Stories of our Savior
Latest StoriesI was in a time of prayer one day when, in my mind’s eye, I saw a picture of myself walking on a path. It began as a straight path and immediately took a sharp turn onto a jungle trail, over a bridge, and into a village.
I knew immediately that a change was about to take place for my family. We had been serving with Youth With A Mission for a number of years, but after this vision, I knew we were about to move to a different location. It wasn’t long before we were asked to lead a new base in the jungles of Panama.
This vision mentally prepared me for this transition. Then, when we arrived in Panama, on my first trek in the jungle, the path was exactly like I had seen during prayer! I knew then that God had led us exactly where we were meant to be.
Our family was at our very first worship night with Youth with a Mission. I had just finished reading Is That Really You God by Loren Cunningham, a book about hearing God’s voice. As we were singing, in my mind’s eye, I saw us on a ship, worshipping on deck. I saw my feet in flip-flops and the wooden deck of the ship.
Over the next twenty years our family kept feeling led to work with YWAM’s ship ministry. We did other ministry but never with ships. Then we accepted the position of pioneering a base in the remote Bocas Del Toro region of Panama.
We had been there for about six months when we got word that YWAM Mendocino was bringing us a boat. It arrived at our dock and the crew tied her up so I could jump on.
As I swung my legs over the side of the boat and my feet hit the deck, I looked down and noticed I was standing on a wooden deck, in flip flops. Twenty years later the prophetic vision that God had shown me in that time of worship had come true!
In 2010 I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Guillain–Barré syndrome. It affects the central nervous system and causes paralyzation when triggered by stress, loud noises, falling, or any type of physical stress.
The first time I was afflicted I was paralyzed for 3 months. I had an attack from the disease every year like clockwork. I was not walking with God when all this was going on. It was a really rough time. I didn’t have a job, my dad died, and then I was diagnosed with this.
After I’d had the disease for five years it became part of my identity, how I lived, and how I saw myself. At the time I couldn’t use the stairs, I had to be on flat ground; I couldn’t go on gravel because it could make me fall and go into another episode.
Then I started trusting in Jesus and following him. He showed me that the disease was not my identity. I kept hearing him say “you are not sick” but I had been sick for so long that I had a hard time believing that maybe something had changed.
I was on a lot of medication and God showed me that it was making me numb from the inside out. He put it so strongly on my heart that I needed to change things that, one day, I took a leap of faith and flushed all my medication down the toilet (not medical advice, ok, but it is what I did.) Three weeks later, having gone completely off my medicine, I started to feel hungry again and I felt my body coming alive.
Since then I have not had a Guillain–Barré episode. It has been 7 years since I got off the medicine. I listened to the Lord and did what he asked me to do. It was so scary. I thought, “Either I am going to die, or God is a good God and he will do what He has said.” He did what He said.
On a missions trip with YWAM in Cambodia we visited a village a few times to share about Jesus with people. On our second visit we passed by the home of an elderly couple, probably in their eighties. They had heard the gospel before but had not decided to follow Jesus. The husband was paralyzed in half of his body, so he walked with difficulty. He was also blind.
On one visit, our team shared the gospel with them. This time they understood and responded, entering into new life in Christ. After praying with them, I felt an urge that we should also pray for healing, so I asked them if we could pray for them. They agreed.
We gently put our hands on them and began praying. We did not see anything change, but we told them that we had faith that God was going to bring healing to them and then we left.
The next week we were returning to the village and we met a team from Canada who were staying in the same place. They said to us, “do you remember a blind guy that you prayed for? Well, throughout this week, his eyesight has been improving more and more each day.”
We were on the opposite side of the village from their house and I did not know if I would be able to see them. When we had finished the day’s activities, we were walking in different groups when, all of a sudden, someone in another group said, “hey, he’s here!”
I walked over to see him. He was behind his house, cutting firewood, and as I got there, he looked up and in that moment I could tell he could see me!
He was so joyful and said thank you over and over again to us! It was an experience I will never forget!
When I came to YWAM Ships Kona to do a Discipleship Training School I mostly just signed up so I could do some traveling. I did not feel called to it. I really was not that close to God. I just wanted to travel and I knew my church would help pay for my trip. I had no expectations of my relationship with God changing at all nor any desire for my life to change.
My relationship with my parents was rough at the time. The first few weeks of DTS I did not really talk with them or miss them much. I was also pretty hard into alcohol before I came. When I landed in Kona I was still hung over from the night before.
The second week of DTS our speaker was David Gava. He was teaching about hearing God’s voice. I really liked his teaching, but was very skeptical. I wanted it to be true and thought it was such a cool idea, but anything I thought might be from God I questioned and wondered if it was just me.
David taught about how certain things can hold us back from hearing God, so I thought, “OK, it’s time to cut some things out of my life.” I decided to go six months without drinking any alcohol. I also decided to call my parents and fix my relationship with them.
Calling them was very difficult and very emotional. I wrote up a whole long list of things I wanted to talk to them about – a lot of built up resentment and things to confess to them. I didn’t get to half of it, but it sparked us talking more. I began texting them every day and calling them once a week. It was a process but I am now able to be open and honest with them and talk to them about my ups and downs. We are much closer now than before.
My relationship with God also became better than it had been in a long time. As I pursued a close relationship with God, cutting out the bad habits and destructive parts of my life naturally happened. This really opened me up to hearing God’s voice.
One day during this time I was praying with my outreach team. We were going to Greece but still had not decided exactly where to go. Our options were Athens, Thessaloniki, and Lesvos. I felt like God spoke a verse to me: 1 Thesalonians 3:1. I shared it with the group and we looked it up. To my amazement, it read, “ …we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens.” God was directing us to Athens!
From then on I knew I really could hear from God. It was a huge eye opener for me. I think I had heard things from God before but this made it so obvious and bolstered my confidence.
Since then I have heard God speak to me and experienced God’s guidance is so many different ways. I started to realize that God wants to have fun with me. He cares about the stuff I love to do and wants me to enjoy life with him. Living life with God is amazing.
When I took on the medical procurement position at YWAM Ships Kona we had almost zero money in our budget. We had a wish list of equipment we were hoping to get for our outreaches in Papua New Guinea but no idea how we would buy them.
One item on our wishlist was an autorefractor. This is a piece of medical equipment that determines the exact prescription glasses a patient needs. Our team already had two on board our medical ship The YWAM Liberty but they were large and not portable enough to use for our land based clinics. The ones we needed were smaller and much more portable. The only problem was that they cost $7,500. Did I mention our current bugdet was basically zero?
Also on our wishlist was a portable autoclave which would allow us to do surgical procedures for patients much faster. This cost a whopping $12,000 new, or $2,500 used.
So you can imagine my excitement when I was at a medical conference and came across a group named International Aid that said they might have the equipment we needed. I sent them an email detailing our wish list and they responded that they had both the autorefractor and the autoclave that we were looking for at the cost of only $500 apiece! Did we want them? they asked.
I was stunned. Still – our budget was basically zero. Our team talked about it, and we decided we would say yes even though we had no idea where we would get the money. We felt God leading us to accept and trust that he would make a way. We responded by saying we would take them and began thinking about how to raise the money.
Later that same day I was on the phone with one of our medical volunteers. Her and her friend (both ophthalmologists) were getting ready to join our team to do cataract surgeries in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. As we were talking, I felt God say to me, “share the need with her.” So I told her about my day and the equipment we had been offered and how we were about to start raising money for it.
How much do you need? she asked. And then, as soon as I told her, she donated the entire amount, plus another $500 for an extra autorefractor to donate to the local clinic in the highlands where we were about to send our next team. I immediately wrote back to our contact at International Aid and said we would take not 1 autorefractor but 2!
Our team was so blown away at how fast God worked to provide this equipment at an incredible price and the funds to buy it! We were so overjoyed and encouraged to see God working miraculously in the midst of our office day! We got to believe for the impossible and see God come through!