It seems like Kioni gets sick whenever we go out of town. We visited Park Hills Evangelical Free Church in Freeport, IL, two hours east of our home this past weekend. Freeport is a good size town, with a population of 26,443. On our drive there we made note of how the town is dotted with numerous churches of various denominations.
While in Freeport we stayed with the senior pastor and his family. But that night Kioni got sick, screamed many times because she felt congested, and threw up all over me at 2:30 AM. We didn't know the town and didn't want to wake up our hosts for help, so we just suffered though the night as a miserable trinity. (The pastor and his wife don't have small children, so they wouldn't have had the drugs we needed anyway.)
The next morning, Kioni felt a little better. Yet she wasn't up to going to church, so Dan went to the church alone to share our ministry, while Kioni and I stayed back at the pastor's home alone. A few hours later, Dan came back and we packed up and began our trek back to Mundelein.
On the way out of Freeport, we decided to stop by a pharmacy to pick up a bottle of Children's Tylenol for Kioni. The pharmacy at Cubs Food was the first one we came across. Dan went in by himself to get the Tylenol. When he came out, he told me the amazing story that follows.
Dan picked out the Children's Tylenol, but because it had something special in it, it was kept behind the pharmacy counter. By asking for it, Dan caught the attention of the pharmacist. In the process of paying for it, the pharmacist took the medication and scanned it and then took a card out from his wallet and ran it though the register. To Dan, it seemed that perhaps the card was something special needed to activate the register or to login the pharmacist as the presiding cashier. When Dan went to present his credit card to the pharmacist to pay for the medicine, the pharmacist handed Dan the Tylenol in a small bag nicely stapled and accompanied the gesture with the startling statement, "Good luck in the Philippines!"
Dumbfounded, Dan stood there for a moment and then asked, "How do you know we are going to the Philippines." The pharmacist replied, "A few years ago, we had a couple who were from the Philippines stayed with us a couple of months." This, however, didn't explain his knowledge of our trip. But then he came clean, "I was in the first service at Park Hills Church this morning. But I didn't have the opportunity to talk to you after you shared your mission to the Philippines. In fact, I exited out of another door, since I needed to go home quickly so I could report here to work this afternoon."
It then dawned on Dan that the card that the pharmacist had pulled out of his own wallet was not an activation or log-in card. Rather it was his own personal credit card. The pharmacist had purchased the Children's Tylenol for us and stapled the receipt to the bag.
I was in absolutely astounded as I listened to Dan tell the story. Through Kioni's sickness, God showed us, even in the smallest area of life, that He was still sovereign and was still taking care of us through his people. Think of all the 'coincidences' that happened: (1) Kioni got sick when we were in a strange town. (2) We picked the first pharmacy that we came across, which (2) just happened to be supervised by someone that had gone to one of the many churches in Freeport, and (3) the church he went to just happened to be the one where Dan shared the ministry that morning. (4) The pharmacist wasn't obliged to pay for Kioni's medicine, but the Spirit moved his heart towards us in charity. And (5) before Dan even had the opportunity to say a word, or even notice what was taking place, the transaction was complete. The funny thing is that the pharmacist didn't even utter a word to Dan until he handed him the medicine, certainly he must have been setting Dan up and got a big kick out of the shock and awe on Dan's face when out of the blue he made his pronouncement, "Good luck in the Philippines!"
Do you still think daily events are just random occurrences? It's when we pay attention that we see who God truly is. Are you paying attention?
Amazing testimony. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAgain, to non-believers, or may be to some liberal Christians who don't believe in miracles, all these could be explained in a way that God is never involved. It is always a matter of choice that people choose to believe what they want to believe.
To me it is alway a gift that we can see things aligned with God's point of view. When we recognize what God has done for us, seeing it in this way is already a gift.