Stories from the road
What a wonderful day… Truly God works in mysterious ways. Today we arrived in Denver Colorado after a long nights drive through Washington, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. We were feeling the pressure of keeping a tight schedule since we were delayed in Wenatchee for about a hour. The only thing I could think of is God is doing something or sparing us from tragedy.
We arrived at Blake and Kim Hill’s home in Denver and enjoyed a wonderful breakfast, a chance to power nap and shower. Who would know what God was working on. After breakfast we gathered for a group photo and started to load up. I had remembered Jason Hill telling me there was a Starbucks nearby. Never passing up the opportunity of having a fresh cup of java, we headed to Starbucks which was next to a BP service station.My vehicle dropped me off in front of Starbucks and headed to fill up with gas. After getting a cup for myself and Bruce another member of the team from Port Orchard, I was walking to the BP station.
Coffee’s in hand and the task of leaving ASAP to get “back on schedule” I noticed a young lady sitting by a payphone looking very distraught. I at once felt the need to go ask her if she was OK. However, like every other youth minister who is behind in any schedule, I immediately talked myself out of it. I delivered Bruce’s coffee and went up to Tim who had also noticed the same young lady visibly upset since he pulled in to fill up with gas. I knew I had to go to her.
I approached her and asked her how she was doing and if I could help her. She said “I don’t think so.” I asked if she was from around here and she had told me that she was from Texas and had only moved up to Colorado a short time ago. She told me she had moved here for a second chance and the opportunity to start over. She told me she moved here to live with her sister and that she had blown that and was now not allowed back into here sisters home. She also told me that she had just given up her baby six weeks ago for adoption and now had nothing. I asked her what she wanted to do now and she told me it sounded crazy… I told her that I had heard lot’s of crazy stuff in my life and then she told me she wanted to hitch a ride back to Texas and that she wanted that person to have a gun and end her life. She then told me the next time her sister would see her would be to identify her body. I sat there looking into saturated eyes and thought, “Ugh!”
“It sounds like you have lost hope and I believe God has sent me here to tell you that there is still hope.” She told me she felt no hope and was losing here faith. I asked if she attended church, “nothing successfully,” she said. I asked her how old she was and she told me nineteen. I began to minister to her and share some of my life story and how God loved her, how Jesus died for her and how she could have hope in the resurrection. I then told her there were churches willing to help her if she was willing to start making changes in her life and letting God in. I knew I needed to connect her with a local church.
Lost! Sitting by a phone book with more churches listed and located than I could imagine I decided to call the Christian home that just served us breakfast. Kim Hill told me of the Boulder Valley church of Christ in, Colorado. I asked the young lady what her name was and she said Whitney. I told her to hold on and that I was going to get some help. At that time God sent into our conversation Chalon Osamu.
Chalon sat with the young lady and asked if she could pray with her. I went to make phone calls to the local church. As well as God’s timing was in crossing our path with this young lady, our timing in connecting with the church resulted in the lunchtime hour. However, a wonderful phone answering system provided a forward to the ministers cell phone.
I pressed zero and was excited to make contact with Brent Brady the minister at the Boulder Valley church… “Ugh!” another answer system. Well, doing with the best I had at the time and continued prayer for God to provide. I left a detailed message regarding this urgent situation and thought I send the message with UGENCY! So I pressed the asterisks (*) button and erased the entire message. Once again, I relayed the story and sent my message.I thought I would try to contact some other church members by opening up the phonebook again and looking for something to jump out at me when my phone rang. It was Brent.
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