God's Will: Answered Prayer

The next step in my plan was to clean up the remaining two classrooms and make them ready for use.  Praying as I worked.  Praying for kids to fill the classrooms.  Praying for teachers to step up.  Praying for young families to come to the church.  Praying for my husband as the leader and shepherd of this new (to us) church.  Praying for the church members to be receptive to changes and additions.  Prayer for God to work in this community and in this church.

To continue the story, we freed up the stairways to the classrooms.  Old furniture that clogged the stairs?  Gone (with my hubby's help, of course.  Some of that old church furniture is HEAVY!).  Couches that clogged up one classroom?  Tried to sell them on Craigslist.  No dice.

I needed someone who wanted the couches and could haul them out by themselves.  Our people couldn't do it.  The town's youth center accepted the couches and picked them up for us.  I could have cried.  It was the first big change to the classrooms.  I was so relieved.

Then we asked the boy scout group that meets in our building to remove some pews that had been stored in the classroom.  Again, they were far too heavy for any of our church members to lift and carry safely.  Who knows how many years ago they had been moved?  They were more than willing to move the furniture for us.  Happy to do it, in fact.  The Boy Scouts earned a merit badge that day in my book, for sure!  After that, we cleaned other old, unused items - just everything was in there.  This took weeks, but the effort was worth it.  The only obstacle I had left was kids' furniture.

Did I mention there was no kids' ministry budget?

(Maybe there was - I hadn't asked.  I think I assumed there wasn't one, so I didn't bother.  Why would a church with no children in attendance have a budget for them?)



I must pause here to insert three giant answers to prayer.

The first answer to prayer was a Sunday School teacher!

Remember my first walk through the building and my fear that I would have to teach my kids Sunday School?  God took care of that.  He knew the desire of my heart and without my asking for it, He answered.  This sweet woman has taught generations of children about God's Word and Jesus' love for them.  God bless her!

The second answered prayer was our church secretary.  She is amazing!  She knows everyone, she knows the town, and she has worked at our church many years and has a history with the congregation, the town, and the way things are done in the church and town.  I sometimes think she is an angel in disguise.  She was extremely helpful in teaching my husband "the ropes" as a new pastor.

In many situations, she has proved invaluable.  We had a week during our first winter there when two congregants passed away within a week of each other.  Talk about a stressful way to start your new job!  Our secretary proved invaluable once again, showing my husband the ropes and helping him prepare the services along the way.  She is a blessing to us.  Again, one we never prayed for, but have thanked God for ever since.

The third is a story I love to tell, and I think of every time I need reminded that God answers prayer.  It had to do with children's furniture.  The kids' classrooms were all cleaned out, but we desperately needed new kids' furniture.  We had about 12 kids chairs that could be used, but we needed all new tables.

I hadn't asked the church to buy anything yet, because I thought we had no money for such an endeavor.  So I prayed.  I prayed for some way to buy new furniture without having to ask the church for money.  I didn't want that to be my first act as the new pastor's wife.  I could just imagine myself asking, "Could I please have $500.00 for new kids' furniture...even though we only have 3 kids in Sunday school?"

That would make the wrong impression. (Why I'm forever worried about this, I'll never know.  God's got it all under control.  Always has.)  The kids continued Sunday School at their rickety table and ugly adult-sized chairs.  They never said anything about the arrangements.  This was a new adventure to them!

Long story short, a woman from town (not even a member of the church) called the secretary and explained that she owed her year's tithes and wanted to donate them to one of our Sunday School classes.  Our secretary talked her into donating to kids' ministry.  $500.00!  Would you believe the final bill for 4 new kids' tables and some additional chairs came to about $530.00?  We barely had to pay anything from the church budget and we had new, colorful, child-sized furniture.

God blew my socks off with this answer to prayer!

So here are a few pics of the furniture God provided (direct answer to prayer - right here!)

And there we were - a few months in this adventure, and we had two classrooms and an activity area, kid-friendly and ready to go!