18 February 2010
|When visiting in the Majes Valley some years ago, I went to encourage our brother Tomás Mayhua and his family in Ongoro. I arrived there in the midst of a stong wind storm. I parked the car away from some of the large eucalyptus trees that were there, and started the ten minute walk down to his house.
The wind was quite strong with occasional gusts that blew up great clouds of dust and chaff. Just before arriving at his house there was a place where the trail passed under a large guarango tree (a tree of the mimosa family with long, thick thorns).
Just as I was about to pass under the tree, I sensed an inner voice that said, “Stop!”. I closed my eyes to keep out the dust and braced myself against the wind. When I opened my eyes, I was shocked to see that the guarango had fallen over the trail, exactly where I would have been had the Lord not stopped me. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of his benefits.”
On another occasion I was in a meeting with the believers in Salamanca. At that time they were meeting in the house of one of the believers. They used a room on the first floor. There were beds in the corners of the room.
Some of the believers would sit on the beds, and others on chairs or benches that were placed sort of in a circle. In the center there was a kerosene pressure lamp that hung from a large nail that was pounded into a stout eucalyptus beam that helped hold up the second floor.
As I was preaching, I suddenly stopped and asked brother Juan to add some air to the pressure lamp. He got up, and just as he grabbed the tank of the lamp with both hands to remove it to the table to pump it up, the nail fell from the log that it was in. The heat from the lamp had charred the beam that held it.
In just a matter of seconds the lamp would have fallen, possibly exploding, and causing much injury to those around it. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits.”
Another time I was returning to Arequipa after having visited the mountain towns with brother Julián. As we sailed along the blacktop in our Jeep Wagoneer, about two hours from Arequipa, we heard a swishing sound in the engine.
I checked the gauges on the dashboard and found that the oil gauge marked zero. I immediately pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the engine. We got out of the car and opened the hood to check the oil level. The dipstick registered full. I didn’t know what to do. Should I get the car towed to Arequipa before I did more damage to the engine?
We shut the hood, and both of us placed our hands on the hood and prayed to the Lord to heal our car. We got back into the car and started the engine.
I watched as the needle on the oil gauge went up from zero to its normal operating position. The swishing in the engine continued for a few miles, but gradually became less and less. When I got back to Arequipa, I could find no reason to take the car to a mechanic. Until I sold it two years later, I never had to do any engine work on that car. Again, we bless the Lord for His benefits.
Just in case you are wondering, yes, I do believe in mechanics. There are just some times that the Lord chooses to favor us in a special way so that we might praise Him for His benefits.