Miracle Stories

Divine intervention by way of intercession - Miracle stories #26

Wade

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0:00 | 31:52

We hope you are encouraged by how the Lord uses intercession to see His intervention in situations, it's so important we are sensitive to the Holy Spirit, may we ask Him to help us all in this area.

SPEAKER_01

Blessings to you in the name of the Lord. We're so grateful to have this time with you. My name is Wade. This is my wife, Katie. Our prayer list is just to testify. We want to give glory to God. There's so much negativity out there. There's so many bad reports and so much attention going to what is bad and negative. And we want there to be an understanding that God is actively moving in power all over the world. And we're just here as a couple of witnesses in that regard. And so our prayers that you'd be encouraged and that we pray it provokes more people to testify and to make uh the works of the Lord known.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

And we need to hear more of that. We overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony, and if we love not our lives even to death. And so may we testify and may it increase faith. God deserves more glory. And the encouragement that his word is true. And if he promises things like whatever you ask for in prayer believing, you will receive it. It is true. And so that's what we want to testify today about is the power of intercessory prayer and how miracles happen by way of prayer. We've talked a lot about maybe healing or deliverance, but I want to talk today and have Katie testify of a couple of things where God led her to intercede and how it brought forth a powerful answer and could have been life and death, even.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so first one we'll give is some backdrop. We were living in um Colda, Senegal. We were working with the Fulacunda, and I had driven all the way up. Uh, for those of you who are aware, if you're not, the Gambia is right in the middle of Sunday.

SPEAKER_00

It's like this.

SPEAKER_01

It's like a yeah, right in the middle.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Senegal sort of wraps around it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So if you don't want to go cross into the Gambia, it's a long drive from Dakar to Tampacunda all the way down to where we were in the Kasaman's in Kolda. And I driven up to Dakar, I'm sure for something business related. Uh left the family back in Kolda, and I was heading back. And uh the previous day, I remember I didn't get much sleep. Woke up early to head down to the Casamance. Normally it was I have to I would have to look back, but the roads are not that great. It takes hours.

SPEAKER_00

It's a long drive.

SPEAKER_01

It's at least what 12 hours. Um anyway, so I left really early in the morning, and I just all of a sudden was like, you know what? I wonder if I could just go for it and cross into the Gambia, cross the Gambia.

SPEAKER_00

Wishful thinking.

SPEAKER_01

Wishful thinking. And bypass that huge um drive around all the way around the Gambia. So I left up really early the morning, and there's a turn where you can go towards Tambakunda or down towards Banjoul. I decided, spur of the moment, I'm gonna head down to Banjoul. So made it into the Gambia, uh border crossing, and then a little bit further down, I I know, I believe now it was on purpose that there was a sign that was on the ground that was saying a military stop, and I did not see it. I was not driving excessively fast, but I did not see the sign on the ground uh that was lying flat. And as I rolled past slowly past this military checkpoint, I was all of a sudden apprehended, and AK-47's revealed and forced to the side and um rolled on the window and was screamed at and uh accused of that I was hiding something. And so here I'm just trying to get down to the cul-da, and now there's this full-on uh conflict that I'm having to deal with. And the military guys were making very strong threats. They were saying, You're gonna be put into prison, uh, these this your truck's gonna be um apprehended, and it could be at least, I don't know what they said, like two to four weeks before I would even get uh a court hearing. Yeah, I didn't have a means to even communicate with my family. Right. And so they're yelling, they're screaming at me, you know, flaring their guns, and what they were wanting was a bribe. Um didn't doesn't cross your mind right away. Obviously, the threat seems real at the time. I s I I had to resign and surrender that this could be a very long ordeal. It could be, I could be detained in the game for an indefinite period of time and just trying to have to communicate with our mission, what had happened. And so they're making these threats, and I I realized that eventually they began to ask for a price. And uh, and I'm not judging anyone that would say I'm just gonna give them money, but at that moment I was I was convicted. Uh, I I knew that it was a bribe, and I felt to myself, whatever I do here is gonna set a precedent, and probably this has already been the pattern before.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So something has to stop to end his corruption because I really realized it was a trap, it was a setup that I missed the sign, and then I'm making these accusations. And so I I um I said, you know, I I'm sorry, but I I fear God and and I can't give you money. And the one officer went back to his commanding officer, spoke for a little while, came back about two or three times. They kept doing this. Uh first yelling at me, then then appealing, and I kept saying, I fear God, I I can't do this. Whatever you need to do, just do it with me. Uh eventually they they came back and they wrote on the ground, could you just give us this? And it was basically the equivalent of$40. And I still said, No, I'm sorry, you know. And one final time went back to the commanding officer. He came back and he said, You're different. We're gonna let you go. And so at that moment, I felt the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Now that there was a breakthrough to turn the situation around, I had bought a bunch of food from Dycar and I took some food aside and I gave it as a gift. I said, Hey, just want to give this to you guys just to show the love of God to be a blessing to you. Um, there was no bribe at that point. Now it's just an opportunity to show the love of Jesus. And you would have thought we were best friends after that, and we there the all the soldiers were very cordial to me, and on I went down to the river, the Gambia River, to try to cross. Well, I got down to the river, and then I the soldiers had for they didn't know. I didn't know. I needed a paper back where that back at that checkpoint military post was, and I didn't have it. So I got screamed at at the river. You can't cross here, you don't have this. So I was very discouraged, and I was already tired. I was already kind of an adrenaline dump having to deal with all these military guys with guns. So I come back to where the military came.

SPEAKER_00

How much, how long had you been driving?

SPEAKER_01

I don't know. It would it it wasn't once you entered the Gambia, there was only like maybe two hours or so, but it was just the ordeal with the military. Yeah, guys.

SPEAKER_00

Two hours is a long time to backtrack.

SPEAKER_01

No, I the whole trip will come back.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So I came back and the military's guys like, what are you doing here? I said, I I f you I didn't know I needed this piece of paper, like, oh yeah, you just go over to that building, you'll get it. And I said, No, I'm done.

SPEAKER_00

Uh yeah, I'm done.

SPEAKER_01

I I'm I've had enough of my full fill of this time. Yeah, I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna circle all the way around. So I'd already lost so many hours going down to the Gambia River, dealing with the award deal at the river, and then with the military post, coming back out to come all the way to that junction again. Right. So I left early in the morning. Now, as I was making my way around Tom Bakunda, uh, it was now about two o'clock in the morning. And what happened?

SPEAKER_00

Two o'clock in the morning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So you you can see how many hours had gone by. Yes. And I'll say this as I'm driving, before you share your part, uh I was by this time I'm beginning to fall asleep, and I'm thinking there's nothing around. It's Africa dark, um, there's no lights around, I'm on the road, and I've got I'm just thinking I I want to get home.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And the the roads in Africa are so different than the roads system in America. I mean, in America, if you're driving on the highway, you know, you might come across an exit gramp that has a gas station with a McDonald's or uh whatever, somewhere you can stop and get refreshed. There is nothing like that in the middle of Africa. I mean, it is just as dark as dark can be, usually. And um, the roads are very bad. So they're full of potholes and just all kinds of animals that you have to avoid. And it's not, it's a very, very stressful driving situation. So he was already so tired.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, actually, so this is the last thing I remember. I remember I was driving, I got past below Tom Bakunda. I remember headlights behind me thinking, oh my gosh, there's somebody else out in the middle of the night driving. And then I fell asleep.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I don't know any of this. Wade and I hadn't had any contact with each other, so I didn't know anything about where he was or why he hadn't come home. But I went to bed with the kids, and in the middle of the night, I was awakened with a strong sense of foreboding. And instantly I had a vision pass before my eyes of Wade asleep at the wheel of the car. And I knew it. I knew that that was what the reality of the situation was right now. And so in the middle of the night in my bedroom, I just started to cry out to the Lord for mercy and for Jesus to just really be just taking the wheel, waking him up, putting angels around him, just keeping that car, you know, just safely driving and um for God to just um take control of the situation. I just was praying my heart out for the Lord to protect Wade and not to allow anything to happen to him or the car. And um, I remember praying. They say, you know, like you pray until you feel a breakthrough. And that's literally what I did. I just prayed and prayed until the sense of foreboding left me, like until I felt peace come upon me. And then I stopped praying. And then I went, I had peace, and I went back to sleep. And the next day, Wade, well, go ahead, you tell what happened.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so as I said, the last thing I remember was headlights behind me. I woke up, I don't know how much later, but there was no headlights behind me, and there was no headlights before me. Um, and this was in the middle of nowhere, so it wasn't like as Katie said, there was an exit for that car behind me to get off of. I have no idea what happened. But I remember I woke up totally out of a dead sleep. My foot was on the pedal, going the same speed. There was no car lights anywhere around me, and somehow I was still on the road. Uh, which are, as Katie said, they're not like straight, smooth roads. No. My hands, the Lord had had mercy, and um, and it I remember it just shocked, I mean, the daylights out of me. I could not believe that I was going the same speed and realized what had just had happened.

SPEAKER_00

The Lord is so good.

SPEAKER_01

So merciful. So I ended up arriving the next morning. The next morning. I had driven all night long and then arrived about like 7, 30 a minute.

SPEAKER_00

It was like almost a full-day drive, like almost a full 24 hours or more. Yeah, because when Wade walked in to the house, I remember him looking like a zombie. Literally, I felt like he barely communicated, and he fell into the bed and slept for like the rest of the day. How could he be so tired? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Adrenaline issue with the military and all of that.

SPEAKER_00

It wasn't even until like the next day that I heard the story of what happened. But I was just so thankful that God brought him home to me.

SPEAKER_01

You prayed until you felt the Lord gave you relief.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And the Lord, you know, kept me.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. Thank you, Jesus, for doing that.

SPEAKER_01

God so just the power of I just want to encourage like responding to the Holy Spirit's promptings.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Don't don't ignore it. Don't ignore it. Um, the Lord is not putting that to be fearful, but to pray. And so we can move.

SPEAKER_00

Right until you feel peace. That's really what I do. Is there's been a number of times, and some of them I don't want to share publicly, but like that I've just had to intercede and intercede and intercede and intercede. And sometimes it's not as quick as what happened there. Sometimes it's for a couple weeks. But like you're just travailing and praying over something until you have a sense of peace and a breakthrough has come in your spirit. And then watch and see what God does. You just know He's gonna do it. You just you just get to the place where you just know that you know that you know God's got this.

SPEAKER_01

I remember the times sometimes at Moody in Chicago, we'd do homeless ministry.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And you would say, like, we were praying for you, we felt like something was Well, Wade would go out on the streets in the middle of the night, work with the homeless, as we've shared in some of our other episodes. And this was dangerous. These are like gangs and like lower whacker is not like a, you know, this is not a nice part of Chicago at that time. I don't know what it's like now, but back then it was really dangerous at night. Lots of gang violence. And he was going out to share the gospel. And way um, Jody and I, a girl, another wife of his partner in this ministry, Josh, we would pray together and we would just, you know, intercede for a couple hours while they were out on the streets. And a lot of times we would have that sense like that they were in danger or something was happening, and and we just had to pray through that, and then they would come back and say, Yeah, this crazy scenarios that had happened where they could have been really injured.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I remember one guy pulled me aside and was having me walk down an isolated area, and he pulled out uh it wasn't a knife, but it was a long, sharp object, and he began to make threats, and um and the Lord yeah, protected me in that time. And that was like one of those times you're like, we we felt specifically to pray for your protection. Yeah. So it wasn't all the time, but there were certain times came into situations and you were praying, and yeah. Remember the one also where the guy we were ministering, Ben was with us at that time, and the guy came in, and um we had seen uh a gang leader give his life to Christ.

SPEAKER_00

This was in the arch.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and it was like one o'clock in the morning, and he was radically touched by God. It was a whole powerful testimony how he had encountered the Lord, gave his life to Jesus, says, I'm walking away from this gang life. Came into the arch like one o'clock in the morning, and as we were sitting there ministering to him, another gang guy came in. Uh, I just his pupils were like just pins. Yeah. And he was just like came in with his hand under his um jacket, and he was cussing, saying, I'm gonna do this. And we watched as it looked like he was trying to pull something out from his jacket, and it was like God just stopped it from happening. And it was like he got almost got frustrated and just left. And uh the guy's name was Joe. He turned to us, he said, You weren't scared, were you? And I said, Man, I wasn't scared, but I'm gonna be honest, I was that that was a crazy experience. And I was definitely nervous, and he said, That's how I live every day. And he said, That guy brought broke gang rules. He said he came high on cane, high on cocaine to do uh to take him take him out. He said, That's against gang's rule. If you're gonna kill someone, you have to do without the influence of drugs. And he said, I almost made him a pumpkin head, and um, which is quite a scene in your mind you think about, but he said, I'm not doing that any longer. I'm walking with Jesus now, and uh it was a powerful testimony. But, anyways, those nights that we felt there were a special danger, the Lord alerted you. Yeah, or Jody and both of you.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. We dead, we definitely felt that God led our prayers. Yeah. I think that there is this beautiful relationship that we have with the Father, with the Holy Spirit, that God wants us to feel like we are participants in, like, you know, what's going on. I don't fully understand why, like, if God already knows this is happening, why does he have to tell me before he does something about it? I don't understand that. But it is really cool to think that, like, for some reason, I think God enjoys this relationship that he has with us. He wants us to see, like, he's very involved, he knows everything. And um, he likes us to be able to like participate with him.

SPEAKER_01

But it's like Paul said, he says we're co-laboring with Christ.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

It's like he allows us to partner with him and to see his glory as we depend on him.

SPEAKER_00

Well, we were thinking about this one other testimony that wasn't um us that heard the Holy Spirit, but our pastor's wife. Do you want to share that? Because I feel like you're better with those details.

SPEAKER_01

Well, just we found out later what she had been praying specifically, but the situation we were in, we were in Cola among the Fulacunda, and they were they were peanut farmer workers as one of their um jobs that they did to make a living. And they cleared the peanut fields. We had were working with them in the fields for some of that. And as we were, Katie and I, well, Katie, yeah, you were with the kids. Yeah, I was with I was ahead. I was with um, I believe, um Amadu. We were we were ahead.

SPEAKER_00

We were just walking through a peanut field. I was with the kids in the back and you were up ahead.

SPEAKER_01

And then I heard you yelling, Wade, wait.

SPEAKER_00

I go, Wade, wait, but I didn't I didn't yell too loud because I remember thinking to myself, I can't overreact because if I overreact in this situation, it could be very bad very fast. So I was like, Wade, just a very serious like voice. I remember, and thankfully you immediately turned around and ascertained the situation.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so I I turned around and uh there was a cobra raised up, hood out, right in the middle of the kids, all these barefoot, bare legged-legged chickens. And one of them was our son.

SPEAKER_00

Who was very fascinated with snakes and was had no fear. And he was like, snake, you know, like, ooh, you know, wanting to like touch it.

SPEAKER_01

Caleb actually reached for the snake. That's right. And one of the kids, Usman, grabbed our son by the grace of God and pulled him away as the snake was gone. I mean, it was like loud, like just threatening. And those were spitting cobras, right? Weren't they? I don't know, but it was I remember the hood out, it was obviously a cobra.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And I looked down, and in this clear peanut field was a perfect wood, looked like a staff right there, like right by my feet.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly at his feet. Yeah, I was like, You guys, this is crazy, like a shepherd's staff.

SPEAKER_01

And uh, so I reached down, grabbed it, went over, and the kids were still the snake could still could have struck any of them. Struck any of them. And I was like, oh Lord help me. And I was able to hit it just perfectly on.

SPEAKER_00

Didn't you think to yourself, I have one chance?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I was like, I better get this right. And I hit it right on the head, and we killed, we killed it. I killed it. And um anyway, so you went out, you sent out an email saying, Praise God.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, praise the Lord for God's protection today. We got an email back. We got an email back the next day, and it said from our pastor's wife at the time, Cindy Looney, and precious friend and sister to me to this day. And she said, Oh my goodness, I just read through your email that you sent, praise God. She said, I had a premonition that I was to pray for protection for your family against snakes. And so she started to pray about that, and um really really had interceded for us for protection from that. And that was just, you know, right before this incident happened.

SPEAKER_01

Can't say it was coincidence.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, that it's definitely not a coincidence. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01

But she was obedient to pray. Yeah, the Lord answered powerfully. And it, I mean, we were out in the middle of nowhere.

SPEAKER_00

What if she hadn't prayed? I mean, if he if our son Caleb had been bit by a cobra, he would die. There wasn't anti-venom. You know, like there'sn't a nearby hospital. No, nothing. So we just thank God for that.

SPEAKER_01

Amen. And I was thinking about one more. Um, the Lord had led us uh to have a time of intercession and prayer and fasting for Guinea Bissau. We had gone to the island of Mayo and shared the gospel, and this was during the dry season, so there were that's what the best time to travel from the mainland to the islands. After our time on the island, we were coming back, and it was see it was like Tim and Mike, and I don't know who else was with us. But we were coming back and we were given uh life jackets that were completely worthless. They had all the foam was disintegrated on the inside of them. No issue going. I don't, I've never had the I we've gone multiple times to some of these islands, and we have had no issue with uh a sudden surge of waves, and we're coming back on this specific trip, and this wind came out of nowhere, and these waves sort of coming pounding against about this 30-foot-size boat, and it was bad. And people, some of them were throwing up, people were crying. Uh, there was a great sense that this this could be it. Yeah, and those light jaggers were not saying anywhere. We were in the middle of the ocean, and uh, I remember the sense of fear that came on the boat, very powerful, very tangible, but refusing to submit. But I had the sense that this was spiritual, and it was in regard to this time, this time we were going into of prayer and fasting and crying out and repenting on behalf of the nation and in the capital. Anyway, no, I didn't have faith to rebuke the wind, uh, but it was very uh tumultuous and dangerous anyway.

SPEAKER_00

So tell them what happened Well, we had lived here in in Fort Mill, South Carolina. We had a little apartment at the time because we were building this house that we're in right now. So I was standing in the kitchen, and all of a sudden, just have the premonition from the Holy Spirit, I knew that his life was in peril. And I started to intercede and pray for Wade's protection and for your life to be spared. At that very moment, while I was interceding, I get a phone call, frantic phone call from my daughter, Abigail, who had just been hit or had just hit a car. And so she was in a car accident right as I'm interceding for Wade. Um, and this is an unreached people group that Wade was attempting to reach with the gospel. And I think the enemy was just very angry about it. But it just felt like all at once all of these like crises were happening. But I I knew like, okay, so simultaneously, like I'm dealing with my daughter who needed assistance, and I was able to get her, actually, I was able to transfer that call to or like have her call her pop-up. Pop up stepped in at that moment and just took over for me because I wasn't sure what to do for her. But then just continue to pray for Wayne. And you know, you can't become like ruffled by what's happening as an intercessor. You have to be able to stay focused and again, like I said, just to pray until you feel the presence of the Lord come and peace come. Like it's gonna, like the breakthrough has come and like it's in God's hands. God has heard me. And um, I can't tell you like how many conversations I've had with God. Like, God, you know, this is what I am asking you for. I feel like somewhere there must be like a little Jewish in me because I like I don't like to take no for an answer with some things, and especially not in regards to my husband's protection, right?

SPEAKER_01

I'm like so when we anyway, we when we corresponded the time that you felt the prompting to pray, and you felt a premonition about me being in danger. Um, we looked at the time, it was the exact same time as those waves had come and we were pounding against the boat. Um, I know if I had Mike and Tim here, they could testify how serious, or Lala, if they were here, they could testify how serious that situation was. Um, the Lord redeemed it. Uh uh, we arrived, we started finally got to a place where we were past these massive waves coming, and we got into a place where it wasn't like that. And I remember the captain of the boat, the guy that owned the boat, was like, Oh, I just knew what I knew that we the boat was gonna make it. And I thought I thought to myself, no, you didn't. And so I'm thinking there, I'm listening, I'm like, Man, this guy's not giving glory to God. And I turned a lawlessness, so I need I I feel my heart burning to preach. So I got up before we got to land, and let me and I just felt an unction to preach. And I said, Let me tell you about a boat called the Titanic that everybody was trusting in that was unsinkable and what happened. And uh, and I just was able to preach the gospel and about the day of judgment, and and uh you better be ready where your faith is in, but better not be in yourself, but in what Lord the Lord Jesus has done for you. So God used it to be able to preach the gospel to those there on the on the boat, specifically those that owned it. But anyway, you were led by the Holy Spirit to pray, and I believe you pray to sin. And so um powerful to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00

Amen, honey. We're a team. Yes, we're a team. He's so cute.

SPEAKER_01

So um we give glory to God. So any final words about obeying the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, if you're a man of God, find yourself a woman who loves to pray because it's helpful. That's good advice, number one. Number two, seriously. I do think that like anyone who is in ministry, we're you're going to experience well, any Christian, we're all in ministry. Like, if you're a Christian, you're in ministry. So we're all gonna time from time to time experience warfare because obviously, like this world is not the only world. We keep saying this in this podcast, but there's this whole other realm out there, right? Angels, demons, um, you know, God versus Satan. There is this whole realm, and so we are, as the Bible says, we do not fight against flesh and blood, right? But against rulers and principalities and powers. And so God has given us this weapon of prayer. And so as we surrender to the Lord, we're not walking in fear, we're walking in faith, right? That Jesus actually like loves us and he actually is for us, and he actually wants to see his kingdom come through us. And so, yeah, we join him in that.

SPEAKER_01

Amen. Amen. So I'd love to just uh close in prayer and um pray that we all would be more sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00

Amen.

SPEAKER_01

Amen. Father, we just bless you. Uh Lord, we know and we thank you that it's a great joy to walk with you and to see you at work in our lives. Lord, you want us to be so sensitive to your voice and to be led of you, not to be led by fear, but to be led by the Holy Spirit. And I thank you, Lord, for the invitation you give us in that, Lord, and in the power of intercession. Thank you for my wife, Lord, her sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, and I pray that for myself, for all of us to keep growing in this area, that we will be so sensitive to your voice, God, the leading the promptings of the Holy Spirit to pray. And that we would confess, Lord, as Paul said in Romans 8, that we don't know how to pray as we ought to pray. We thank you that the Holy Spirit Spirit, the helper, will help us to intercede, to help us to pray according to the will of the Father. And so, Holy Spirit, we yield ourselves to you, asking for you to empower us, to help us to pray according to the will of the Father, that we would see Jesus glorified, and we would see, Lord God, your interventions, your testimonies. And Lord God, the indisputable proof that you are actively involved in our lives and you're faithful to guide us and lead us. Through whatever tribulation, through whatever storm we face, you are able, even if we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we fear no evil because you are with us. Your rod and your staff will guide us, Lord, they'll comfort us. We thank you for your guidance. So we give you glory, Lord. We're asking in unity, help us to be people of prayer and to grow in our dependence and prayer. Yes. That we would see your glory. You said it. Did I not tell you if you would believe, you will see the glory of God. Help us, Lord, to show that faith as we pray. We ask this in unity, Lord, and with faith. And we thank you for hearing our prayer in Jesus' mighty name.

SPEAKER_00

Amen.

SPEAKER_01

Amen. May God bless you.