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.
David, I learned a very great lesson from your story today – although somewhat painful. I was at that breakfast in Fall River that day. May God’s blessings always be upon you.
Yes, you were! But you’ve been such an encouragement to me, and to us, since that Saturday morning, so long ago. We love and appreciate you, and continue to pray for you.
Love the wedding ring story, God is so good, and we are so blessed to have you guys serving in this way!
Thank you! We have lived a life of miracles, and are SO grateful to each one God used to helped us along the way. We will never forget what this Mother, Daughter, Father and family did to help us to get back to Chad.