The Results of Bended Knees

A message came this week from a dear Pastor friend who has given and prayed for us in Missions.
As a Missionary going to India for the first time our last service was at Central AOG in Yakima, WA. Though Yakima is my home, The Stone Church is my home church. In preparing to go to India, taking three small children and working hard to raise the needed pledges to go to the field had brought an awareness of the need of people praying for us as we were going. If you take your family to India, you should be prepared to participate in the life of India. Malaria, Dengue Fever, Typhoid Fever, and other diseases can easily see around you in normal living.
I knew that my mother had been a faithful intercessor for missionaries, and those whom she prayed. She would often be awakened in the night to pray for people, sometimes with a specific name- a name she did not know. Our pastor C.L. Hobson, had told about mother relating to him the story of praying for a man named Paul Finkenbinder. We had never heard of this man. All we knew that even during a period of time that my mother had cancer and was bedridden that she prayed through the night for a man she did not know.
After mothers death, our pastor met "Hermano Pablo" who Chrisma Magazine calls Paul Finkenbinder, "Latin America's Most Loved Evangelist" at a General Council of the AOG where Paul related that on that night of prayer God had spared him, his wife and children during a coupe that took place where they lived. One of those who tried to kill them said "huge men in bright white stood around the house all the night through and would not let the bullets or the men in to harm the family."
As a missionary going to India I knew that my mother had been used to pray. On that last night of service I told the story of my mother and her prayer and my appeal was to ask for prayer partners who would stand with us and pray for our family, ministry and lives as we worked in India. It was at this service I met Rev. Lowell Van Vleck. I had heard of him and knew his father, mother and brother but I was a boy when Lowell went away from Yakima into military service. After the service Lowell introduced himself and said "God spoke to him to be in service that evening, he was from Florida just visiting town, and now that he heard me speak he knew why." He was to tell me a story- about my mother and prayer for him.
Lowell reports "In many sermons, I have referred to the faithfulness of your MOM to intercede in prayer for me, especially when I was on the Ticonderoga Aircraft Carrier way back in 1955 and 1956 -- and God spared my life because your MOM was holding me up in prayer in the wee hours of the morning. There were 13 of my shipmates killed that night and I was spared by just taking just 3 steps away from where they were killed. I will always be grateful for her prayers. " Lowell and Margie Van Vleck know and understand personally the power of prayer and what it means to living in ministry in difficult situations.
I hope that we will be men and women of prayer. Lowell's testimony is that prayer brings results.