They waved white flags. Then God did the unthinkable.

In 2020, a small village raised their white flags as an SOS.  It was one of the most desperate situations we had ever seen. But God saw it too. And he responded in ways that none of us saw coming.

This is truly only a story God could write.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Imagine for a moment that you've built a strong personal relationship with those who are thousands of miles away. And year after year, you've gotten together to pray together, to laugh together, and to cry together. And then suddenly, not only are you not allowed to see each other, but you're seeing images of your friends, and it's dire. They're starving and they're putting up white flags outside their houses as a way to say SOS. They have no food and no way to make money to get it. They are stuck, and lives are at stake. And unfortunately, this isn't just some hypothetical. That's exactly what happened. But that's not the end of the story. Because God stepped in. And he stepped in in a way that only he could. Which means not only did this community have an immediate food need met, but God was working behind the scenes to provide something that no one even knew was a need yet. I don't think I've ever heard a modern day story that shows the heart of God quite like this one. But to fully understand what happened, we have to start in this really, really, really small town that I cannot find. Am I this side? Right about here.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

So the town, if you ever want to look it up on a map, is called Cerro de Oro. But this community, as it's, they know, um, they're very much living still in the past. Um, and it's a beautiful thing. They're proud of their culture and their heritage, and they have they they wear the embroidered tops and bottoms and skirts, and every village has their own colors. And so it it's a it's a it's a step back, right? But they were very much in need. They feel disconnected from Guatemala City, and in some ways they like that because they're trying to keep their. They don't speak Spanish even, they even speak a different dialect. They it's it's like stepping back into the past in some ways, which is again beautiful but also difficult.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

This is Sandy. She was one of the founders of Joy FM, and she spearheaded the Joy FM mission trips every year. And over the years, Joy FM has served in several different places.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

Well, Joy FM has been doing mission trips around the world for years and in St. Louis. We've served in East St. Louis and Washington Park and Romania and Ecuador and Colombia. So more listeners had wanted to join us on a mission trip than ever before. So 100 people had signed up to join us on a mission trip to Guatemala, which we had been serving there year after year for a few years because we saw the power in going back and building relationships and pouring into families, not just one and done, but really building relationships.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

But here's the problem: the year was 2020.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

I have today declared that the coronavirus presents a public health emergency in the United States.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

We were all excited to go. Obviously, March of 2020, everyone's plans got interrupted, including our mission trip plan. So we notified everybody in April that we would not be going. We would see how this pandemic played out. But in April, mission trip canceled. By August, we had been contacted by Orphan Outreach, who was our in-country partner, painting a picture that it was it was dire in Guatemala.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Things were uncertain in the US for sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Thursday was the biggest drop since 87. It is vicious out there.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

But in Guatemala, fear was at another level, especially in this remote little village. Because there was the obvious medical reasons that death could be knocking at your doorstep at any moment.

SPEAKER_04 3:50

But to add even more to that, it was it was how am I going to survive today? Because that's already the reality that they live in. A lot of them are making the money today to buy the dinner tonight. And when that disappears, that that floor drops out. It was a very vulnerable time and a very scary time. Not just because of am I going to get sick and am I, am I going to die? Is someone gonna die? But are we gonna be able to eat? And these are families that have, you know, family members that it can be anywhere from four to eleven people living in the same tiny house of a of two rooms. Um and and and then the country itself shut down. You weren't allowed to go outside. You weren't all and they don't have a backyard to go get some fresh air. They live in in shacks and and of corrugated steel, and and so there was there was it very what it was very oppressive and scary.

SPEAKER_03 4:46

I mean, it's like when you get a call from a family member or someone that you really care about. You see headlines on a news and you see that people um are hurting. It's it's one thing, but when you see faces of people that you know and you've been in their homes and you've given them a water filtration system and a a stove, a smokeless stove to cook on, and then you realize that their kids are starving, it it hits you very different.

SPEAKER_06 5:16

The Cerro de Oro is a vulnerable town because their their the community is small. And so the leaders were afraid that the the virus would spread there very easily, so they shut down the town, and they were not letting any provider, food provider, come in the town or anybody to go out to look for food outside the town. They had no ways to earn money because there was no jobs, but there were also nowhere to uh to buy any any um food or anything that they would need. So they were going through a a big crisis.

SPEAKER_03 5:55

They in desperation would take a white uh t-shirt, wrap it around a pole, and hang it on the side of the house, and that indicated we're out, we have no food.

SPEAKER_06 6:06

Some of the families had had had been two days without eating any food, and they had been praying and they had been saying, Lord, here are my children, please surrender to your wheel. We don't know what will happen, but here are my children and we ask for your mercy.

SPEAKER_03 6:21

And when we started to hear that, we're like, okay, so we had a heart to go serve there this summer. We can't do that. But what can we do? An Orphan Outreach said, Well, there's 1,500 families in this community, and a food bag for their family, average family of five for the rest of the year would cost $120. These families are starving.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

So Joy FM got on the radio to ask listeners to step in in a time that was full of uncertainty, even in the US. Now, what happened next, it's beautiful and it's hopeful. And I don't want to skip past that. But you might be thinking this is the climax. But what God did next after that is the thing that really leaves us speechless even to this day. So don't go anywhere. But anyway, I love that this mission didn't just stop with food because there was intentionality to make sure that these families felt seen.

SPEAKER_06 7:20

And so it was incredible because they were the the lines to receive the food bag were very long, two, three, four blocks long. And that the people were they were so impacted because each food bag had a message, a little card. And that message spoke hope. And it was a message of hope.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

So we went to Joy Thumb Listeners in the pandemic ourselves and said, Um, would you join us in serving these families? The beauty of that was they were not only feeding a family they didn't know, they could write a note in English that would be translated in Spanish, and it was encouragement, it was scripture, it was a connection, which um what we learned later was as life-giving as the food for these families, really.

SPEAKER_04 8:13

Really, you know, what we believe at Orphan Outreach is true transformation comes through connection, connection with the Lord, but then connection with each other because God has built us to live in connection and in community. And so it wasn't just about food, but being able to give food back to these families gave a place for our staff to continue and even deepen connection because we've got to go visit them in their homes.

SPEAKER_06 8:38

With that, they were so grateful, so so grateful. And they said, Oh, God has listened to our prayers.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Through through this selfless example of the listeners of Joy FM, it's laid the groundwork for even more, like, you know, planting seeds for the gospel to be shared in homes across that country that we never would have had previously. It gave us as Orphan Outreach and the staff on the ground an opportunity to reach into lives in a very the most difficult time I think most of them had ever been through. But they knew they were not forgotten. And I saw some of those prayer messages on the walls in those homes, even years later. Um, so you just don't realize the impact, you know, that you make through stepping forward in faith and giving to people and families you don't know.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Seeing their faces light up when they got food and hearing the messages of hope that they received from the encouraging notes, that would have been enough to say, wow, God, thank you. But I love that God didn't stop there.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Once we told everybody, okay, you can stop giving, the 1500 families are fed, they didn't stop. We just saw something happening. I could have never predicted what, but it was so unusual because usually when we say, Joy FM listeners, a need has been met, then it's met, right? We all we move on. And they weren't. They kept giving and giving and writing more notes and more encouragement, and to the tune of over $84,000 more came in.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

So Joy FM and Orphan Outreach both said, Whoa, let's pause for a second. The question is: if the Lord is providing, who and what is he providing for? And it didn't take long to see.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

In northern Honduras, people returned to their wrecked homes after tropical storm Iota hit on Tuesday. You know, just within about the last 12 hours, it's gone from a tropical storm to a hurricane. And they just had Ada, which was a major hurricane that came through there.

SPEAKER_04 10:48

And in Honduras in November, we had two hurricanes that hit our country back to back. They were less than two weeks apart. The first hurricane caused, you know, an a national or you know, a weather disaster. And the second one comes in and creates a national disaster. They hit a part of our country in Honduras where there's 30% of the population and it's a low floodplain and did just enormous damage. But we were able to act overnight. I mean, like right away, to bring food and substance to these families that were affected.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

So many more lives were impacted, so many more were sustained, and also they had not only hope, but they had that joy, and they knew that they were not forgotten that the Lord saw and heard and cared for them.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

The key word to note here is overnight. You see, especially in a time as economically uncertain as COVID was, and then orphan outreach already, spending so much money to help families in Guatemala, raising additional funds, and then putting those funds into action simply would have taken time. Time that they did not have. All right, so let's just recap for a second. God had provided to feed those that were hungry in Guatemala. He also miraculously provided for hurricane relief efforts. And then, get this, are you ready? He provided to feed babies behind prison walls. Yeah, you heard that right. Babies behind prison walls.

SPEAKER_04 12:15

Uh and then another thing about what was amazing in Honduras is in Honduras there's a prison for women. And the law in Honduras says that when a child is zero to two years old, they have to live with their mother and person. And the government is supposed to provide food for those kids, for the babies. And when COVID came in, the government was not supplying food for those babies. Because of Joy FM funding and because the listeners raised extra, our organization and our relationship with the government were able to go into the prison during COVID and bring uh supplements and bring uh formula and bring food for those babies.

SPEAKER_03 12:59

He was the voice of the voiceless before we knew they had a a need. And then there was no gap of time. Like, do you know what I mean? Like he was the one who spoke on their behalf. The government did not have to speak on their behalf that there was a need. I mean they they did, but he had already provided, like, that messes with me in a really cool way. That like um the Lord sees those who cannot advocate for themselves, and he was meeting their need before anyone else advocated for them.

SPEAKER_04 13:34

Um, and so that was just I mean, God knew that those babies were gonna need food before, long before, because he's the one that that said the end from the beginning. He's the Alpha and the Omega, and just that we got to play a small part in that, Joy FM played a small part in that, it is humbling and honoring.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

I can't stop thinking about those babies because you know they're babies, they can't advocate for themselves. And I don't know, I just think about my life, and it it does like it messes with you because how many times am I at my lowest low and I can't advocate for myself, and I just feel like that's when God steps in and he does what only he can do.

SPEAKER_03 14:14

It messes with me because that's who he is, and I sometimes forget that. I sometimes um yeah, we think he's silent, we think he's distant, fill in the blank. Um, and when we when we really see the heart of God, um, we have no reason to question his kindness, his goodness toward all of us. Scripture reveals who he is, but when you see it in real time, that he moves in close um and and advocates for those who are unable, which is all of us at the end of the day. We're all spiritually orphaned, right? I mean, in need of a father. And he reveals, I think, I think this was just such a beautiful picture of his heart for all of us. He would do anything to bring us home and to remind us that we're his kids.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Some crazy things have happened over the last 25 years, and they're stories that haven't been told until now. So if you want to check out a playlist of stories only God could write, you can click here. And apparently, YouTube thinks that you're gonna love this video, so you can check that out right here.