessed a more cheerful and appreciative audience before. Why those children clapped enthusiastically just to watch us set up the puppet house. Such anticipation was foreign to us! We all enjoyed the next 30-40 minutes immensely and were delighted to have opportunity to lead the group in a prayer.
As we were taking down our simple equipment, the leader of the group came over and handed us an envelope. We were surprised and had expected nothing for this venture, yet here the Lord was using this simple lady and her school to bring us a miracle! Little did she know how God used her that day!
But it was a personal check and we had not bank account or address to cash it! Never mind, our Christian lawyer friend came to our rescue as we endorsed it he took out his $15 and with the remaining $35 we quickly paid our rent before sundown and ran to buy diapers for Aaron and dinner for us all!
He is often a God of the last minute. “How for can we trust Him? --- Oh for the faith of a little child” (Heb. 11:6).
I hope I will never forget the time in California when we first landed from Europe (1981) and were in dire need of a financial miracle.
We had only been back in the U.S. for a few months and after nearly ten years abroad without a furlough we were having to re-adjust to American society. It was a slow process and had caused us to be camping with our newly acquired LTD Ford Wagon and use of a friends tent trailer.
At the time my wife and I were sleeping in the back of our big ford station wagon where she had made it as “homey” as possible with nice pull curtains all the way around. Our missionary friends from Europe, Maryanne and Arens were using the little pop-up tent trailer from their temporary home. They had two children with one on the way. My wife Adria was pregnant with our 5th child Faith. In all we were two little flock of kids (6 children and two young couples) learning the ropes of the 1980’s America with no perm.
We had lived in Europe and North Africa for the past decade on our singing and witnessing for Jesus and had hopes we could do the same here… however… In Europe you could sing outdoors in Restaurants and Café’s and have response just about everywhere; in America, well it was a different story. It can be a feast or famine for a budding musician or artist. At this moment we were experiencing the latter!
Our rent at the campsite was $5/day as I recall, the price for a tent site, and we were about to fall behind. Our son Aaron (now 25 years old) was in diapers and he had just wet his last one! We had no money for diapers, rent or food. Yet somehow we were not worried as we had seen miracles come at the last minute before… Not worried? --- Well, lets say we were concerned! We prayed! Lord what shall we do now? Where do we turn? To whom shall we go? We had no close friends nearby and the one friend we had was visiting us just now reminding us we owed him $15 from some cassette duplication of the Bible we had done at this house some weeks earlier.
Just then we noticed about 40-50 young people setting up camp a little ways from us. After inquiring we found it was a school for mentally handicapped children that had come to the park for the day. We asked if we could sing and do a puppet show for them as it was a great opportunity to minister the gospel. They were pleased to have us come and in a matter of minutes we had our portable puppet house up and Paul and Regina were singing, “I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop.” I remember what the great story telling evangelist Gypsy Smith had said to his children when in a similar situation, “I don’t know what we’re going to have for dinner tonight, but I know one thing we’ll do. We shall sing!” As they sang a knock come on their door and as they answered lo and behold someone had left two large bags of groceries on the steps!
So sing we did! We had never witnessed a more cheerful and appreciative audience before. Why those children clapped enthusiastically just to watch us set up the puppet house. Such anticipation was foreign to us! We all enjoyed the next 30-40 minutes immensely and were delighted to have opportunity to lead the group in a prayer.
As we were taking down our simple equipment, the leader of the group came over and handed us an envelope. We were surprised and had expected nothing for this venture, yet here the Lord was using this simple lady and her school to bring us a miracle! Little did she know how God used her that day!
But it was a personal check and we had not bank account or address to cash it! Never mind, our Christian lawyer friend came to our rescue as we endorsed it he took out his $15 and with the remaining $35 we quickly paid our rent before sundown and ran to buy diapers for Aaron and dinner for us all!
He is often a God of the last minute. “How for can we trust Him? --- Oh for the faith of a little child” (Heb. 11:6).
