Atlantic Union Conference: Bermuda From the beautiful island of Bermuda comes a rich story of God's power in answer to prayer. Pastor Michelle Hill, who is also Prayer Coordinator for the Bermuda Conference, became acquainted with three women in her community who she knew God was bringing into her life for a purpose. Mother Teresa once exclaimed - I know God trusts me, but sometimes I wish He wouldn't trust me with so much! Pastor Michelle Hill could have had these same thoughts when God brought her not one, or two, but three hopeless women. All three were addicted to hard drugs. One young woman, a mother, was so hooked on heroine, she was endangering her family, and her life was totally out of control. Michelle saw these women, she knew them personally, and God put a burden on her heart to pray for each of them earnestly for deliverance. So it became an act of faith and obedience to daily lift them up to the Lord. She knew that HE was their only hope. Praise God! All three are now clean!!! Now Michelle is praying for them to be blessed spiritually and to find Christ, and she can see His healing and powerful hand. The young mother now has her family back, and is living a life of victory over drugs that were much too powerful for her. She is experiencing the power of the God of love. Greater New York Conference: Nadeige Francois tells her story: "Three years ago I was terribly sick - hospitalized nearly every week, fainting, because I couldn't breathe. My physician ordered a CAT scan and it was determined that I had sarcoidosis. When the young specialist came to explain it to me, she had tears in her eyes. 'You are too young to die,' she said, 'but this is incurable, and will require chemotherapy. It is as grave as cancer, and very difficult to treat. But if you don't take the treatment, you will die.' As I prayed about it, I was concerned about the side effects of the chemotherapy when my condition was already so weakened, so I asked the Lord to help the doctors find a different medication. We went home and my husband and I talked it over with our family and prayed earnestly for guidance. The physician decided to prescribe a different medication. She said it would be difficult for my body to accept, but we kept praying. I asked the Lord to send someone who would pray over the medication - and He did. He sent a visiting pastor from Florida who was our speaker for the Week of Prayer at our Gethsemane SDA Church. Before he prayed, he called his own physician in Florida, who confirmed everything that I had been told. As they prayed, God gave me His peace. The new medication worked, but I know it was really God's power that brought me not only healing but also great calm. Our God can do anything.
New York Conference Members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Curriers, New York, began to realize that they seldom had visitors for the services at their church. An occasional out-of-town Adventist might stop by, but no one from the local community. No one from the neighborhood where the church was located. Seldom even a relative of a church member. If one did visit, they almost never returned. The members pondered the matter, discussed it, and then began to pray in earnest that God would help them understand the reason. As they prayed, God began to lay on the hearts of first one, then another, that a critical spirit had somehow developed in the church. They began to sense that instead of loving acceptance, many began to feel that a spirit of judgmentalism and disapproval had taken root. They determined that they would call on God and ask Him to change their hearts not just outwardly, but that He would do a deep work in each of them. What happens when God's people pray and ask Him for special help to become a warm and loving church? He answers. Members began to sense that God was leading them to call for a halt to all criticism. That He wanted them to ask for His sweet Spirit to take possession of every heart. So they planned some practical strategies: 1. There would be no criticism of those at the conference office, of any pastor, any teacher, or any local church officer. 2. There would be no criticism of any other member of the church. 3. They would ask God for healing in their church and that they might become an instrument of hope in their community. "How can we implement this?" someone asked, and make it work. It was decided that whenever someone mentioned something negative or critical, those listening would simply turn around and walk away. Every time, without fail, their action would make a statement and the one speaking would be reminded. Over time -it worked! It wasn't many Sabbaths later that a new face appeared. The lady told the pastor that she had been convicted of the Sabbath years ago by watching a speaker on television. As she studied her Bible, she became more and more convicted. She spoke with an officer in her own denomination who told her that with her current beliefs, she should become a Seventh-day Adventist. She had never heard of Adventists. But today she is a baptized member, and teaches an adult Sabbath School class. She is the first of many who have found a warm and accepting church family in a church God changed. Northern New England Conference Here in the Northern New England Conference, we love to pray together by phone! God has blessed us with more than 8 years of praying together daily via the morning prayer teleconference calls. This in itself is an answer to prayer. God gives His children a desire to meet together by phone at 6 AM every morning. And what a difference these prayers make. These are strong prayers of faith as they pray for every pastor and their family by name, on a monthly basis. They pray for every teacher and school in the conference, and for the conference officers and staff every week.
There are seven unbelieving husbands that are lifted up on a weekly rotation. These are prayed for by name, but also represent others. One of the husbands who was prayed for (for over two years) is now serving the Lord with his wife. Another husband on the list of 7 who has been prayed for for 6 years, had walked away from the Lord, and never attended church is now back serving the Lord and worshipping with his wife. This faithful group is committed to pray for all seven for as long as it takes.
Northeastern Conference Prayer Room Pictures by Pat Langley
Southern New England Conference 2012 was a good year for Deborah Lebron, of Windsor, Connecticut, but it brought with it some financial challenges. What do you do when your dentist tells you that you need dental work costing over $3,500 - but it is not covered by your health insurance? Deborah prayed, and asked God to give her wisdom. Her great God had given her the promise in Isaiah 54:4 "Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed or disgraced, for you will not be put to shame." Her dentists urged her to let them do the much needed work, so she decided to move forward, trusting the Lord. When it was all finished and she saw the statement it seemed overwhelming, but she took it to the Lord and laid it before Him as Hezekiah had done. A short time later she was contacted by her dentist who told her, "Several of us got together and came up with the balance for the bill. It is paid in full." What a kind and loving God! And He chose to use a kind and loving dental staff to respond to the needs of one of His children. Ask Deborah, she'll tell you that she knows she has a Friend who's name is Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides! Also from Windsor, Connecticut, comes this story of a mother's heartfelt prayers for her adult daughter, Zoe, and God's intervention - twice. A few months before her wedding, Zoe lost her job in marketing. She was frantic because of her financial needs as she faced her wedding and the costs of setting up a new home. But as she looked for a job, she was repeatedly met with rejection. The economy was not working in her favor. Night after night she returned to her apartment feeling spent and hopeless. But behind Zoe was a praying mother, Sadie, lifting up her daughter's needs with sustained intensity. Hebrews 11 says that we must pray and believe, so her mother was standing on God's word. Often during the day and long into the night she was interceding for her daughter. Several weeks passed with nothing in sight, when finally she got the phone call she had been believed and waiting for: "Mom," her daughter said, "I have a new job, and it's better than the last one. I like the work better, and it pays more." God had intervened in answer to a mother's prayer of faith. More recently, Zoe boarded a flight from Dulles International Airport bound for Canada. Not long after takeoff she reached into her backpack for her laptop, only to discover that it wasn't there. She wondered if she had slipped it into some of her checked luggage, but the further the plane got from Dulles the more convinced she became that she had left it there. The first thing off the plane in Canada she telephoned her mother to report what had happened and ask her to pray. The more she reflected on the information and files on the laptop the more she realized what a huge, irreplaceable loss it would be. She would probably never see it again; all she could do was pray.
Meanwhile, mother was praying, too, asking God for a miracle, that somehow He would keep His sovereign hand over the computer. Early the next morning, Zoe's phone rang; it was a Security Officer at the Dulles Airport with the wonderful news that an unknown person had brought the laptop to the Lost and Found Department late the night before and they would hold it for her to claim when she returned. "What are the chances?" Zoe asked herself. "There is no other explanation than that God has answered our prayers."