The Imposible

I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 

Job 42:2

Earlier this year, the Women's Ministries Department in the USA Western Territory sent us funds for a Junior Home League Congress.  Our planning committee determined that, if we exercised good stewardship of those resources, we could host 1,500 girls for a four-day "Girls4God"  event.   But two weeks before the Congress, I was informed that 2,200 girls had registered.   Oh boy.  When she saw the panic on my face, my Junior Home League Secretary quickly said, "It's OK, Mama.  We will have enough food, and there is enough room at the school for them to sleep."  I trust my staff implicitly, and I knew that I wouldn't want to turn any girl away.  So I took a big breath, slowly nodded my head, told her not to accept any more registrations, and then silently started to pray for a miracle.

Well, the miracle came, but it wasn't the one I asked for.  When I finally arrived at the Congress, our vehicle had trouble entering the compound because more than 4,000 girls and leaders were there.  Closing registration had made no impact whatsoever.  Girls who hadn't signed up simply showed up.  One of the officers loudly declared that Mama would never turn away any of her girls, which was right.  So with a weak smile on my face and the biblical story of loaves and fishes on my mind, I welcomed them all.  But how would we manage?

 

Commissioner Kenneth Hodder and Lt. Colonel Edward Hill
 taking the salute in the Troop Uniform Contest

Well, God did it.  It was a simply wonderful four days, full of miracles, one right after another.  Twenty cooks slaughtered three bulls and 110 chickens.  A lorry arrived full of firewood.  The girls made room for one another to sleep on the floor, the rain was minimal, and all of the outdoor meetings took place as planned and on time.  Even the newly inaugurated Territorial Junior Home League Band was a big hit!

Some of the cooks preparing our daily greens.

We sang, we danced, we laughed, and we wholeheartedly worshiped the God who made the entire thing possible.  At the closing meeting on Sunday, well over 500 girls flooded to the mercy seat, and I wept.

Walt Disney once said,

It is kind of fun to do the impossible.

 

How true that is.  So I'm glad that my ladies took a risk.  And I'm impressed by their faith.  Their faith is in a God who likes to surprise his children with miracles, a God whose plans are always bigger and better than our own.  And mine.

 

Lt. Colonel Shelley Hill, our international guest,

with girls from Turkana, a distant region boarding Sudan and Ethiopia.

 

 

OK, Lord.  What do you want to do next?