A Powerful Story of Prayer

In February 2009, at the first planning meeting for our June mission trip to Honduras, I passed out cards with a picture of the families we would be ministering to and asked everyone that might be going to take cards for one or two families and pray for them daily until we arrived in Honduras. I promised that if they did so, they would enjoy a special blessing during their meeting in Honduras.

Antonio and Maria Suarez, and their son Christian, took three cards: one for each of them. In March we found out the Suarez’ would not be able to go, but they promised to continue praying for the families they had taken.

In early May, Maria told me she was sorry, but she had lost the cards for two of the families, but still had one family, Josue and Ritza Argueta, and their children Gloria and Jonathan, taped to her computer monitor. She had prayed for them daily and felt she had come to know the Argueta family through prayer. Maria told me that frequently when she was in a store, she would think of them and want to buy clothes for Ritza and her family. Maria gave me four bags of clothes: one for each member of the Argueta family. Keep in mind, she only had a picture of the Argueta’s with their names and ages of the children.

Maria confessed that she was sad that she might not get to meet this family personally, this side of heaven. Imagine her surprise when I told her that Sandy and I had invited Josue and Ritza to the US to help us celebrate our retirement, commissioning and ordination! Tears filled her eyes.

When I got home, I told Sandy the story and went upstairs while Sandy sorted the clothing. A few minutes later Sandy called to me: “Bill, you need to come see this.” Sandy said that every piece of clothing for Ritza was just the style, color, and material Ritza liked. Everything was perfect. Even the bag holding the clothes for Jonathan had a three-dimensional Winnie-the-Pooh character on it to match the Winnie-the-Pooh clothing set someone else had gotten for Jonathan!

Two weeks later, when Josue and Ritza arrived, we invited Antonio, Maria and Christian to share dinner with us. After dinner, Antonio and Maria presented Josue and Ritza with the clothes they had gotten them. After opening about three items, Ritza stopped, looked at Maria, and exclaimed: “How could you have known me so well to pick these clothes?” They broke into tears and hugs.

During the rest of Josue and Ritza’s visit, Antonio & Maria and Josue & Ritza shared lunches and outings and made an everlasting friendship, a relationship brought about through prayer!

We serve an awesome, tremendous God!