Chad, January 2014: When we travel off-road in Africa, we mostly focus on reaching the end of the road. The journey to get there is the price we pay to enjoy what awaits at the end of the road.
It was not always like this. From the stagecoach to the train, to the bus and the car, from the hot air balloon to the airplane. With each improvement, we arrived at our destination, but we forgot to enjoy the journey.
Especially in Africa, a journey can be fairly unpredictable while I’m traveling in Twila, our Speed The Light vehicle. Last week, as we returned to Abéché from N’Djaména, we had a major flat tire that destroyed one of our two spare tires.
We cannot easily replace it just yet. So, when a journey to help a refugee friend became necessary, I decided to depend on the public transportation system of Chad to get me there.
Because they can never assure connections at each step, a trip off-road in Africa is often as interesting as the destination.
God is doing some amazing things through Desert Springs Ministries! Yet, we want to be honest with you. It’s not about us… that is, our family. In reality, it’s about you. God uses wonderful people like you to bring His Word to the Nations through MicroBibles and Scripture translation.
One of the greatest illustrations of this reality is the story of how He used a wedding ring to get us back to Chad.
In a time of struggle
It was 2009. We were having a difficult time raising our support to return to Chad.
Since joining AGWM, our support budget had more than doubled. My fellow workers were finding it easy, but we just couldn’t let people know about our ministry like they could. Also, there were so many of us trying to get to the foreign field that year. And almost every pastor I called or visited was already supporting as many of God’s overseas laborers as they possibly could.
One afternoon, while I was out shopping for groceries, I got “THE phone call”. It was the support raising supervisor at Headquarters. He told me that, if something didn’t change in our budget soon, we couldn’t return to Chad.
Around the time of that call, I was scheduled to speak at a missions breakfast at Calvary Temple Assembly of God in Fall River, Massachusetts. We were all given five minutes to speak. When it was my turn, I poured out my heart about our struggle to get back to Chad to continue the work we had started in 1992.
A wedding ring and some change
When the missions banquet was over, a teenage girl and her Mom came up to me. They had been collecting pocket change in a large jar, and the jar was full. And they wanted us to have it.
And in response to the LORD’s prompting, the mother slipped her wedding ring into the jar.
I felt overwhelmed… and didn’t want to receive this gift! But they insisted, “This is meant to go towards your airfare.”
We definitely needed help with our airfare. It was going to cost about $5,000 for all of us to get back there.
At the time, we mentioned this wedding ring to you, my prayer warriors and supporters. Would anyone be willing to buy this ring to help us with our airfare? So, we planned on giving it to the highest bidder.
So, you began to pray. Bids and gifts began to pour in from everywhere. “Keep this, and use it to get back to Chad!”
Finally, the time period for receiving bids for the jarful of change and the ring was over. I contacted the winning bidder. “How would you like us to get this jar to you?,” I asked.
This family replied, “Please, keep the change and send the wedding ring back to the mother who gave it.”
And that’s what we did! We were so relieved.
But before the end of the story, God provided the funds for us to return to Chad… plus a bit more, which we would need for meals and other expenses along the way!
Thanks for all you do to bring the Gospel to your backyard, your nation and beyond, through your prayers and support of ministries like ours.
Twila, our Speed The Light vehicle. Last week, as we returned to Abéché from N’Djaména, we had a major flat tire that destroyed one of our two spare tires.
It’s not about us… that is, our family. In reality, it’s about you. God uses wonderful people like 
When the missions banquet was over, a teenage girl and her Mom came up to me. They had been collecting pocket change in a large jar, and the jar was full. And they wanted us to have it.