3 Miracles, Part 3

“There are no coincidences in the process of conversion.” This life experience has so many moving parts, and I was just one of them. 

We had moved to Texas from England and were adjusting to a different place and pace of life. It always takes me time to make friends and feel at home and I usually find myself coming back to hobbies and work that inevitably get set aside during the whole moving process. An overseas move meant it had been months of things feeling upside down and just taking care of the essentials with four children and my husband adjusting to his new job. 

I remember unpacking all our books, setting up the bookshelves and feeling like I really needed to get back to studying and practicing French again. I was rusty, and didn’t really have a reason to work on my fluency again, but it was a skill to focus on and get back to something good in our new place. 

The DuoLingo app and I became fast friends again and I was making an effort to read out loud and write in French again. It was fun to feel it coming back!

I woke really early one morning and quietly went to the front porch and closed the door behind me carefully so I didn’t wake up any of my kids. A quiet, uninterrupted moment is SO RARE as a mom! The sun was just started to rise and I could hear the toads croaking and sprinklers coming on all around the new subdivision we were renting a home in. 

I remember feeling nostalgic for connecting with some old friends, maybe some in England, so I opened up my phone and downloaded the messenger app. I wasn’t using social media at the time at all, so I didn’t have any particular reason or person in mind as I did this. I remember just knowing it was a way to message anyone I knew who did use facebook. 

Within seconds of downloading the app, a call was coming in through the app from someone named Marianna! I could hardly believe it and thought surely it was a glitch! 

Marianna was a friend from Romania whom I had met when I lived in Belgium. I had visited her and her family while they lived at a refugee center over several months. We had met on a bus because she recognized the book I was holding and grabbed me to ask if I would bring her a copy and come to teach her. Our meeting itself was a sweet story. But we had completely lost touch over the years. I didn’t know where she was living or how they were doing. It had been 15 years. 

The app rang a few times and I finally answered, having no idea what to expect or say! 

“Salut?” I said.

When I heard her voice, I recognized it immediately. She was clearly in duress and I learned was calling me as a last hope and out of desperation. My mind sharpened and I was able to speak to her in French and understand what was happening, why she was calling me. She had attempted to call other American missionaries she had known and had contact information for but they couldn’t understand or speak french anymore so they weren’t able to communicate. 

I had been studying French again for last few months and now knew why I had felt I needed to! There are more miracles to this story besides my studying French though, or randomly downloading the messenger app just moments before she tried to call me.

Marianna explained to me through her crying that her husband, Nicolas, had come to the United States to work recently and had become very ill. She was fearful he would die if she couldn’t find someone to help. He was in the DC area and I was in Texas, but I thought surely I could contact a Bishop in the DC area to help him. 

I looked up some information online, trying to find a name and a phone number of a Bishop near where he was staying, but the names and phone numbers were old or had changed. 

At the time, my mom worked at Church Headquarters in Utah and I thought to ask if she could some how, some way find the right information for me. She’s an early riser like me, so I knew I could call her before the sun was up. Within a few minutes she had the name of the Bishop assigned to help immigrants and refugees where Nicolas was, and guess what? He was a native french speaker!  What are the odds?

When I reached out to him, he was quick to respond and ready to help. When I googled his home address and the address of Marianna’s husband, I was even more amazed. They were literally around the corner from each other on the same block!

This good Bishop left his home and family right away to find Nicolas. He took him to the ER, waited with him through testing, and filled and picked up the urgent heart medications he needed. He made sure to help him secure a flight back to Belgium to reunite with his family as well, and he kept in touch with me every step of the way. 

I was just part of this equation. The many pieces that came together are not lost on me and have helped me to see all the good things in my life have truly come together because of many good people all along the way, listening to the voice of the Spirit as they act with faith in their own lives. 

“There are no coincidences in the process of conversion.” This continues to play out in many small ways across the bigger story of my life, and I am confident it does for you, too. Our lives are connected and we need each other. 

Parts of these stories and others are recorded in my journals, but I wanted them to be told clearly for my children and family to know that God is involved in their lives, too. 

A phrase  one of my most favorite hymns, “Come Thou Fount”, perfectly sums up these moments in my life,

“Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by Thy help I’m come.”

In Hebrew, Ebenezer means “stone of help” (eben = stone; ezer = help). The Old Testament prophet Samuel wanted the people to remember, not just for a few days, but for years, for decades, for generations, how God had come to the rescue of his people when they humbled themselves before him. In 1 Samuel 7:12, “Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.”

Each of the miracles I’ve seen are a marker for me, evidence of the Lord’s help in my life and in the life of others. When I look for Him, He really is in everything from a chance meeting in London, to one in the Netherlands, and a timely connection in French. 

I want to remember.

“There are no coincidences in the process of conversion.”

xoxo

Dayna