Miracles
Luke: Friends, I hope you've enjoyed hearing Uncle Howard's stories, and I really hope you'll buy his book on Amazon. It's a wonderful book and very interesting, very inspiring. So go and check it out. I'll send the link.
But today, Uncle Howard, I want to ask you to tell some of the miraculous stories. The book is full of miracles. Proving that God is still a God who does miracles. Can you tell us some of those stories that happened on your journey?
Faith and Physical Impossibilities
Howard: One of the tasks I did while I was learning Swahili, part of our work was done with the people who suffer from leprosy. They wanted to build a little church and one of our other missionaries from England said, well, she had a certain amount of money to buy the cement and that, if I could maybe help them to build this church.
So I built most of it myself because the men hardly had any fingers left and they battled to do anything and they had no strength to do most things.
The doorway had a big concrete cast that I made to form the top of the doorway like an arch, but I cast it in one piece. I made it up with wood and then cast the concrete with a couple of steel rods inside and wire to strengthen it.
God's Strength in Human Weakness
And then when it was set in a couple of days, we needed to put it on top of the doorway. And so now, when it was all dried out in a couple of weeks we decided to put it on top.
So we had two drums on either side with heavy planks and we put this heavy thing on there and it was very heavy. So we put it down on top of the planks and then we got onto the planks, two on either side of the arch and I in in the middle. And now we were going to pick it up and turn it up and put it on top of the two pillars on either side of the doorway.
These people could hardly carry themselves. Now we had to pick up this heavy thing! I remember one of the old men saying to me, “let's quickly ask the Lord to help us with this. We're not going to manage!” So this dear old brother prayed for us and when he opened his eyes, we picked it up! And as we picked it up, I knew we weren't going to manage. I knew we weren't going to manage because we didn't have the strength to do it.
And as it came up, I was in the middle and we pushed it up and we pushed it up and I said, Lord, help us here.
And then all of a sudden we've had the strength and we put it up. That was a miracle. I don't know if an angel came and helped me that day. I don't know who did that. It was the Lord in his own way that the strength came to people that didn't have it and to do a task like that. And today I am convinced that was a miracle.
Facing Fires
Luke! Only God. And then the other one that I enjoyed in the book was about the fire when you were in Botswana.
Howard: When we came back from Congo, we had a youth ministry and I used to go to Botswana, say twice a year for 10 days, on an outreach with Alan Adam.
On this occasion we had visited and we were coming to the end of our time and we were camped with a big 4x4 parked there and we would just camp near the little village where the Bushmen were, the San people, in other words.
And that night we saw the fire starting to come from far. It was coming this way because the wind was blowing towards us. It was the most amazing sight I have ever seen because every time the grass came to where there was a little tree or a little shrub, it will go up like a fireworks display and then it'll catch another tree. It was amazing to see that!
But the problem was, is this fire was coming closer and closer to the village! And I was there, our little group and some of the Bushmen came together, and we prayed and said, Lord, we need protection here, this is coming our way.
And it came and it came and it couldn't have been 200 meters away. This fire with all this grass with the wind behind it. It was a frightening thing to see.
And we knew that we could get into the van, but we couldn't take all the people in the village. There were about 20 or 30 of them. There's no way we could have taken all those people in this small little bakkie in the sand.
And so we were desperate. And you know what? As it came closer and closer, and we began to panic, thinking maybe now's the time to run and leave these poor people behind, the wind changed! And it blew that way, and the fire never reached us.
Is God alive? Of course he is, hey!?
And this is how we prove that sometimes we're just too blind to see him working amongst us.
Luke: Yes, Lord, open our eyes to see you every day.
Friends, I hope you've enjoyed these stories from Uncle Howard and Auntie Pam's life. Go and get the book, read it, enjoy it, and be blessed by it. Take care and God bless you.
