Fresh Manna
by Pastor Tim Burt

This month we met with the board of our ministry to give them the report of what we accomplished this past year.  One of the board members expressed “I’m blown away he was at how much two people could accomplish with so little.”  The following two notes are from the report of pages of comments from our Website, our subscribed readers and my Twitter follower that we’ve received this past year.

 

I (Renee) took a group of seven women, who attend my weekly bible study, on mission to Peru. It was a beautiful way for us to not just talk about our faith, but to put it into action. I could write a book about all of the experiences that so touched our hearts. I want to share about one of them with you.

 On one of the days, we assembled wheelchairs to give to three people who were in desperate need of one. We then set out to deliver them. It took a very long time to deliver the first two, and by then it was late in the day. But we still had one more wheelchair to deliver, to a woman whose home was up a mountain!

The roads were very rough, and the higher up we drove, the worse it got. In fact, on one especially narrow, steep road, the tires starting slipping. I saw our driver make the sign of the cross. Needless to say, that didn’t build our confidence that we’d get there in one piece, but we kept going. It was like being in a huge maze, while we kept going higher up the mountain and feeling more lost all the time. 

Miraculously (and I mean miraculously), we finally got to the house where Nelda lived.  I’ll never forget the smile on her face when we walked in.  She was so happy we’d come with her wheelchair. But first, she wanted to tell us how thankful she was for her home. 

It had only three rooms, with a few pieces of old, broken down furniture. It was “decorated” with pictures from magazines attached to the plywood walls. But she told us how much God had blessed her. She was especially thankful to have electricity for lights. She pointed to the single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling above us.  She was as thankful for it as if it was a chandelier hanging there. 

She went on to tell us her story. She was 72, and five years ago, she’d had a stroke. It had left her unable to walk or talk. The doctor said she would never talk again. So she said that she did the only thing she could do. She hummed praises to Jesus all day long.

The verse she lived by was Philippians 4:13, “For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.”  The only strength she had was to hum.  So she just kept humming to Jesus, until one day, miraculously she was able to talk again.  None of her neighbors could believe it. They all wanted her to tell them how she could suddenly speak again. 

So she began to preach to everyone who would listen to her about the goodness of God.  She also would pray for them if they were sick, so God would heal them like He had healed her. Because God had not only healed her voice but her body too! 

The paralysis was now on just one side of her body, but she was only able to take a few steps at a time. So she was so happy to get a wheelchair, so she could go to a nearby park to talk to more people about Jesus. We all agreed we’d never met someone more with such an endearing, pure heart like Nelda! 

Well, finally we got her into her wheelchair, and I wish you could’ve seen her face! It was shining with pure joy. We thought that surely heaven had sent us to bless HER. But then she shared about a dream she’d had, and we realized heaven had sent us to her, so WE would be blessed by her! 

In her dream, God had given her a jar of honey and told her, “Eat. This honey is for you.”  The next thing she knew, she was surrounded by honey bees who were so happy she was enjoying the honey.  She could feel their love in her dream, but she didn’t really understand what it all meant. 

She went on to tell us that now she knew that the honey in the dream was her wheelchair… and we were her honey bees. She said she could feel our love, just like she had in the dream. Needless to say, we were all in tears by now. Not one of us was in a hurry to leave. We were savoring the beauty of that moment.  We had thought we were bringing something to Nelda that would change her life, but meeting her had changed our lives too. 

This is just one example of how your giving is impacting lives with the love of God. So thank you from the bottom of our hearts for both your prayer support and financial support this past year.  We’re praying you have the most wonderful Christmas and a New Year filled with the goodness of God!

Renee and I use this page to bring you periodic updates on what we are doing to reach the world. How do we accomplish that? We do so through Twitter, literally reaching millions each month, through this website, and through hands-on mission work. For the first 15 years, we paid for all expenses on our own, with little exception. Because of the growth we’ve experienced, we now invite our readers to donate or partner with us in our efforts to reach the world with the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Thank you for your consideration. Whether you partner with us or not, please know that we pray for all of our readers each and every day. We pray you have a wonderfully blessed New Year! 

Our sincere love and thanks,
Pastors Tim & Renee Burt

If Fresh Manna is a blessing to you, let me know how. I’d love to hear from you!  Write me at: FreshMannaFeedback@comcast.net

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